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Comment by eplanit | Hacker News Reader

It was called "stop and frisk" in the US. When Giuliani did it in NYC in the 1990s, crime was reduced _dramatically_. Entire neighborhoods were liberated. Washington Square Park went from a very dangerous "no go" zone to a lovely, family-friendly park. Giuliani was praised for the outcome, and other agencies started the practice.

But, unfortunately, political correctness won over, and the practice is mostly gone now -- and the crime rates have since soared. Giuliani was once called "America's Mayor" -- my how quickly times change.

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Crime rates have soared ? Pre-pandemic NYC had some of historically low crime rates. And it is one of the safest cities in the world

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/p0106a/overall-crime-new...

And all this without having to stop and search some rando black or brown dude walking down the road. This categorically proves that stop and frisk had no impact on crime rates at all. Los Angeles also experienced similarly historically low crime rates and had no stop and frisk. I can’t imagine how someone can live in a liberal democracy and be ok with authoritarian behavior like stop and search.

Yes, because authoritarian policing drives out anyone who can get out and career criminals tend to not have very long term living arrangements.

All Giulliani did was move the problems to New Jersey.

It was successful in reducing crime in his jurisdiction. It didn't really reduce crime in the NYC metro area relative to anywhere else. Crime dropped off a lot over the 90s and '00s everywhere.

There's a really wide gulf between police state tactics that ignore people's rights (90s stop and frisk) and the current situation in parts of the country where crimes with a victim that people are complaining about are ignored or given such a small slap on the risk they have a positive ROI.

So what would happen if New Jersey implemented the same policy as well?

Stop and frisk is unconstitutional and had nothing to do with political correctness. My understanding is, that while it may have been deterrent it didn't actually catch more criminals.

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