Crime numbers are dropping throughout New York City, with homicide in particular at 1963 levels, according to the NYPD in a front-page New York Times article today.
As of yesterday, there had been 537 killings in the city. (The record high was set in 1990, when 2,245 people were killed.) Not too bad for a city of eight million people.
The real story, of course, is why crime rates are dropping. Aside from a predictable quote from Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly about the improvements in the city and its quality of life, as well as his cops’ “great job,” the only analysis afforded to this point is saved for the article’s end. A criminologist, Andrew Karmen, points to an improved economy and job opportunities, smarter police work and tougher sentencing. This last point is backed up by a statistic that 97% of murderers this year had a prior arrest record—and more than half of the victims had been previously arrested, as well.
Analyzing the NYPD’s homicide stats further, the Times reveals the most common murder scenario in 2005: a black male, age 25 to 40, shoots a black male friend or acquaintance of the same age. The motive is drugs, and the murder goes down between 4 p.m. and midnight in Brooklyn.