Despite the grim headlines, New Yorkers’ chances of being a crime victim are relatively low. A resident of Brooklyn has a 1.3 in 10 million daily chance of becoming a murder victim, and a 10 in 1 million risk of sustaining a felony assault. Even so, crime rates vary greatly by borough and neighborhood. You are twice as likely to die from high blood pressure, four times as likely to die from diabetes and five times as likely to die from a drug overdose in New York City than to be killed by another person.
In general, crimes have declined since the beginning of the pandemic, though the pace has slowed in recent months. The decline in homicide, the most serious of the offenses covered in this report, was driven by large declines in some cities with historically high rates. The overall homicide rate across the sample is still well above pre-pandemic levels, although most cities remain below their peak homicide rates of 2020 and 2021.
Property crime trends are more mixed. There have been fewer residential burglaries and larcenies, but more nonresidential burglaries and shoplifting. Motor vehicle thefts have been more common, but they are also down from their peak level. Despite these reductions, the United States remains a violent place compared to other industrialized countries and progress should not slow local, state, federal and community efforts to reduce crime. The data used in this report were collected from 42 American cities that have consistently reported monthly crime statistics for the past six years.