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Originally Posted by Graham
Zero Tolerance? Doesn't work. It just results in harassment and moving the problem elsewhere instead of solving it.
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It appears to have worked in NY.
By targetting all crime, no matter how "small", this sent a signal that if you commit a crime, you will be caught.
Because of this, police started targeting turnstyle dodgers on the subway, which in turn cut the number of muggings/rapes/crimes on the subway, because most of the people comitting these crimes, jumped the turnstyles.
Quickly the criminals realised that the subway was a police patrolled area and no longer committed those crimes.
These petty criminals were feeding higher up criminals and this simple action by the police helped reduce crime elsewhere.
They didn't go elsewhere because they knew "elsewhere" was also patrolled. Basically the police gave the criminals' too much "bother" by actually bothering to catch them, and made them realise it was pointless to carry on.