Zero tolerance: from stage to reality

What does zero tolerance mean? From where does the concept derive? How did it develop? What policies does it comprise? And in particular: is it effective in reducing crime? Was it zero tolerance that reduced crime levels in America’s best-known city? This book tries to answer these and other questions by creating a narrative texture as coherent as possibile with recent debate in the USA. It recounts a story which began during the 1980s and was manifest with all its media exposure during the mid-1990s in New York. It is also a story of how local police departments in the USA have organized themselves to combat crime, disorder and insecurity.