ABSTRACT
The best research, it has been said, seeks to solve puzzles. New York City’s dramatic crime decline over the last two decades is a real brainteaser. No one predicted it and, as yet, no one has explained it, at least to the satisfaction of most social scientists who study crime trends. The article by Eric Baumer and Kevin Wolff puts the New York crime trends in comparative perspective. New York’s crime drop, they argue, must be placed in the context of comparable declines in other U. S. cities and cross-national crime trends. The article by Richard Rosenfeld and Robert Fornango reports that increases in police stops have not reduced robbery and burglary rates in New York police precincts. They point to several limitations of their study and Baumer raises additional concerns in his comment.
