UNTIL the early nineties, New York was the crime capital of the world. At dusk, many neighbourhoods would virtually come to a standstill, the citizens too frightened to go out into the streets. In 1992, there were 2,145 murders in the city, and 626,182 serious crimes.

People moved out of the city in droves, and fresh investments dried up. But then something mysterious began happening in the mid-nineties: against all projections, crime began to decline. By 1997, the number of murders had fallen to 770, and total crimes had halved. These figures have been cited by Malcolm Gladwell in his best-selling book “Tipping Point”. Although different reasons have been cited for the remarkable improvement in the law and order situation in New York and other major American cities, the fact is that unconnected factors converged to produce a significant reduction in crime rates.

According to Gladwell, there is a phenomenon he calls the ‘tipping point’ when, unexpectedly, the trend is reversed. In New York, this has often been ascribed to what criminologists call ‘broken windows’ policing. According to this approach, if the police crack down hard on minor infringements, they send out a signal to hardened criminals. Other experts also credit the easier availability of abortions and birth control pills that reduced the number of young people on the streets. Another factor was the economic improvement that took place in that period. Whatever the reason, crime in large American cities was dramatically reduced in the mid-nineties.

In Karachi, the tipping point came in the early eighties, but we tipped the other way. From a relatively law-abiding city, Karachi was transformed into an urban hellhole. My brother is currently on a visit to Pakistan, and recently e-mailed me to tell me of three of our close relatives in Karachi and Lahore who had been robbed at home or on the street. Threats of violence were the common feature, although, fortunately, none of them were injured. I know nobody who lives in Karachi whose immediate family has not experienced some form of violent crime. Over the last 20 years, Karachi has become one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

By way of contrast, during my last two weeks in County Kerry in Ireland, the only policeman I saw was mounted on a motorcycle, escorting a local bicycle race. This is not to say the West is uniformly safe: major cities in Europe now have higher crime rates than in the United States. In order to learn from the American experience, police chiefs from major cities were invited recently to London to talk to their British counterparts. Allister Heath, associate editor of the Spectator, met some of them and has reported on his experience in the June 24 edition of the magazine. He quotes Bill Bratton, head of the Los Angeles police department, as having said:

“You can do something about crime. You can control it. The American experience has clearly proven that. In the 1990s we finally got it right. It’s like a doctor dealing with a patient. If you find the right medicines, you can take even the most severely ill patients and make them well. And you are probably one of the most severely ill patients of the western world. You need political will. You need smart policing, intelligence-led policing, you need resources. This is not rocket science. Fighting crime is not the most difficult thing in the world.”

At the heart of this formula is ‘political will’. In a country where successive governments have not even been able to persuade taxi drivers to use their meters, and police departments still have not begun using the 150-year old technology of finger-printing, it is unlikely that there will be an improvement for a long time. When our rulers, whether civilian or military, only see the police as an instrument of perpetuating their rule, we will obviously get the third-rate police force we now have.

But what changed in the eighties when we began our descent into anarchy? Clearly, the Afghan war, with its enormous influx of weapons and drugs, played a significant part in creating the kind of crime culture that has taken root in Pakistan. The explosive rise of ethnic parties under Zia’s rule was another major factor. As ethnic violence raged unchecked, many large domestic and multinational companies moved their operations to Punjab, and urban unemployment produced many recruits for the gangs that operated virtually unchecked. Soon, sectarian violence added to the mayhem.

And our judiciary has hardly helped. By allowing tens of thousands of cases to accumulate, judges take years to pass judgment. Then the interminable process of appeals begins. People languish for years, waiting for justice. Since virtually every hearing gets endlessly postponed, people are reluctant to come forward as witnesses, knowing that the system will ensure that years will pass before their ordeal of court appearances is over. Many criminals are routinely released on bail, free to commit more crimes. This inefficiency, combined with chronic corruption, encourages criminals who are emboldened in the knowledge that even if they are arrested, they will soon be released.

These elements may explain the causes underlying the skyrocketing crime rate, but do not help us identify when the ‘tipping point’ occurs. I suspect this has to do with the lack of accountability that took root under Ayub Khan. When the elite pronounced themselves above the law, others began emulating them, and the police are disheartened by the lack of political support. When an army major can slap a cop who dared stop him for a traffic violation and walk away, what signal does this send to the rest of the police department? Thus we return to the larger issue of political will: unless the police department is given the resources and the support it needs, to expect it to deliver is asking for the moon.

While President Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and their cohorts are amply protected, they must realise that the need for better policing is not just an abstract concept. Without law and order, it is difficult to persuade people to invest in Pakistan. Would Shaukat Aziz, when he was a banker, have approved a large Citibank loan for a project in Karachi? He may not be much of a politician, but he has enough banking experience to realise that unless we can reverse the trend and engineer a tipping point in the opposite direction, the economic improvements he likes to boast of will remain restricted to his files and reports.