The Gist Peter Moskos on NYC's Historic Crime Drop and the Lessons for Today
12 snips
Aug 8, 2025 
Peter Moskos, a former Baltimore cop and professor at John Jay College, delves into the fascinating crime reduction in NYC, linking it to trends from the 1990s. He discusses the impact of data-driven policing like CompStat, and the necessity of balancing aggressive methods with community trust. Moskos shares insights from his book 'Back from the Brink' about how policing evolved, emphasizing the lessons learned from past successes and failures. The conversation highlights the delicate relationship between enforcement strategies and community safety.
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Police Shot Hundreds In The Early 1970s
- Peter Moskos and Mike Pesca recount that in the early 1970s police shot hundreds of people, with one year recording at least 314 shot and 93 killed.
- They contrast that era with modern tracking and policies that sharply reduced police shootings.
Counting Crime Changed Policing
- Peter Moskos describes Jack Maple's push to count shootings and build timely crime data as the start of modern CompStat.
- That counting let leaders redeploy officers and target when and where violent crime actually occurred.
Let Cops Tell The Story
- Peter Moskos used oral histories and let NYPD officers speak in first person for Back From The Brink.
- He explains he avoided paraphrasing articulate officers and instead wove their voices into the narrative.
