Politics of Crime in the 1970'S: a Two City Comparison
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Document Title: Politics of Crime in the 1970’s: A Two City Comparison Author(s): Stephen C. Brooks Northwestern University Center for Urban Affairs Document No.: 82420 Date Published: 1980 Award Title: Reactions to Crime Project Award Number: 78-NI-AX-0057 This report has not been published by the U.S. Department of Justice. To provide better customer service, NCJRS has made this Federally- funded report available electronically in addition to traditional paper copies. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. POLITICS OF CREE IN THE 1;920s: A TWO CI!R COMPARISON Stephen C. Brooks Center for Urban Affairs Northwestern University Evanston, IL 60201 June 1980 Prepared under Grant Number 78-NI-AX-0057 from the National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, U.S. Department of Justice. Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position of policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. PREFACE The research described here was conducted while I was a Research Fellow at the Center for Urban Affairs, Northwestern University. I am grateful to all those at the Center for making such research opportunities available and am especially grateful to the staff of the Reactions to Crime Project who assisted me. I received very helpful comments from those who read all or parts of this manuscript; Ted Robert Gurr, Herbert Jacob, Dan Lewis, Michael Maxfield and Armin Rosencranz. A special thanks to Marlene Simon for editing supervision, Wesley G. Skogan whose pushing and pulling got me to I produce a final copy and to my wife, ' Mary Brooks, who , .. served as my best critic and motivating force. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Preface . i Chapter One: Introduction . 1 PART I - San Francisco Chapter Two: San Francisco--A General Description . 9 Chapter Three: The Zebra Killings and Other Craziness-- Chapter Four: The Police Strike of 1975 . 36 1 Chapter Five: Political Elections--1974-77 . 52 Chapter Six: The Political Actors . 80 Chapter Seven: San Francisco--Some Conclusions . 129 PART I1 - Philadelphia Chapter Eight :: Philadelphia--A General Description . .' . 141 Chapter vine: Pre-Rizzo Philadelphia . 152 Chapter Ten: Frank Rizzo: Who is This Mayor and How Did He Get Here? . 163 Chapter Eleven: The Cop As Mayor . 187 Chapter Twelve: The Political Actors . 218 Chapter Thirteen: Philadelphia--Some Conclusions . 235 iii Page - PART 111 - politics-of-crime Chapter Fourteen: Crime and the Issue Agenda . 247 Chapter Fifteen: Politics of Crime in San Francisco and Philadelphia--Some ConclusLons . 264 APPENDICES ~ppendixA: ~esearchMethods and Bibliographies . 282 ~~pendixB: Chronologies . .. 298 LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1: Reported Crime Rates for San Francisco 1974-1977 . 14 Figure 2: -.San Francisco Chronicle Political Cartoon on Policestrike..................... 48 Figure 3: Portion of Full Page Political Advertisement for John Barbagelata in 1975 San Francisco Mayoral Campaign. 58 Figure 4: Sari Francisco Chronicle Political Cartoon on Chief Gain . 101 Figure 5: -San Francisco Chronicle Political Cartoon Concerning Jerry Crowley . Figure 6: philadelphials Neighborhoods . Figure 7: The Four Major Black Ghetto Clusters in the City of Philadelphia . Figure 8: 1971 Mayoral ~lectionReturns in Philadelphia . .. Figure 9: Political Cartoon from Philadelphia Tribune . Figure 10: Frank Rizzo Campaign Advertisement for 1975 Re-election Figure 11: The Relationship of Issue Type, Consideration Mode and Policy Type in Agenda Building -.. Figure 12: Burglary'Rate Comparisons . Figure 13: Robbery Rate Comparisons . 3- Figure 14: Assault Rate Comparisons . , . Figure 15: ~obbery/PurseSnatching Victimization Rate Comparisons Figure 16: Assault Rate Comparisons . Chapter 1. Introduction Crime and politics cross paths often on the American scene. In fact, the issue of crime has been on politLcianV-slips for most of Americals.history. Because police are given the task of controlling crime, their involvement in politics parallels the-story ; of crime and politics. With the increase in awareness of crime in the 1960s and 1970s (and most likely an Ancrease in the actual amount of crime), crime became a leading political issue. At the national leve1,'Barry Goldwater introduced the problem of "crime in the cities" as a campaign issue in the 1964 Presidential campaign. After that campaign the nation began to see dn increase in "law-and-order" candidates running for offices at all levels of government. Richard Nixon used a law-and-order.." platform in both his successful 1968 and 1972 Presidential campaigns. Crime is a natural political issue. It is a subject that is of interest to a broad group of people, as is evidenced by the extensive coveragecrime is given by news and entertainment media. It is never publicly' praised; therefore politicans are secure in taking stands against crime. A concern - .. \ about crime is always timely. Finally,' it is an enduring issue. The world has no record of a society without crime. As with most enduring issues, however, public interest is not constantly focused on it. The following pages trace politics-of-crime . during the mid- 1970s in two cities: San Francisco and Philadelphia. The cities are very different, t yet both share a conceni oyer the issue of crime as exhibited 2n political activfties. San Francisco is a unique city. Because it is one of the smallest "big cities" in the U. S. (with a 1975 population estimated at 664,520), researchers often have difficulty classlfytng it, During the mid- 1970s San Francisco had a crime problem and the issue w of crime was constantly on the political agenda of the city, although it appeared in many different forms, Three events were the focus. of the politics-of-crime in San Francisco and are central to this study: the Zebra killings, the police strike, and tlie election and attempted recall of Mayor Moscone, Sheriff Hongisto, and District Attorney Preitas. Philadelphia is classified b.y researchers as a northeastern industrial city. To most persons it is lcnown by its tourist ,labels like "Biutliplace of the -. Nation" and "City of .Brotherly ~ove" ' Systematic - > . studies of the contemporary social and political interaction withln the city are rare.. Before 1950 Philadelphia was among the 'hachine cities" of America. Then, in the 1950s and early , 1960s, Philadelphia began to lose this image and became a model for reform advocates.. That model disappeared with the election of 'E'rank Rizzo as mayor in 1971, The retreat from reform that started with Mayor James. Tate was intenstf ted 6.y Rlzzo. Rizzots policies were not considered unreasonable by many residents, however, as was demonstrated by his 2- re-election victory in 1975. But under Rizzo the city became divided over the fssue of race. One of the major reasons for Rizzors popularity was his law-and-order approach, Having developed the reputation as a "tough cop" before becoming mayor, he perpetuated his image as the leader who could do something about citizens' fear of crime. It is therefore necessary for any study of politics-of-crime in Philadelphia in the 1970s to center on Frank Rizzo. ,The presentation here will trace the change of the city from a liberally oriented, reform-minded city to one with a leader who centered h politics on fear and force. The descriptions of the two cities are separate. Each is presented chronologically and most cornparisions 1 between the two cities,,are reserved for the last two chapters. Since the method of research used for both cities was similar, a comparative analysis of the conclusions was possible, Each city was examined in three stages. First, general works about the city being studied were examined. These included political and historical >-' narratives of activities in the city during the 1970s as well as more empirical studies of politics, crime, and/or police during this time. The second step was designed to highlight politics-of-crtme events of the 1970s for the cities. Using various indices of national publications, a chronology.of major events was developed to guide later research, Using national indices served two major purposes. First, it confirmed and sharpened focus on important politics-ofkrime events of the period. Local events which appear on the national media agenda are "super big" events in the local area and are therefore, important events on which to focus research. The second purpose of this stage was to discover "in-depth" research pieces on the events studied. These pieces provided extensive background for the final stage of the research. The third stage involved the most specific research, First, in-depth articles were read. Second, area newspapers were read for each day during the time period studied, providing the quotes and a- descriptions used in the following pages. By reading the papers in chronological order, the researcher was able to develop an impression of the flow of events and attitudes projected by the media. Had 'Ispot checks" been made of newspapers articles conclusions made here about politics-of-crime in these two cities could have been quite different. A . detailed description of methodology used for this study and the sources used is provided in Appendix A. The following abbreviations are used for the newspaper sources quoted in the report: NYT - New York Times PT - Philadelphia Tribune . ... SBG - San Francisco Bay Guardian. SFC - San Francisco Chronicle SFE - San Francisco' Examiner Part I contains chapters covering politics-of-crime in San Francisco, Part IT chapters consider politics-of-crime in Philadelphia and Part 111, the final two chapters, uses the two case studies to reach some general conclusions about politics-of-crime in American cities. s- Chapters Two and Eight are general descriptions of the two cities, providing background information for the description of events provided in Chapters Three through Five and Nine through Eleven.