Is NYC one of the most dangerous cities in U.S.A.? Why or why not?

          New York City used to be known as the murder capital of the United States. In 1990 it reached its peak with a homicide rate of 2262, by far the highest in the country. Ever since then, our former mayor, Rudy Giuliani oversaw a large reduction in crime by working closely with the head officials of the New York Police Department. He increased the size of the NYPD considerably, and put to use military tactics to control crime trends, and announced a new 'Fixing Broken Windows" policy to deal with the crime in the city.
          In the years 1990 to 1993, NYC had homicide rates that averaged over 2000 murders each year, which greatly exceeded that of every other city in that nation. The next city was Los Angeles, which had over 1000 homicides. When Rudy Giuliani entered office in 1994, he saw the increase of police officers go up from 26,000 to about 38,000 by cutting their salary while he was in office until 2001. By increasing the size of the police force, more officers could be stationed to oversee the streets, making it much easier to prevent crime from happening.
          An effective method put forth by Giuliani was the use of military tactics in the NYPD. This involves the police precincts checking statistics on a regular basis to see if a crime trend would begin to rise in a particular area. If they did see it start to rise, they would deploy more police officers in that area to prevent the crime trend from becoming a crime wave. This strategy worked well in combination with the increase of police officers being hired at the same time under his administration.
          Rudy Giuliani introduced the “Fixing Broken Windows” policy to make NYC a safer place. The theory that comes with this involves fixing problems when they are small before it gets out of hand. There is a book called Broken Windows by James Q. Wilson and George J. Kelling that states, "Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it's unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside (Wales)." This policy brought forth the enforcement of minor laws such as preventing graffiti and J Walking, which is walking in the middle of the street. Another goal was to get rid of the homeless that slept in the trains, and removing "Squeegee Men" from the streets. Squeegee Men were people that would wait on the sidewalk for the cars to stop on the red light, then they would spray the windshields of several cars with water and wipe it down with a towel, and demand a payment afterwards. The mayor hoped that by enforcing these laws, that it would send a message that order will be maintained.
          Since Giuliani's two terms in office, NYC has seen many significant changes in crime and is definitely considered a much safer place than from what it was several years ago. From 1990 to 2001 homicides have dropped by over 70%. Other major crimes such as rape and larceny have also seen a significant drop under his leadership. Some could say New York City was "cleaned up" during this time period. I personally feel safe living here. I don’t live in the best of neighborhoods, but it is still relatively calm. And even though there are still many more areas that still need more improvement in this city, according to a report made by the FBI it is recognized as the "Safest Large City in America".

What do you think of Chinese students or American Chinese students studying in your college or in your class?

       I honestly don’t picture having Chinese students as anything out of the ordinary because of how diverse our nation is, especially in New York City where there are literally hundreds of different languages spoken all over the city by many different ethnic groups. Every neighborhood has people from a myriad of nationalities and no one finds it odd because that is how our society is. I don’t think about my classmates as being black, Hispanic, German, or Chinese; I view them all as my classmates. It doesn’t matter where you or your family comes from, you are judged on how you act. (To be continued)