No apologies Vic. The liberal mentality is responsible. - so because some of my thoughts are liberal, every though must be liberal. That's a bit like saying all conservatives are Nazis. I thought better of you than that. You are accusing me of something I have never said, ever believed in and can't even apologise for an unfounded allegation. Must say I am disappointed.
Speaking of America, have you been to New York since it took up zero tolerance?
"On the historical examples of the application of zero tolerance kind of policies, all the scientific studies conclude that it didn't play a leading role in the reduction of crimes, a role which is instead claimed by its advocates. In New York, the decline of crimes rate started well before Rudolf Giuliani came to power, in 1993, and none of the decreasing processes had particular inflection under him. In the same period of time, the decrease in crime was the same in the other major US cities, even those with an opposite security policy; finally, in the years 1984-7 New York already experienced a policy similar to Giuliani's one, but it faced a crime increase instead.
Two of the best American specialists, Edward Maguire, an Administration of Justice Professor at George Mason University, and John Eck from the University of Cincinnati, rigorously evaluated all the scientific work designed to test the efficiency of the police in the fight against crime. They concluded that "neither the number of policemen engaged in the battle, or internal changes and organizational culture of law enforcement agencies (such as the introduction of community policing) have by themselves impact on the evolution of offenses."
The crime decrease was due not the work of the police and judiciary, but to economic and demographic factors. The main ones were an unprecedented economic growth with jobs for millions of young people, and a shift from the use