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The Golden Age of Crime Reduction Is Now

vitalcitynyc.org · 1,943 words · saved by 1 readers

If you didn’t know better, you would think we were living in the blood-soaked Dark Ages. The New York City tabloids scream — though, to be fair, they do not know an “inside voice” — “Shot to Pieces,” “City Out of Control,” “Random Assaults Hit City.” Each one is a staccato direction: “Run for the hills.” And indeed, the flight from New York is a perennial theme — the billionaires, the Black middle class, the tech bros. Yet New York City is still standing. So how bad is it? Should we fold our tents and sit upon the ground telling sad stories of the death of cities? Not to invoke a now dishonored word, but, please, some “context.” Crime in New York City, and across the nation, is at one of the lowest points in our history. One of us, John Roman, has examined the rates of crime over decades. The release of the first quarter of 2024 preliminary FBI statistics shows the homicide rate in the United States, as of April 1, 2024, is 4.5 per 100,000. For comparison, the homicide rate was 6.8 per

What makes cities great is what makes crime low. If you didn’t know better, you would think we were living in the blood-soaked Dark Ages. The New York City tabloids scream — though, to be fair, they do not know an “inside voice” — “Shot to Pieces,” “City Out of Control,” “Random Assaults Hit City.” Each one is a staccato direction: “Run for the hills.” And indeed, the flight from New York is a perennial theme — the billionaires, the Black middle class, the tech bros. Yet New York City is still standing. So how bad is it? Should we fold our tents and sit upon the ground telling sad stories of t

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