The latest NYPD crime stats are in...and they're kind of depressing! In the 12-month period ending June 30, violent crimes, including forcible rape, murder, robbery and felony assault, all rose. During the same period, police response time also climbed nearly a minute. But on the plus side, a record number of potholes were fixed!
Overall, there was a 32 percent spike in forcible rapes, a 6.5 percent spike in murder a nearly 4 percent spike in robberies, and 5 percent spike in felony assault over the same period last year. Police response times rose from an average 7.5 to 8.4 minutes, which is nearly a minute and a half up from the low of 6.9 minutes in 2007. NYPD spokesman Paul Browne points out that the response time is still much better than 2000, when it took police 10.7 minutes to respond on average.
Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. blamed the spikes on the lack of police officers, and urged an increase in public safety funding for more cadets to move to the NYPD: "This is the inevitable result of having almost 7,000 fewer police officers...It is only the hard work of Commissioner [Raymond] Kelly and our existing police officers that have held off this increase for so long."
Other interesting statistics from the report: AIDS cases diagnosed in the last two fiscal years dropped 25 percent; the number of people receiving food stamps rose by 67 percent over the past four years; and the number of teens who had summer jobs plummeted by 31 percent.
