Serious, violent, and drug crimes had continued to rise following World War II in the United States, as in many nations, through the mid-1990s. Many large cities including New York City faced persistent increases in violence and criminality from the 1960s, when crime data was initially collected. From 1990 through 1993, New York City was considered the “murder capital” of America, averaging six murders each day and more that 2000 murders per year. In addition, robbery, with over 100,000 per year, was considered the “bellwether crime” to describe the lack of safety and security that citizens and visitors to New York had experienced for many years. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) had engaged in random patrol and respond to 911 calls for service as the primary organizational tactics with little effect on crime prevention and disorder control. In 1994, the NYPD hired William Bratton as the new Police Commissioner. Bratton immediately implemented a complete “re-engineering” of agency management practices and deployment strategies that included real-time data analysis and strategic, proactive, enforcement-oriented assignment of resources where and when crime trends, traffic fatalities and disorder were most frequently observed. These and other priorities led to two decades of consistent and dramatic crime declines and enhanced public safety. This chapter will examine the challenges and successes that the New York City Police Department had encountered on its path to effective crime control and will note what led to the reversal of those achievements.