Newark's New Calm

Mayor Cory Booker, a young Democrat who overcame the entrenched and corrupt regime of Newark icon Sharpe James, came into office promising to do things differently. He promised that he would crack down on crime and help make the city safe. Last year, his first in office, saw 99 murders.

So far this year, Newark has gone 33 straight days without a single homicide. That's a pretty significant step. The New York Times can't help but be a little skeptical of the efforts. They found a few people who questioned whether the numbers were true based on anecdotal information, despite the fact that crime rates have indeed improved:

The police say the streets here are quieter, with less shooting, fewer assaults and no killings since Jan. 13. But J. D. Crowder, whose son was murdered by robbers two years ago, still has trouble believing that anything has changed.

Young men like the ones he suspects robbed and killed his son Aaron, who played football at Rutgers University, still need to make a living, he said. “They’re not going to starve. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

His assessment, colored by personal tragedy, was especially bleak, but he was hardly alone. In a dozen interviews, residents reacted with surprise, and in some cases disbelief, to the news that the murder rate had started to fall. People here, betrayed by the city’s past violence and taught to mind their own business, said they had simply not noticed that part of January and February had, in fact, been murder-free.

As the weekend approached, with its promise of gunplay, law enforcement officials said Friday that they had passed a new threshold: 33 days without a murder, the longest stretch since 1963, when there were no homicides for 40 days.

As of last night, there had been two homicides this year; by this time last year, there had been 12. The number of shootings has also decreased, the Police Department said. In 2007, there were 99 homicides in this city of 281,000.

In a speech earlier this month, the city’s mayor, Cory A. Booker, said the city would “set the national standard for urban violent crime reduction.”

Since homicide detectives have fewer new investigations to handle, the police said they were using the lull to try to resolve old cases. The Essex County prosecutor, Paula T. Dow, said her investigators were also looking at old cases, with the help of a new federal grant that would allow them to take a closer look at DNA evidence.

“When you keep adding on increased resources, manpower and strategizing, you’re going to reap results in the long run,” Ms. Dow said. By the end of June, law enforcement officials will know better whether a real change is under way, she said. “I’m hoping for the best.”

Because there are fewer new homicides, the police can start to play catch up with older crimes that are unresolved. That means that they can track down the perpetrators who are still on the streets and reduce criminality still further.

You've got to hand it to Booker, he made a promise and then got the resources to where they were needed in the police department to make good on them. He's gotten results. That's the kind of change I can back.