What’s causing the declines: weather, luck, good governance, strategy?
Something has been going on since mid-November that is pushing crime lower. It could just be the cold or a fluke. But it is worth keeping an eye on because figuring out what’s driving the reductions might increase the odds it’s sustained.
Of course, we note this in all humility: The greatest experts in the world still don’t know with certainty what really caused the great crime decline of the 1990s, and the stillness of a day, a week or even a month can be a misleading augur. While not leaning too hard on frail reeds, patterns big and small are worth noting.
New Yorkers aren’t wrong when they tell pollsters that something’s not right in the Big Apple. During the Adams administration, serious crime has remained well above 2019 levels.
Significantly.
Major crimes are 45% (or 30%) higher than they were in 2019, depending on whether you use the national standard the FBI employs to count index crimes (murder, robbery, rape, assault, burglary, grand larceny and grand larceny auto) or the slightly different accounting used by the police department.
The last time crime was at this level was during the Bloomberg administration: 2002 (FBI count) or 2006 (NYPD count).
So it’s welcome news that in the three weeks since Adams’ fourth NYPD commissioner, Jessica Tisch, took office, crime numbers, which started to decline in mid-November, are continuing to fall. The prior three commissioners were able to push down gun and lethal violence, even though those numbers too are well above 2019 levels. But other kinds of violence and other crimes, for example assaults and car thefts, continued to rise significantly.
So what is noteworthy about the past few weeks? For the first time in three years, the annualized crime trend is close to 105,000 crimes per year, as compared to the last three years, when it has averaged more than 125,000 per year. While still not at the 2017-2019 lows, when major crimes averaged at around 95,000 per year, it is some encouraging news that crime is abating.
Comparing the last six weeks to the same period of time last year, crime in three categories has plummeted.
- Grand larceny is down about 12% compared to 2023, and down 4.7% compared to 2019
- Car thefts are down about 16% compared to 2023, although still up 128% compared to 2019
- Robberies are down about 17% compared to 2023, although still up 0.05% compared to 2019
When put in absolute numbers, here’s what that adds up to. From 2017 to 2019, there were on average 1,850 seven major felony offenses per week. That number jumped to 2,400 to 2,450 offenses per week under the Adams administration. Now, for the first time in the last three years, crime is down to roughly 2,000 crimes per week for more than three sustained weeks.
- Grand larcenies, which were running at about 1,000 per week since 2022, have dropped to about 820 per week for the last three weeks.
- Car thefts, which ran at about 300 per week in 2023, are now at about 210 per week.
- Robberies, which were being committed at a clip of 330 per week since 2022, are now at about 260 per week for the last three weeks.
All of this is happening while shootings and murders are also down. It’s early yet, but the last six weeks are heartening evidence that the City of New York is returning to its previous abilities to bring down both violence and overall crime as in the past.
Sustaining the drop in crime that started before Tisch became commissioner might have something to do with Tisch’s immediate attention to how personnel are deployed and the changes in leadership that she is making. Or perhaps there is a different crime strategy afoot.
Or there could be explanations beyond the control of humans: for example, the weather. Research shows that as temperatures push people indoors, violent crime drops. And, for sure, this December has been colder this year than last, with the cold coming suddenly – an added factor in changing behavior. In 2023, the average high temperature was 44.2 degrees Fahrenheit compared to this year’s average high of 39.9 this year.
Or this could all just be a fluke given the short time period, and things could reverse in the coming weeks.
But whether it’s weather, luck, good governance, strategy or some combination of these, the trends are the trends — and they’re a good way to end 2024.