MINNEAPOLIS’S MURDER RATE peaked in 1995; that year the New York Times dubbed Minneapolis “Murderapolis.” Gangs had taken over the city’s poorest neighborhoods and gang crime had become highly visible. In 1996 three Minneapolis officers were dispatched to New York City to study the “broken windows” crime-prevention program which had been implemented by Rudy Giuliani and Police Chief William Bratton.

Upon their return to Minneapolis, the officers helped introduce a version of that program they named “CODEFOR.” Then-Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton and then-Minneapolis Police Chief Robert Olson supported the implementation of the program and were delighted to claim credit for its success, which was virtually immediate.