New York City could register the fewest number of homicides in several decades in 2018, as the city continues its long battle against violent crime.
NEW YORK — New York City could register the fewest number of homicides in several decades in 2018, as the city continues its long battle against violent crime.
As of Sunday, the city had recorded five fewer killings than the 292 investigated in 2017, according to preliminary police data provided to The Associated Press. That year’s figure was itself the lowest in decades.
The New York Police Department said it also had seen a modest decline in shooting incidents in 2018 and an 8 percent drop in robberies. Figures for other categories of crime were not immediately available.
In the past two years, the city’s homicide rate has plunged to levels that were unthinkable a generation ago, when New York became known as the murder capital of the country and recorded an eye-popping 2,245 homicides in 1990.
« Not all that long ago, people had given up on New York City, » said David Kennedy, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who has worked with police departments around the country to reduce killings. « Now it’s the safest big city in the world— and that is not an accident. It’s the result of decades of steady, meaningful attention to community public safety.
