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Jnnx's avatar

Thank you leaving comments open.

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Mara Alexeev's avatar

I'm dismayed at his impression of crime in NYC around the 12 minutes mark. NYC is not getting better. I'm confused. I just left after years in the area. It's disgusting, disorderly, and corrupt beyond the pale.

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Jeremiah Johnson's avatar

"NYPD ANNOUNCES RECORD LOW SHOOTINGS AND MURDERS FOR THE FIRST FIVE MONTHS OF 2025"

https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/pr010/nypd-record-low-shootings-murders-the-first-five-months-2025

"Since it began on May 5, major crime in our Summer Zones during deployment is down nearly 28% — with shootings down 65%, felony assault down 52%, robbery down 25%, and grand larceny down 21%.

In addition to the declines in shootings and murders, burglary declined by 12.5% (989 vs. 1,130), robbery dropped by 5.4% (1,383 vs. 1,462), and grand larceny fell by 4% (4,007 vs. 4,175).

In the transit system, crime dropped by 5.6% (186 v. 197), thanks to the continued presence of NYPD officers throughout the subway and on every overnight train.

The number of incidents investigated by the NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force decreased by 47%, or 37 fewer incidents, compared to May of last year. While anti-Jewish hate crimes dropped by 54%, this category has continued to soar over others as 24 of the total 42 hate crimes reported in the month of May were anti-Jewish attacks."

In the interest of fairness, the one major tracked category that's increased seems to be rapes - but that seems to be as a result of the state legislature redefining how those are counted.

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Mara Alexeev's avatar

In fairness I left in summer 2024. But you were saying these things were headed in a better direction before the 2024 election.

The violence and chaos I saw with my eyes in the subway until the week I left was not getting better. I estimate 1 in 5 days using transit I would see something I would deem unacceptable in a civil society. Penn station Amtrak/train waiting area the weekend before I left resembled Bedlam more than a transit hub for the most heavily used passenger rail system in the US.

Murder is something I'm more confident the numbers reflect reality (difficult to hide bodies) and that's great for the city.

However, I am confident many other crimes in NYC are not reported or somehow dropout in the path from incident to official statistics. Everyone i know has a property crime story. Why are there security guards at so many boring stores like CVS and grocery stores?

How do you reconcile the individual person's (me here) perception of crime and disorder with your stats/reporting perspective? Do you feel like people are miscalibrated? I love data and want to acknowledge how foundational quality data is for good policy development, implementation, and assessing responses, but frankly it feels like a case of my lying eyes.

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