Newark and the Future of Crime Fighting

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One of 109 newly installed surveillance cameras scan an intersection in the Ironbound section of Newark, N.J., and feeds images back to the Newark Police Dept.'s Surveillance Operations Center. Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images

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A Big Step Up

Booker is doing his best to shake up the city—and especially the police department. In 2006, when he took over from Sharpe James, a flamboyant and controversial figure who had won five straight elections, the police department had suffered from decades of underinvestment and corruption. Cops were writing on chalkboards and poking typewriter keys to file reports. There were nine cameras that no one was watching. "When I walked into our police precincts, I saw scenes that looked like Barney Miller," says Booker.

Soon after, he bucked the tradition of his predecessor by hiring an outsider to be his top cop: Garry McCarthy, a veteran of the New York Police Dept. McCarthy brought a higher level of professionalism to the force and rolled out Compstat, a data-centric system created by the NYPD that focuses on quality-of-life infractions and crime hot spots.

Crime began to drop. But in the summer of 2007 the city was convulsed by a triple homicide. Three kids, all of them either in college or on their way that fall, were gunned down in a city schoolyard. It was a turning point for the young administration. "This was just heartbreaking what happened to those children," says Newark Community Foundation board member and former New Jersey Bell CEO Alfred Koeppe. "There was a sense of: What can we do?"

The Mayor knew he had to respond forcefully. Days after the killings, Klapper, the young aide, set up a meeting at City Hall with police officials and local leaders to ask them to fund a pilot program for the camera surveillance technology. After hearing the pitch, Arthur Ryan, the former CEO of Prudential Financial (PRU), and private equity pioneer Ray Chambers decided to back not just a pilot but the whole program. They agreed to pony up $3.2 million so the city could roll out more than 100 cameras. "It is truly the grandest kind of social investment that I have seen in this city since the 1960s," says Koeppe, who helped broker the investment. Adds Klapper: "It was the best day in my life."

It's that kind of support that gives Don Katz even more comfort in his decision to make a bet on Newark. Now, Katz and other businessmen are hoping that the Newark revival will extend beyond downtown and into the city's more troubled areas. "You are aware that there is a disparity between your sense of safety downtown and some other neighborhoods," says Katz. "If Cory has his way, it won't end with downtown."

Ante is an associate editor for BusinessWeek.