Today, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the NYPD released a new report on the department’s use of so-called “quality-of-life” arrests and summons, also known as broken windows policing. You can read the whole thing here. The key sentence comes on page 3 of 85:

Ever since commissioner Bill Bratton took command of the NYPD in 2014, the department has placed special focus on arresting people who commit small crimes like public urination and panhandling. If a widely supported new legislation package in City Council is any indication, that may soon change. Get your pee on! Because this is excellent news.

“Although the events that unfolded at the Osborn Playground on Jan. 7 are still unclear, what seems obvious, as it did in the case of Akai Gurley, mistakenly shot to death in a dark stairway in the Louis Pink Houses...is the inconsistency with which ‘broken windows’ policing is practiced.”

A Bill Bratton profile in this week’s New Yorker reveals little that we didn’t already know about the NYPD commissioner. What we do hear about, over and over, is the ongoing commitment of Bratton and Mayor Bill de Blasio to “broken windows” policing—which Bratton pledges will be around for as long as he and de Blasio are in power.

Good writer and smart man Richard Cohen is taking Obama to task for forgetting one important lesson that smart people like Richard Cohen know: the United States of America must be at war with lots of countries at all times.

The primary function of the New York Post is to instill a vague fear into upstanding residents of Breezy Point, Bay Ridge, and the Upper East Side that New York City is constantly descending toward chaos, and today, its front cover accomplishes that with flying colors. The bad old days are back!

Here's the popular consensus: In the mid-nineties, New York City finally got tough on crime. By using the ground-breaking CompStat computer system, cracking down on misdemeanors and criminalizing social situations (like hanging out with other people in parks or hallways), as well as instituting its controversial "Stop and Frisk" strategy, crime fell. It went down a jaw-dropping 40% in three years. Bill Bratton (pictured above), its intrepid police commissioner, was hailed as an innovator and savior. The legacy of Mayor Rudolph Giulliani was forever intertwined with the "broken windows" policy, which then spread to cities worldwide. Being tough on crime meant arresting anyone (mostly poor people) for the slightest of infractions. And that's how New York City came back.