A sluggish recovery with three warning bells for the quality of city life
This report is one in an ongoing series of updates on public safety in New York City.
Since the high-water mark of crime in the 1990s, New York City has led the nation in crime reduction. While most big cities saw dramatic drops in crime in the 1990s, New York City’s declines have been steeper and more durable. Today New York City continues to have remarkably low crime rates compared to the other U.S. cities. But compared to the rest of the nation and to New York State, the city’s recovery from the historic crime increase of the early pandemic years has been sluggish. Instead of leading the pack in reductions, the city is riding a national wave of decreases, and crime has not yet returned to its 2019 lows.
This year’s mixed overall news may be contributing to New Yorkers growing feelings of insecurity in their neighborhoods: although murder and property crimes are down this year compared to last year, rape, robbery and assault are all up. Two largely unreported factors may contribute to this sentiment: a steady rise in felony assaults over the past two decades and the highest number in a decade of total offenses experienced by New Yorkers — felonies, misdemeanors and violations that affect the quality of life and overall sense of safety within the city.
New York City has much to be proud of, with a rate of major crime lower than almost every large city in the nation. But compared to its own past performance — the measure that is felt most by its residents — and compared to the pace of recovery in the rest of the nation, the city is not doing as well as its past shows it could. Current trends signal that New York City has some work to do to figure out how to address crime in a world reshaped by the pandemic, using every effective means — whether police or other civic services.
A. The big picture: New York City’s crime rates are low but the city is less safe than it was before the pandemic
When the pandemic hit New York City in 2020, New Yorkers experienced sharp spikes in violent crime, particularly jarring because these followed a period of historic crime lows in between 2017 and 2019. Despite some moderating trends in the years since, the city’s 2023 rates of violent crime (murders, rapes, felony assaults and robberies), shootings and property crime (burglary, grand larceny and grand larceny of a motor vehicle) were all more than 20% higher than in 2019. That stark difference between 2019 and 2023 is ameliorating very slowly: In 2024 so far (through August 4, 2024) major crime is down only 2.4%. This struggling crime record reflects the mixed results of this year compared to the same period last year: improvements in property crime (-6.4%), murder (-10.4%) and shootings (-8.9%), with violent crime overall up 4.5%, driven by felony assaults, robberies and rapes.
Still, compared to the rest of the country, New York City’s rates of crime are low. In 2022, the most recent year with data that are comparable across cities, New York City’s murder rate (5.3 per 100,000) is nearly half of the next lowest rate among the next five largest cities: Los Angeles at 10.1 per 100,000. New York City also has the lowest rate of index crime, or serious offenses reported to the FBI that allow comparisons between cities.
Another piece of context: New York City is much safer than it was 20 or 30 years ago, by almost every measure. (See Vital City’s trove of historical data on New York City crime complaints and arrests here.) The city has much lower rates of crime than it did in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Homicide rates are currently at less than one-sixth of their peak.
The other six major felony crimes — rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny and grand larceny of an automobile (car theft) — are also all at lower levels than they were in the 1990s, when crime here was at all-time highs.
B. Three worrisome trends: A lagging recovery, a spike in assaults and a rising volume of crimes
Even though New York City continues to be one of the safest cities in the nation, and is far safer than it was 30 years ago, these facts obscure three areas of concern:
1. Unlike in previous periods of crime decline, the city in the postpandemic period isn’t leading the nation — it’s riding the wave.
2. Some categories of violent crime, like assaults, are in the midst of a significant increase.
3. Overall offense counts, which include misdemeanors and violations, have been rising sharply over recent years, reaching levels not seen in a decade. This underreported fact may help explain why many New Yorkers think the city’s quality of life is deteriorating.
1. Compared to other cities in the United States and New York State, New York City’s post-COVID public safety recovery is middling.
Vital City projects that by the end of 2024, New York City will have 10% more murders than it did in 2019, trailing the trends in other major cities. If 2024 trends continue, five of the 10 largest cities in America will have experienced decreases in murder rates since 2019, with an average decrease of 5.8% across all 10.
At the same time, New York City, once the Empire State’s leader in crime reduction, lags behind the state. In 2023, the rest of New York State returned to the historically low pre-pandemic murder rate of 2.2 per 100,000 that marked 2019. In 2024, murders in the rest of the state are down another 10%. Meanwhile, New York City’s rate in 2023 remains 20.4% higher than in 2019. This marks a significant shift from the past few decades, when the city led both the state and the nation in reducing crime rates.
New York City also lags behind most other cities in the state with respect to index crimes (serious offenses reported to the FBI that allow comparisons between cities). In 2019, New York City had the second-lowest index crime rate in the state. In 2023, Gotham’s rate ranked second highest, surpassed only by Albany.
New York City has been on a crime rollercoaster since 2019. Early in the pandemic in 2020, shootings nearly doubled (+97.3%), accompanied with a comparably smaller but still significant spike (+46.7%) in murders. 2021 was less safe than 2020, as all categories of crime saw small increases. The combined effect of rising crime in 2020 (a lot) and in 2021 (a little) meant that 2022 was significantly less safe than 2019. In 2022, while murders finally started to decline, property crimes and violent crimes saw significant increases of 26.5% and 17.8%, respectively. In 2023, murders and shootings dropped by 10.7% and 24.7%, respectively, while property crimes remained nearly unchanged (-1.1%) and violent crimes overall saw a modest increase of 2.4%.
Even in 2024, while murders, shootings and major property crimes have decreased, major violent crimes overall have continued to rise for the fourth year in a row, and citywide major crime rates remain near their highest level since 2007, just 2.4% lower than in 2023.
All major crimes except rape were higher in 2023 than in 2019, ranging from a 18% increase in grand larcenies to a 194% increase in grand larcenies of automobiles (car theft).
Compared to 2023, the city has made some progress in 2024 (through August 4) in property crimes (burglary, grand larceny and car theft) and murder. However, three other violent crimes (rape, felony assault and robbery) have increased year over year. There have been over 800 more felony assaults, over 300 more robberies, and over 80 more rapes in this time period than there were in 2023.
2. Sharp and persistent increases in felony assaults are a problem for New York.
Felony assaults, which involve physical injuries severe enough to pose a significant risk of death or long-term disability, have been on the rise since before the pandemic began, with no signs of slowing down.
Given the decrease in shootings, the ongoing rise in felony assaults is a puzzle. Typically, violent crimes follow similar trends, but the reduction in shootings as felony assaults rise means policymakers must do more work to determine what forces are pushing the trends in divergent directions.
Felony assaults have increased even though clearance rates have improved to levels higher than before the pandemic. (Usually solving crimes has a deterrent effect.) This improvement in clearance rates may be attributed to the pandemic backlog of cases now being solved, as clearance is credited to the year of the solve rather than the year of the crime. During the pandemic, the principle of swift and certain justice diminished, and although the backlog is being addressed, the extended time taken to solve cases may have diluted the deterrent effect.
The persistent rise in felony assaults — from just over 20,000 in 2019 to nearly 28,000 in 2023 — is likely a factor contributing to the growing perception that New York City is growing less safe, despite recent decreases in murders and shootings.
3. Rising overall crime counts: a story often forgotten
Another likely contributor to New Yorkers’ unease about crime in their city is a sharp spike in the volume of offenses overall. Neither the decline in shootings and murders nor the increase in felony assaults tell the whole story. Zooming back to look at all offense categories, data show persistent increases across felonies, misdemeanors and violations to levels not seen since 2014.
Most reported offenses are not felonies (offenses punishable by more than a year in prison). When combined, misdemeanors (punishable by less than a year in jail) and violations (offenses that do not rise to the level of crimes) outnumber felonies two to one. And because there are so many total offenses (561,691) compared to total felonies (187,998), an increase in these sometimes petty offenses can contribute to a sense of instability on the streets.
Looking at all offenses — felonies, misdemeanors and violations — by volume reveals that 11 of the top 15 remain significantly higher than their prepandemic levels. For example, in 2023, there were 20,306 more cases of petit larceny — the theft of property valued at less than $1,000, (e.g. shoplifting) — compared to 2019. Second-degree harassment (which includes actions such as shoving, kicking or other unwanted physical contact, following someone, or engaging in behavior intended to alarm or annoy) saw an increase of 11,790 incidents. Meanwhile, misdemeanor assault, where an individual intentionally causes physical injury to another person, increased by 5,595 cases.
These high-volume offenses can shape New Yorkers’ perceptions of quality of life. They influence how safe people feel walking down their streets or riding the subway, how secure they consider their neighborhoods, and ultimately, how they perceive the city they call home. While significant focus understandably remains on the major crimes, it is these offenses that have a profound impact on the everyday experiences of residents.
C. Where does New York City go from here?
New York City has made significant strides over the past few decades, with crime rates drastically lower than the historical peaks in the 1990s. New York City’s crime rates also remain significantly lower than those of other major cities. But New York City has lagged other large American cities in the recovery from the pandemic, and even the city’s successes — reductions in murders — have mostly ridden, not driven, the wave of national crime trends. At a time when felony assaults and overall offense rates are higher than they have been in decades, the City has an opportunity again to think innovatively about the full array of strategies and ideas that can reduce crime. These include some of the effective strategies of precise police enforcement and the full panoply of other civic services demonstrated to reduce crime, including lighting and summer youth employment, among many others.