Citywide arrests on track to reach 25-year high, NYPD says

NYPD officials said they have made more arrests so far this year than any other year since 1998. And they say serious crime is down as a result.

The announcement was made as part of a monthly crime report. Such reports compare the previous month’s crime numbers to the same month the year before. The October report trumpeted “steep declines” in robberies, grand larcenies and felony assaults, and also stated that shootings, murders and transit crimes in October fell compared to the same month last year.

“The presence of uniformed police officers on subway platforms and in train cars has instilled a sense of safety among riders, and this is further supported by crime data,” interim Police Commissioner Thomas Donlon said in a statement.

But some policing experts said comparing one month this year to the same month last year is a narrow way to slice the data, and added that comparing this year's crime data so far with stats from the same period last year yields some troubling trends. Particularly, felony assaults – attacks that cause serious injury – are at their highest level in 25 years. Rapes have also risen according to NYPD data, with 1,441 reported so far this year – 17% more than the 1,228 reported over the same period in 2023.

“I have no doubt that at this moment it is in the interest of the NYPD to herald these particular minor downward directions in the crime stats, but I don't think they're particularly meaningful,” said Fritz Umbach, an assistant professor at John College of Criminal Justice.

Umbach prefers to include violations, or low-level, quality of life crimes. The overall number of violations is much higher, he said, as were several other crime categories.

“So you have this very large number of felonious assaults plus more total counts of all violations than we've ever seen in two-and-a-half decades. Collectively, that can lead to a sense of disorder.”

Felony assaults are an important bellwether of public safety in the city, according to Liz Glazer, the founder of the nonprofit Vital City and former director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice under Bill de Blasio.

“They cover a very wide range of behavior, everything from domestic violence, which are usually about 40% of felony assaults, to things that happen on the street or in a bar,” Glazer said. “They are the kinds of behavior that make people uneasy as they walk down the street.”

Some crimes have seen a noteworthy decline this year. Shooting incidents have steadily declined since the pandemic, according to NYPD data. While they are still above pre-pandemic levels, they are down 7% so far this year compared to the same period in 2023.

But the last four weeks have played host to a spate of shootings at a time of year when they typically begin to taper, according to Glazer. Twenty New Yorkers were shot and killed across the city last month, according to NYPD data compiled by Gothamist. The victims included six teens, ranging in age from 15 to 18.