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Crime!

I mentioned a few days ago that national crime statistics are hopelessly useless right now, so we don't really know how much crime has gone up or down across the country.

However, we do have crime stats for several big cities, and the one that's getting the most attention right now is New York. So here is major crime in New York City accurate to the week:

This is hot from the NYPD, so there's no reason to think it's just a guess. This is what they're arresting people for these days.¹

I'm not showing absolute numbers here (they're available from the NYPD if you want to see them). Instead I'm showing growth rates, starting with 2009. As you can see, crime is generally up from last year (dashed lines). Murder is down but everything else is up. It's not good news.

However, you might also want to compare 2022 with 2019, the last pre-pandemic year. The picture is much the same if you do this:

Murder and auto theft skyrocketed during the pandemic and have stayed high since then—although murder is down a bit this year. The others mostly stayed kind of flat during the pandemic but are up this year.

The big outlier here is murder, which is also what gets the most press attention. Once again, though, I'll point out that this is a huge anomaly. Although murder rates are down a bit this year, they skyrocketed during the pandemic—far more than other violent crimes (rape, assault, robbery). This is unusual since murder rates generally follow other violent crime rates, and that was also true in New York until 2019, when murder started to outpace other serious crimes.² This is very perplexing, but it matches what's happened in the rest of the country too. We keep inventing theories for the increase in murder, but none of them take account of the fact that other serious crimes didn't go up significantly through 2021. Someone needs to figure out what's going on here.

UPDATE: I originally copied the wrong column in the NYPD report for 2022, which made both charts incorrect. They showed crime going generally down, when it was actually going up. I've corrected them and changed the text to reflect it.

¹This is assuming you believe the NYC crime stats, which I admit I'm dubious of.

²Except for auto theft. What's up with that, New York readers?

9 thoughts on “Crime!

  1. erick

    Does auto theft mean only stealing entire cars or any kind of partial theft? Because it seems like Catalytic converter theft is a recent phenomena, driven by increased value of some of the metal in them I believe?

  2. golack

    Everyone stuck inside with family--no wonder murders are up...

    Or--everyone has a gun now.
    Car jackings are up because they can....and everyone has a gun...

    1. middleoftheroaddem

      "Everyone stuck inside with family--no wonder murders are up..."

      I believe that would be captured under domestic violence: I read elsewhere, to the surprise of many, there was not an increase in domestic violence. Murder, shown above, is primarily between people not under one roof.

      1. bmore

        At our community association meetings, the police report domestic incidents under the category of whatever crime it was. So "we had 11 assaults, 6 were domestic, 7 thefts but 3 were domestic". So one partner assaults the other, or one partner steals the other's cell phone. And murder is reported as murder, domestic or not.

  3. bluegreysun

    “…unusual since murder rates generally follow other violent crime rates… we invent theories for the increase in murder, but none of them account for the fact that other crimes have not gone up. Someone needs to figure out what's going on here…”

    IMO this is consistent with the theory that cops have slowed down the policing of certain areas, as a reaction to the increased scrutiny and criticism of BLM-type political/social/media pressure.

    I’ve read (dunno how true or big the effect is) it’s essentially: “Defund the Police? We’ll show you what life looks like with no cops.”

    Cops might be afraid of being charged or sued or investigated, etc., for what they argue is “doing their job.”

    If true, lesser crimes might actually be going up also, in lockstep with murder, but they are not being investigated, cops aren’t rolling through high-crime areas looking for criminals to charge with things. Dunno.

    Murders can’t be ignored, records are generated, so they could be a more true reflection of the crime rate.

    As for why murder is up, I’ve read it might be increased use of social media - kids beefing with each other, posing with guns, gang signs, threatening each other for status.

    I think discharging weapons, and non-fatal shootings also increased, by even more than murders. Gunfire at parties, side-shows, drive-by stuff, not intended to kill anyone, just talking with bullets.

    I think it was the police chief of Chicago who gave the social media beefing explanation. I have no idea.

  4. Jasper_in_Boston

    We keep inventing theories for the increase in murder, but none of them take account of the fact that other serious crimes didn't go up significantly through 2021. Someone needs to figure out what's going on here.

    Maybe serious crime likewise went up but didn't get reported as dependably? Murder almost always gets reported.

    (I'm guessing this can't be the explanation because it's too obvious, and would have been looked into, but it's the first thing that came to mind)

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