You often hear that New York is an unmitigated crime scape and crime is the “worst” it’s ever been. That’s simply not true.
While it is true that crimes have risen since 2021, the real “peak crime” was in the early 1990s. New York City now is a lot more like its 1970s self, where it was lauded for safety.
The first quarter of 2023 has already seen crimes recede.
It is true that felony assaults are up about 8% and auto thefts are up around 11% compared to the same period last year, but the other five so-called major crimes are all down. Murders have declined more than 6%, rapes nearly 8%, robberies nearly 3%, burglaries about 8% and grand larcenies nearly 2%. This is all from NYPD data.
Christopher Herrmann, professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former NYPD crime analyst, says major crimes in NYC are down a whopping 72% from 1993.
If you want a clear-cut example, the 438 murders recorded citywide last year, moreover, are vastly fewer than the 2,262 recorded in 1990, NYPD’s April 16 report shows.
Jaclyn Schildkraut, executive director of the Rockefeller Institute of Government’s Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium in Albany, New York, added that the citywide violent crime rate has remained stable since at least 2013.
As for the counter-claim that crime is being unreported or underreported, that’s always a possibility. We do not live in a pure surveillance state. But the declines in certain categories are so noticeable when compared to a generation-and-a-half ago that there is little reason to deny that crime has not fallen since the 1990s.
So, no, this is not the worst it’s ever been in New York City. If you think that it is, you’re believing right-wing misinformation.
