off these small crimes was like choking off the criminal elements oxygen supply. Todays turnstile jumper might eas- ily be wanted for yesterdays murder. That junkie peeing in an alley might have been on his way to a robbery. As violent crime began to fall dramatically, New Yorkers were more than happy to heap laurels on their operatic, Brooklyn-bred mayor and his hatchet-faced police chief with the big Boston accent. But the two strong-willed men werent very good at sharing the glory. Soon after the citys crime turnaround landed Bratton-and not Giuliani-on the cover of Time, Bratton was pushed to resign. He had been police commissioner for just twenty-seven months. New York City was a clear innovator in police strategies during the 1990s crime drop, and it also enjoyed the greatest decline in crime of     any large American city. Homicide rates fell from 30.7 per 100,000 people in 1990 to 8.4 per 100,000 people in 2000, a change of 73.6 percent. But a careful analysis of the facts shows that the innovative policing strategies probably had little effect on this huge decline. First, the drop in crime in New York began in 1990. By the end of 1993, the rate of property crime and violent crime, including homi- cides, had already fallen nearly 20 percent. Rudolph Giuliani, how- ever, did not become mayor-and install Bratton-until early 1994. Crime was well on its way down before either man arrived. And it would continue to fall long after Bratton was bumped from office. Second, the new police strategies were accompanied by a much more significant change within the police force: a hiring binge. Be- tween 1991 and 2001, the NYPD grew by 45 percent, more than three times the national average. As argued above, an increase in the number of police, regardless of new strategies, has been proven to re- duce crime. By a conservative calculation, this huge expansion of New Yorks police force would be expected to reduce crime in New York by 18 percent relative to the national average. If you subtract