News and Developments 2007: Deterrence

If current trends continue, New York City will likely have fewer than 500 homicides this year, the lowest number in a 12-month period since reliable NYC Police Department statistics became available in 1963. As of November 18, 2007, the police department logged 428 killings, the majority of which were committed by friends or acquaintances or were drug or gang-related. In fact, only 35 homicides this year were committed by strangers to the victims, a number described as "microscopic" in a city of 8.2 million.

Thomas Reppetto, a police historian, noted: "Not only has the N.Y.P.D. reduced murder, by nearly 80%, but it has changed the pattern of homicides." In 1990, New York recorded its highest number of murders at 2,245, with many of the victims being killed by strangers. Of the 412 murders this year, many assailants and victims had previous arrests for narcotics. Overall, crime rates in New York City are down 6.47%.

Funds for community policing programs have been significantly slashed in recent years, a development that experts link to the government's new focus on fighting terrorism. The U.S. Department of Justice provided $7 billion in federal funds for community policing programs between 1994 and 2001, but it has awarded only $208 million for local departments this year. "Many of those funds have been shifted to homeland security, which also is very important in this day and age," said University of Nevada criminologist William Sousa. "I think, though, in shifting those funds, people fail to realize that . . . [a] lot of terrorism goes on that's homegrown," he said, pointing to drug crime.

Many cities have had significant drops in the amount of federal funds they receive for programs such as putting more police officers on the streets and purchasing equipment designed to improve law enforcement's efficiency, and have had rises in crime. In Philadelphia, funding cuts have reduced the city's police force from 7,000 in the 1990s to 6,500 today. That city had 406 homicides in 2006, a 10-year high, and could exceed that number in 2007. In Camden, New Jersey, the number of uniformed officers has also dropped and only 20 of the department's 170 police cruisers are equipped with computers. Camden has had 31 homicides this year and is likely to surpass the 33 murders recorded in 2006. Camden's police executive, Arturo Venegas, observed, "Our capacity for responding and deploying intelligently as to what's occurring in the community -- that is diminished. It's easier to finance infrastructure in Baghdad than it is to finance infrastructure in Philadelphia or Camden, New Jersey." Venegas added that federal funds once allocated to train community leaders how to collaborate with local police were "the best tool for ensuring homeland security."

Though violent crime in most cities is yet to reach the levels of the early 1990s and continues to fall in some places, law enforcement officials warn that rising crime rates in some cities are a growing threat that must be addressed.

The FBI’s recently released Uniform Crime Reports: Crime in the United States, 2006, revealed that the murder rate in 2006 rose slightly from 5.6 murders per 100,000 people in 2005 to 5.7 in 2006, but was at the same rate as in 1999 when use of the death penalty started to show marked declines. There has been little change in the murder rate in the intervening years when death sentences, executions, and the size of death row all declined.

As in previous years, the South had the highest murder rate in 2006 (6.8 per 100,000 people) among the four geographical regions. This represents a 3% increase from 2005 and was the largest increase among the four regions. Over 80% of the executions in the country have occurred in the South since the death penalty was reinstated. The Northeast had the lowest murder rate, 4.5 per 100,000 people. Less than 1% of the executions in the country have occurred in the Northeast.  Louisiana had the highest murder rate (12.4) and New Hampshire had the lowest (1.0).

Jim Davidsaver, a 20-year veteran with the Lincoln Police Department in Nebraska, recently wrote a column outlining his support for legislation that would have repealed the state's death penalty. Davidsaver said he supported the measure, which failed to pass into law, because the death penalty does not deter crime and is too expensive. He noted that in his years of service with the police force he witnessed many horrific crime scenes, but none of the accused murderers was ever deterred by the death penalty. He wrote:

As a career law enforcement officer, I considered myself an interested spectator as the Legislature debated the bill, LB476, sponsored by Sen. Ernie Chambers, that would have replaced the state's death penalty with mandatory life imprisonment without parole and allowed the victim’s family to seek restitution.