A small but vocal contingent of the city’s political class characterizes those of us who are alarmed by increasing crime — and want more proactive policing, more effective prosecution and further refinement of state laws to ensure that lawbreakers face swift, sure consequences — as nothing but reactionaries. The city remains historically safe, they say, so the order of the day should be more criminal justice reform, not dialing back any recently notched progress.
While it’s true that every major category of crime was far higher back in 1993, the mantra that the city remains safe by almost any reasonable historical comparison is now tired and false.
See the latest weekly CompStat summary, which delivers the good news that murders are down 15% compared with 2021, while shootings have dropped by nearly 11%. It also shows large, sustained increases in 2022 compared with 2021 and 2020 in robbery, grand larceny, rape, felony assault, transit system offenses, misdemeanor assault and more.
