Michael Tomasky Responds

Elliott Currie is a criminologist, and I’m a journalist, so I feel no shame in confessing that he knows more about criminology than I do. I’m happy to hear of my “straw men” that there are “fewer of them all the time.” That said, I wonder about his assertion that the Bratton crime-fighting model is more accurately described by what he calls “problem-oriented policing” than by application of the broken windows theory. I saw George Kelling give a talk in New York City earlier th...