"How to Run a Police Department" by George L. Kelling, in City Journal (Autumn 1995), Manhattan Institute, 52 Vanderbilt Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017; "Giuliani: Start Spreading the News" by David Brooks, in The Weekly Standard (Nov. 13, 1995), 1150 17th St. N.W., Ste. 505, Washington, D.C. 20036-4617.

New York City's crime rate plummeted in 1994, with murder down an astonishing 32 percent and robbery down 22 percent. In the first nine months of 1995, the murder rate fell an additional 30 percent. "New York is now the safest city in America with a population over one million," declares Brooks, a senior editor at the Weekly Standard. The chief reason for this, he and Kelling, a criminologist at Northeastern University, contend, is the militant anti- crime strategy adopted by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Police Commissioner William Bratton since they took office in early 1994.

Their approach draws on the "Broken Windows" thesis that Kelling and political scientist James Q. Wilson advanced more than a decade ago: that disorder and petty crimes, if ignored, make decent citizens fearful and put a neighborhood on the skids, and eventually lead to an upsurge in serious crime. Hence, writes Kelling, "the best way to prevent major crimes and urban decay is to target minor crimes-panhandling, youths taking over parks, prostitution, public drinking, and public urination."

This runs counter to the traditional view that serious crime is the only proper business of the police. But the Giuliani-Bratton strategy seems to be working (even if the two men have feuded over who deserves the credit). "The streets and parks are cleaner," Brooks notes. "Aggressive panhandling has been curtailed. The homeless now tend to spend their days sitting on park benches, whereas before they were likely to be found sleeping on the sidewalk. . . . New York [is now] a more civil place."

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