With crime of heightened concern in the country''s largest cities, Peter Moskos brings readers behind the Blue Wall of the NYPD, offering insight into policing solutions directly from the law enforcement officers who went to war against crime in New York in the 1990s, and won.From the 1970s to the early 1990s, New York City was seen, justifiably, as out of control. The city approached bankruptcy, the subways were covered with graffiti, and murders were at a record high. Right-wing fearmongering and vigilante justice were countered by liberal pleas to end poverty and provide drug treatment--none of which happened. Then, in a surprising break from the past, new NYPD leadership decided to focus on crime. Between 1993 and 1996, New York City''s murder numbers were cut in half, dropping to under 1,000 for the first time in decades. Eventually New York City would have fewer than 300 murders, fewer than Chicago, with one-third the population. Fewer than Baltimore, even, with one-fifteenth the population. In Back from the Brink, Peter Moskos takes readers behind the Blue Wall, telling the story of "The New York City Miracle" from the men and women who were on the job. Moskos, a sociologist and former police officer, weaves together this rich narrative with extensive research and conversations with police officers, civic leaders, academics, and reporters. Delving deep into the behind-the-scenes workings of the NYPD, Moskos shows how leadership changed the rank-and-file''s dealings with crime, quality-of-life issues, criminals, and the public. The city''s police, political, and civic leaders provided a unified front that allowed cops to "do their job," and, in doing so, New York became the safest big city in America.Back from the Brink is an unofficial NYPD history that spans three decades of crime and crime fighting in the Big Apple. With crime, especially gun violence, a perennial problem in America, Moskos offers insight into effective law enforcement directly from the police officers who went to war against crime in New York in the 1990s, and won.
Industry Reviews
"Back from the Brink shows how police work in New York made an extraordinary difference: not by mass arrest or the so-called zero-tolerance policies that fill holding cells, but by deploying police to the right places, arresting the right offenders, and then debriefing every witness, informant, and accomplice to learn and act on all that can be known. This is not to say that the economic transformation of a city doesn't matter or that police can't be
sullied by 'stop-and-frisk' lock-them-all-up excess, but Moskos, in a careful oral history of an extraordinary crime drop, makes clear how policing, when used to actually address and solve crimes, can be
transformational. A worthy read." -- David Simon, writer and producer of The Wire and We Own This City, and author of Homicide and The Corner
"If there is any good news on crime, we are taught that the last people who had anything to do with it were the cops. In Back from the Brink, cops talk at length about the work they've done and the challenges they have faced. Peter Moskos has created a keystone work that gives us a window on reality." -- John McWhorter, Professor of Linguistics at Columbia University, host of the podcast Lexicon Valley, and weekly writer for The New York Times
"Peter Moskos does it again! This time telling the multi-decade drama of the Big Apple's crime nosedive in the 1990s. The question of why crime went down has vexed me for much of my working life, and Peter Moskos helps answer the question. I am pleased and relieved Back from the Brink breaks away from a conventional textbook approach and borrows from the style of Pulitzer Prize winning oral historian Studs Terkel. Moskos lets the major players in the
NYPD speak for themselves with voices that are distinctive, gritty, sometimes confessional, and ultimately persuasive." -- Clarence Page, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and member of the Chicago Tribune
editorial board
"Back from the Brink is a unique and compelling history of New York City, told by people whose individual voices and experiences are frequently flattened and marginalized in service of grand theories of the criminal justice system. Written by Peter Moskos, a brilliantly trained sociologist and a former cop who has a profound grasp of debates over policing and its consequences, the book gives voice and agency to the individuals that actually tackled
crime and gives their strategies an honest depiction and a fair hearing. With a clear-eyed understanding about corruption and racism in policing, Back from the Brink provides a better sense of the people-their
background and motivations-attempting to make New York City a safer place." -- Michael Fortner, Professor of Government, Claremont McKenna College
"If you want to understand the historic crime drops and transformative evolution of New York City that began in the 1990s, a great place to start and end would be Back from the Brink. An informative and entertaining narrative that keeps you absorbed with personal stories of many of the men and women of the iconic and fabled NYPD. There has been no shortage of books that have attempted to tell this story, including three of my own, but from my perspective this
is one of the best. I learned so much about the department and people I've known for years. Read it and you will be very glad you did."-- Bill Bratton, Retired New York City Police Department
Commissioner and Los Angeles Police Department Chief
"A delightful read...Back From the Brink demolishes the assumption that cops can't play a role in reducing crime. Judging by the state of America's big cities in the 2020s, the book's lessons might be usefully relearned." -- The Wall Street Journal
