Crime in city dropped during first quarter of 2024

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Wednesday that crime both above and below ground in the five boroughs fell during the first quarter of the year. Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office

By Jacob Kaye

Five of the city's seven major crime categories dropped during the first quarter of this year, the mayor and top police officials announced from the NYPD’s Manhattan headquarters on Wednesday.

Mayor Eric Adams, NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban and other NYPD higher ups celebrated the drops in crime both above ground and in the city’s subways system, which also saw an overall reduction in crime during the first quarter of the year.

The number of murders, rapes, burglaries, grand larcenies and grand larceny autos all dropped during the first three months of the year when compared to the same time period last year, according to the NYPD. And overall transit crime fell by 1.1 percent.

However, robberies and felony assaults both saw an uptick.

There were nearly 4,000 robberies committed throughout the city in January, February and March of this year, according to NYPD data. That amounts to a 4.3 percent increase when compared to the year prior.

And felony assaults jumped by around 3.8 percent, data shows. There were 6,159 felony assaults committed during the first quarter of 2023 and 6,390 committed this year, or about 70 felony assaults committed per day in the five boroughs.

Also, across the board, crime largely remains higher than it was pre-pandemic, not yet fully coming down from its COVID spike.

The mayor and other NYPD officials repeated several now-common refrains from NYPD headquarters on Wednesday, blaming the upticks in crime on repeat offenders and the policies they claim allow “career criminals” to commit as many crimes as they do.

“Public safety is not just police,” Adams said. “Public safety means the right laws, the right judges, the right prosecutions and the right in education to the public as they move through the system.”

According to NYPD officials, of the 7,000 shoplifting arrests made by the NYPD in the first quarter of the year, around 550 people accounted for nearly 44 percent of all of the arrests. Overall, those 550 have been arrested 23,000 times combined, according to the NYPD.

“It’s a disgrace,” said NYPD Chief of Crime Control Strategies Michael LiPetri.

The mayor also bristled at the idea that New Yorkers think the subway is unsafe following a handful of high-profile violent crimes committed underground.

After he justified a number of his NYPD policy positions on efforts to battle the perception of crime rather than crime itself, Adams on Wednesday said enough was enough.

“Can we please stop saying we're up in crime and our subway system?” Adams said. “We are not, we’re down in crime in the subway system.”

Crime in the city’s subways dropped by 15 percent and 24 percent in March after seeing an uptick in January.

Last week, the mayor announced that the city would be launching a pilot program that will see weapons detectors placed at subway turnstiles across the city.

“We have over 4 million riders a day in a reliable system, and we know that we have approximately six felonies a day out of those 4 million riders,” said Adams last week while announcing the new tech. “But if they don't feel safe, then we're not accomplishing our tasks.”

Crime in Queens

The number of crimes committed in Queens during the first quarter of the year mostly mirror citywide trends with a few notable exceptions.

While murders citywide dropped by around 17 percent this year, they’ve jumped by 300 percent in the NYPD’s Queens South patrol area. There were two murders in Queens South last year and eight so far this year.

However, murders fell by around 57 percent in Queens North.

But Queens North did see a break from citywide numbers when it came to grand larceny autos.

There were 530 reported stolen cars in the area during the first quarter of 2023 and 543 reported stolen this year, accounting for a 2.5 percent jump, data shows.

Grand larceny auto also saw an 8.8 percent increase in Queens South.

The number of rapes also increased by 2 percent this year when compared to last in Queens South, where there have been 43 rapes through the first three months of the year, according to NYPD data.