By Bob Tannenhauser
On March 3, the NYPD released the citywide crime statistics for the month of February 2023 showing a decrease in five of the seven major crime categories compared to February 2022.
Murder and rape incidents across the city declined by 27.8% and 22.1% respectively, with the overall crime index declining by 5.6% for the month, but only 0.4% for the year to date.
Major crimes in the subway system declined by 9.1% in February 2023 compared to February 2022, and overall transit crimes declined 19.4% this year thru February.
Another interesting statistic: the NYPD data for 2022 shows 564 felony arrests at homeless shelters citywide and 1,036 misdemeanor arrests. But there were just three felony arrests and six misdemeanor arrests at Upper West Side homeless shelters.The NYPD noted that arrests at “homeless shelter locations … do not reflect location of the offense … or [the] arrestee’s association with the shelter.”
The year-to-date statistics for the 20th and 24th precincts comprising the UWS are presented below. Notably, while the total incidents of the seven major crimes remains unchanged, there have been three murders in the two Upper West Side precincts combined in 2023, compared to none last year. The five rape incidents so far this year equal the number last year.
| YTD 3/5/23 | YTD 3/5/22 | Difference | |
| 20th Pct | |||
| Murder | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Rape | 2 | 4 | -2 |
| Robbery | 17 | 21 | -4 |
| Felony Assault | 15 | 12 | 3 |
| Burglary | 32 | 26 | 6 |
| Grand Larceny | 124 | 125 | -1 |
| Grand Larceny Auto | 17 | 8 | 9 |
| Petit Larceny | 172 | 224 | -52 |
| Hate Crimes | 0 | 2 | -2 |
| Total | 380 | 422 | -42 |
| YTD 3/5/23 | YTD 3/5/22 | Difference | |
| 24th Pct | |||
| Murder | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Rape | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| Robbery | 21 | 31 | -10 |
| Felony Assault | 22 | 24 | -2 |
| Burglary | 20 | 42 | -22 |
| Grand Larceny | 92 | 85 | 7 |
| Grand Larceny Auto | 20 | 9 | 11 |
| Petit Larceny | 356 | 315 | 41 |
| Hate Crimes | 0 | 6 | -6 |
| Total | 536 | 513 | 23 |
Thank you posting the data, and thanks even more for digesting it, in neighborhood and citywide context, in such a useful summary!!
Very interesting about the crime in and related to shelters. They too often are not safe for those taking shelter, nor those in the streets around. Who is running them and what the hours are and how they are managed, and what supports residents get, is all critical. Glad to know the shelters on the UWS have a better record overall.
Then why do New Yorkers not feel safe? I think there is more to these statistics than meets the eye.
Research shows that people who follow local news media overestimate the amount of crime in their community. As compared to those who don’t. Why?Because local media always seek to get readers/viewers. One tried and true method is highlighting crime, esp homicides.
Especially when the local media is owned by Rupert Murdoch.
People who follow local news are more aware of local crime.
Whether they overestimate it, or simply accurately know about it, seems to be a judgement.
No, it’s not a coin toss. It’s a well established sociological research finding. Not merely an opinion, like a movie review.
It depends which local news outlets they’re watching. Not all are created equal and therefore individual perception based off them can vary wildly.
For tabloids the mantra is “If it bleeds, it ledes” It’s about eyeballs.
Ever see a headline “No one murdered in city yesterday.”
Nor will you, even if it happens.
is the upper west side ready for curtlis sliwa and his group to come to aid a possibly overwhelmed police force and restore some order. They were a great help at 79th and Broadway during the Lucerne and Belclaire occupation
“…a possibly overwhelmed police force”?
All the NYPD needs to do is return from the on-duty vacation they’ve been on for the past three years.
I would like to see crime statistics compared to earlier years, perhaps 2017-18. Comparing crime data from 2023 to 2022 doesn’t give the true state of crime in NYC. I would guess crime began rising post Bloomberg. In 2022 crimes were already elevated. I give our police every credit for finding and arresting the criminals. The problem is our broken judicial system (DA Bragg has to go). If criminals aren’t tried, convicted and held accountable, we will never see the return of the vibrant, safe, successful NYC that we all love.
You can get crime stats for the whole city or by precinct here:
https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/stats/crime-statistics/citywide-crime-stats.page
Crime is mixed since Bloomberg. Murder is actually lower so far this year than in 2010. Social media and many people on these sites are creating a false picture.
The data is readily available on the NYPD website.
Our six safest years in the last 60 were all during
– you might want to sit down –
the De Blasio administration.
The streak ended with Covid, as crime spiked nationwide.
Exactly! The DeBlasio years were the safest.
Yes, I used to feel proud of how safe NY was for its size and compared to many other places. It was great marching in the Halloween Parade and no one set off a bomb. Seeing young women walking alone at night in neighborhoods that I was trained to avoid … As Bret Stephens said today, a city absolutely must guarantee personal safety and safety/security of commerce.
Here’s what’s overlooked: how disgusting, vile and depressing the area feels; how we are harassed on every block of Broadway, how we are subjected to rats and puke and piles of garbage; how the subway stations and bank vestibules are overcome with frightening people. These things don’t make it to the crime statistics but they both break our hearts and hold us terrorized.
I thought of your comment during my two forays on Broadway today, one in the low 90s, one in the low and mid-80s. I am all over the UWS daily. What you write about is way out of proportion to the reality – which is admittedly down from what it was, say, ten years ago.
I obviously don’t know your experiences, but in my opinion, statements like “harassed on every block of Broadway” and “the subway stations and bank vestibules are overcome with frightening people” are hyperbole that may damage more than it helps.
BTW I voted twice for Danzilo against Hoylman. I am not an advocate for letting criminals back onto the street and the like.
Yes! Quality of life has deteriorated significantly over the past few years. The streets are filled with vagrants and the disturbed. The subway – fugeddaboudit!
Spot on. Among the things that have happened to me since 2020. 1) I was surrounded by four 12 year olds demanding I gave them each a dollar and one gestured that he had a gun. This was in front of the Bloomingdale library at night. I ran to the police station across the street. 2) While eating pizza at Famous Famiglia on 97th in the afternoon a large man high on drugs came up to my table, tried to take my slice, and asked me to give him money to buy pizza. I screamed my head off like a lunatic and he slowly backed away.
Sadly, it’s NOT just here on the UWS. Yesterday a mob of 12 masked teens wrecked a Chinese restaurant in Queens causing $20,000 worth of damage
Something is terribly wrong, and no one seems to know why.
Shocking. This aging boomer doesn’t know how to process all of this. Is the culprit capitalism? Or woke progressives?
We need many more cops and cameras on the UWS. Deblasio let Manhattan rot, and now Adams is doing the same.