Columnist: The chief of police has claimed in a recent press conference that the decline in the number of pickpockets caught on the street indicates that his department that has partly eliminated this petty crime. He might as well argue that because a politician claims to have eliminated bureaucratic waste, there is no need for audits of government agencies. The gentlemen of our police department, in all likelihood, have caught fewer acts of petty crime lately simply because of lax vigilance under pressure from the mayor to lower reported crime rates.
The columnist's statements, if true, best