After a year filled with people saying the city was going to hell in an artisanal handbasket due to Mayor de Blasio dithering instead of leading, end-of-the-year crime statistics reveal that NYC was safer in 2015 than 2014.
Overall crime dropped by two percent from last year. The Times reports on the stats:
The Police Department is reporting a 2 percent decline, as measured by seven major felonies that are tracked by the Federal Bureau of Investigation: murder, rape, robbery, serious assault, burglary, grand larceny and car theft. At the same time, arrests recorded by officers fell steeply, to 333,115 through Dec. 20, down 13 percent from 384,770 over the same period the year before. The number of criminal summonses dropped to 292,372 from 358,948.
There was a slight uptick in murders, with 339 as of Dec. 25th compared to the historic low of 333 in 2014, but a lot of cynical prognosticators have been proven very wrong about the return of the Bad Old Days. This of course doesn't mean things are perfect—the homelessness and affordable housing crises are still major issues—but it also means the city isn't one step away from total chaos.
"As we end this year, the City of New York will record the safest year in its history, its modern history, as it relates to crime," said Commissioner Bratton said last week during an NYPD promotion ceremony.
Of course, the writing was on the wall for those who were paying attention, and not just creating psychosexual countdown clocks because "crime is spiking," which, if you read the above report, is not true.
But of course, you can't reason with some people using facts: the Post reported just last month that "the number of killings [is] skyrocketing more than three times over last year." Just a few days ago, they let Ray Kelly act as their spokesperson, claiming that the NYPD "is manipulating crime statistics," which is certainly something Kelly was never accused of when he was police commissioner.
