On back-to-back nights last week I met two New Yorkers who were famous by the Metro: Lenore Skenazy and Daniel Penny.
Skenazy became known in 2008 as “America’s worst mother” for Her 9-year-old son only let the 6 train ride; Penny in 2023 for limiting Jordan Neely, a repeated perpetrator who threatens other passengers, in a headlock that would lead to the death of Neely.
The incidents of Skenazy and Penny took place for 15 years, but are united by an eternal question: is the metro safe enough for the most vulnerable in New York?
Back in the Oughts, Skenazy argued that the real threat to children was not dangerous drivers, but over -concerned parents who never let them develop the skill of independence.
The metro, in theory, is the ultimate liberator for both children and parents. I raised my children in the suburbs, and the biggest withdrawal to city life is not the art or the restaurants it is the chance for my children to grow in confidence and to be exposed to the world without my handy.
However, city life for children requires trust in public order. When Skenazy made a name for himself by only sending little Izzy in the metro, the trust of the city peaked.
Only a few months earlier, MTA had announced that the rider was at a peak of 50 years and that the metrocrime was low at a record.
Thanks to the leadership of mayor Rudy Giuliani and his successor, Michael Bloomberg, New Yorkers were safer than in generations. The secret sauce that mayors used was “broken windows” control, targeting disorder and low crime to maintain public peace and trust in public areas.
The way scientists George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson If you tolerate broken windows, graffiti, rate discharge and lawlessness at a low level, it saw you indicate that nobody is in charge and you invite greater crimes to follow. But when you enforce the base, stop that spiral before leaving out.
With a focus on the small stuff, NYPD was able to keep a lid on the big stuff, to build trust in the system and to prevent recurrences of the chaos of the seventies and eighties that the “Death Wish” of Charles Bronson on the silver screen, Bernie Goetz, the so -called Subway Vigilante.
Rampigig, however, the voters of the city turned away from that consensus in the center about crime and handed the keys to Gracie Mansion to Bill de Blasio.
After the elections of the Blasio in 2014, the city decided proactively police work, ended the stop-question and Frisse and sent the clear message that a low level crimes would not be immersed. The result: more rate discharge, more disorder and more violence.
According to research by Aaron Chalfin, university teacher Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania, crime attacks in the metro system from 2009 to 2023 tripled, even while the rider fell by 20%.
Stephen Yang
With the “compassionate” police approach to Big Bill in practice, it was only a matter of time before the crime increased and a modern metro defender was forced to enter into the opportunity. That man was Daniel Penny.
On May 1, 2023, Jordan Neely-Al arrested more than 40 times, including to hit a 67-year-old woman in the face and breaking her nose in an F-train in Manhattan. According to witnesses, Neely raged against passengers and shouted that someone would die and that he was not afraid of the prison. Penny stepped in and ended the threat.
Daniel Penny’s act is one that no New Yorker should ever take. But nowadays we need brave men like Daniel Penny on board, because city leadership has not succeeded in creating the conditions that parents feel as confidently as SKENZASY in the Bloomberg era.
Fortunately, however, the tide turns for the order. After the horrific combustion of a woman on the F-train in December, the NYPD launched a new division of life last month to combat low offenses, just as the broken Windows Playbook asks. Sallonses and arrests are up and the crime numbers look better.
As Rafael Mangual of the Manhattan Institute told me: “Progress is being made – partly because more means are dedicated to the subways.”
Mangual, however, added: “Disorder who does not come into official statistics is still some riders experienced every day.” And parents like me can still feel that. If New York becomes a place for children to reach for free again, as Lenore Skenazy did 17 years ago, we need a complete return to the public safety principles that made it possible.
Jordan McGillis (@jordanmcgillis) is the economic editor City Journal.
