New York City Homicides Fall To 70-Year Low, NYPD Says

The number of homicide cases hit a record low in New York City (NYC) in the year 2017, according to New York Police Department (NYPD) officials.

The NYPD officials stated unofficial numbers displayed that the police department investigated 290 homicides in 2017, a number which hasn't been seen in 70 years, according to a report by New York Daily News.

Earlier in December, NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill reportedly said during television show Good Day New York, “It is safe to say right now that New York hasn’t been like this since the 1950s.”

The New York News Daily report added the police investigated 335 cases last year related to murder. This year, the number decreased by 45.

Before this, 333 cases in 2014 was the lowest number of homicide cases. According to the police, no murders were reported in NYC on Saturday and Sunday.

The latest reported incident of murder happened Friday when Teddy Gibson was found dead in the Bronx region of NYC. According to police sources, Gibson was shot in the head from point-blank range.

The report further stated the numbers in 2017 signal a 61 percent drop from the digits two decades ago, when 746 homicide cases were recorded. At that time, that number was considered the lowest in 30 years.

Murders in NYC reached peak numbers during 1990 with 2,245 cases. That included 87 deaths, which took place when an arsonist lit up the Happy Land Social Club in Bronx.

According to a report by AM New York, a NYC daily newspaper, with less than 300 recorded homicides in 2017, the number was an all-time low since end of the World War II.

Crime and police historian, Thomas Reppetto said, “Murder figures in New York were never as high as they were a generation ago, they were off the charts no matter how you figure .”

He also added, with reference to peak number of cases in 1990, “We were in really bad shape in New York in the 1990s.”

The report stated O’Neill listed out some factors that led to the low number of homicides in NYC. The factors included, “precision” policing against key criminals, anti-gang initiatives and anti-gun investigations.

O’Neill also said his neighborhood policing strategy resulted in new ways of communication between communities and the police authorities.

According to a report on preventive policing efforts, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine discovered “community relations,” much like the NYPD’s neighborhood policing strategy, resulted in the people perceiving police authorities in a more positive manner in the short term. The long term effects are yet to be found out.

The 2017 numbers in NYC showed the city was much safer than it was 100 years ago in 1917. According to NYPD annual reports, 236 homicide cases were recorded in 1917 when the population was 5.73 million.

The report also mentioned about homicide cases in the year of 1863 when NYC was plagued by the Draft Riots which were aimed at the then-new Civil War drafting laws. During that time, 127 homicide cases were recorded. Author, historian and a teacher at New Jersey City University, Bruce Chadwick said with regards to 19th century being a dangerous period, “The murder rate in the mid-1800s was about six or seven times as high as it is today, the overall crime rate in that era was three or four times as high as it is today .”

Commissioner O’Neill however stated the numbers can be lowered even more, going into the new year.