Rudy Guiliani

The Ace of Spades has a wonderful post on some drivel that Rudy Giuliani used coarse language at some point in his public life and that he attended a cop rally where racist placards were in public view.

Well, what if he did? Get over it. Let's examine the deeds, not the words, of his public life and how these deeds affected the very people that he is now accused of minimizing.

Washroom attendant is nothing compared to what other things NYPD cops had to say about Dinkins. I heard NYPD cops talk about him because they were trying to transfer to my department. Morale on the NYPD was not only low in the early nineties, it was non-existent. I had a number of conversations with a NYPD sergeant who was willing to take a $30,000 cut in pay to get out. Dinkins’ own moral values were called into question when it was discovered that he had failed to pay income taxes over a five year period. Dinkin’s response to this? “I haven’t committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law.”

NYPD cops told me that they had special training where they were instructed not to use gender specific references when writing a police report. Manhole covers were now “personnel access” lids or some nonsense like that. Cops were getting shot at, but their perception was that the administration was more interested in not offending women and minorities.

Criminals do not care about politically correct measures. They only are thwarted by one thing. Swift and sure justice. And a good ass kicking.

During Dinkins administration, NYC generated well over 2,000 homicides a year and about three-quarters of every violent felony in NYS occurred within NYC boundaries. Look at this chart that details the Uniform Crime Report For NYC between the years 1965 and 2005 and see for yourself. Dinkins was the Mayor 1989-1993. Guiliani was mayor 1994-2001. By 2001 NYC homicides were down to 960 from a high of 2,605 in 1990.

Total UCR Part I Crimes (murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, vehicle theft and arson) went from 1,010,176 at the end of Dinkins’ administration to 556,025 at the end of Giuliani’s administration. That is a decline of 45% in the most serious crime categories.

In this chart, The NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services compares the Index, Violent and Property crime rate per 100,000 population over a twenty-five year period. You may notice that these levels were very high during Dinkins' administration (near record levels) and show a pretty standard increase/decrease sine wave like pattern for nearly twenty years (1975-93). But something happened; index crime rates began a steadfast, decline when Giuliani took office in 1994. The following graph gives an indication of the statistical significance of Giuliani's contributions.

Look at the two straight lines, the blue one at the top is the upper normative range (mean/average plus standard deviation) and the yellow straight line near the bottom is the lower normative range (mean/average minus standard deviation). The purple line in between in the actual index crime rate per 100,000 population for NYC between 1975 and 2001. In 1980-82 the index crime rate went above the normative range and approached it again during Dinkins' administration. Again, note the precipitous decline in the crime rate once Guiliani took over as Mayor.

Now I don't want to denigrate the outstanding contributions and sacrifices of New York's Finest. They are a fine, professional organization and I admire their spirit and hard work. But politicians have much to do with personnel moral and the resources available for public safety employees.

I have seen departments with lavish budgets and lousy moral. In contrast, I have seen other departments that are struggling with severe fiscal limitations, but have excellent morale and esprit de corps. The latter departments are staffed by men and women who use everything within their means to accomplish the goals and objectives of their organization. They make it work because they are motivated to pursue excellence. You will see this in departments that have outstanding relationships with management and staff, including city government. It is amazing how fast the union grievances disappear when a new administration makes an honest effort to work with the cops.

I have seen how this works and remarked to other executives how time and again it is the proper use of modern, professional management techniques and good, old fashioned sweat that gets the job done.

I believe that Giuliani took a struggling department in a crime torn city and gave it the needed boost. This is a truer measure of a politician’s mettle rather than somebody's rantings about coarse language and rallies. There are nearly 10,000 people right now who did not end up as murder statistics because of Giuliani’s efforts to re-energize the NYPD and provide the leadership and accountability needed to reduce crime.

Despite my glowing words, I have problems with Rudy's stance on other issues. Just because he is a Republican law 'n order candidate does not mean I'll give a brass farthing to his campaign.