The New York Police Department has arrested nearly 60,000 more people for minor crimes in 2012 than it did ten years ago when Mayor Michael Bloomberg was in his first year in office, local news source DNAinfo reports.
About 350,000 people were arrested in 2012 and put through the criminal justice system for up to 3 days in New York City for “quality of life” crimes like public urination, turnstile jumping, and drinking on the street.
The NYPD strategy of arresting people for low-level misconduct before they can commit more serious crimes dates to the 1990s, and serious crime rates over that time have dropped significantly.
The Bloomberg administration has come under fire for another crime-fighting tactic, stop-and-frisk, which the mayor has credited with helping to reduce overall crime 30 percent during his tenure.
[DNAinfo]