New York City experienced a 5% drop in major crime in 2024, Mayor Adams and NYPD Commissioner announced Monday, as they moved to send 200 more cops into the subway system.
The drop in crime was led by a dip in murders, from 391 in 2023 to 377 last year, and 48 fewer people shot.
“This translates to 3,362 fewer incidents of major crime last year compared to the year before — and these are not just numbers,” Tisch said. “We’re talking about thousands of people who are not injured abused, attacked or targeted by criminals.”
There was also a 5% drop in major crime in the subway system and in housing projects, Tisch and Adams announced in a press conference at NYPD headquarters at One Police Plaza in Lower Manhattan.
But Tisch noted that “we still must do more because people don’t feel safe in our subways.”
The city has been rocked by a string of high-profile crimes in the subway recently, most notably the homeless woman fatally set afire in Coney Island last month.
The additional cops, Tisch noted, will be assigned to ride the trains and patrol the platforms — the two places where 78% of subway crime occurs.
When asked about the overtime controls put in place in the wake of a still-burgeoning administrative overtime scandal, Tisch noted the newly-deployed officers are being paid straight time to patrol the subways.
Another move, already underway, Tisch said, is the assignment of 650 cops to newly-designated “zones,” crime hotspots across the city, with plans to create weekly internal reports detailing “specific segments of neighborhoods, blocks and even certain streets, where we see spikes in violence and disorder.” In the summer months that 650 will grow to 1,000.
She noted the recent drop in retail theft on Fulton St. in Downtown Brooklyn that followed the creation of such a zone.
Despite the crime drop, rapes, lead by a surge in attacks by victims’ domestic partners, were up 19% last year. Tisch also noted the “rightful” legal broadening of what constitutes rape in New York State to include more forms of nonconsensual sexual contact.
Felony assaults also increased, by 5%, with spikes in stranger attacks, domestic violence and cops assaulted, Tisch said.
The top cop and Adams also lamented again the problem with recidivism, noting sharp increases from 2018 in suspects arrested three or more times in one year for the same crime, typically after being released without bail.
Those recidivism increases — 147% for those charged with felony assault, 119% for grand larceny auto, 83% for robbery, 71% for grand larceny, 64% for shoplifting and 61% for burglary— demoralize cops and traumatize victims, they said.
Tisch noted the case of Gary “Green Eyes” Worhty, who was on lifetime parole when he was shot dead by police in November after shooting and wounding an NYPD cop and an innocent bystander in Queens. He had been arrested at least several times since his 2021 release from prison.
“This is evidence of a broken system,” Tisch said, “one that doesn’t put the rights and needs of victims first.”
Adams said he will continue to push for changes to controversial criminal justice reforms that took effect at the start of 2020. He stressed that while he is not criticizing bail reform, which we had advocated for as a cop and state legislator, there clearly needs to be a move toward keeping off the streets those repeatedly accused of the same crime.
“Do you know that this does to Miss Jones on her way to school and she was robbed on Monday and she’s walking down the block and she sees the person that robbed her back out on the street, robbing her neighbor?” Adams asked. ” It destroys your feeling that your city is taking care of you.”