Crime rates across the city fell considerably in 2007, in many cases setting records, especially in West Harlem precincts.
City-wide there were 496 homicides in 2007—the lowest since accurate records have been kept, beginning in 1963—which was a 17 percent decrease from 2006, according to a press release from the New York Police Department. The city also saw a five percent reduction in violent crime, as compared with a 1.8 percent decrease in the rest of the country, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s uniform crime statistics.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg specifically lauded Central Harlem’s 28th Precinct, which covers Central Park North to 127th Street between Morningside and Fifth avenues, where major felony crime fell 21 percent as compared to 2006, according to a press release.
Some Harlem precincts show increases in types of crime other than homicide. The 30th Precinct, which encompasses 133rd to 155th streets east of Bradhurst Avenue, has seen an increase of 136 robberies and 156 grand larcenies since 2001, though murder and rape rates have dropped dramatically.
City-wide statistics show a sharply declining trend over time. The year 1990 saw 2,245 homicides city-wide, compared with 2007’s 496. Within the 26th Precinct, there were 15 murders in 1990, compared with one in 2001 and two in 2007, according to CompStat statistics released by the NYPD.
Police officials attributed the drop in crime to new programs and preventive measures, such as a five-year effort against domestic violence and a school safety program that places police officers and video surveillance in public schools. Police have also increased deployment in high-crime areas, and added 914 officers to the force this past December.
In his State of the City address on Thursday, Bloomberg announced plans he said would increase law enforcement effectiveness and ability with a number of new initiatives. Bloomberg proposed “Digital 911,” which would allow people to send photos to police from their cell phones, and drew on efforts to counter illegal gun ownership. More controversial is Bloomberg’s proposal to the State Legislature to take DNA fingerprints from anyone arrested, as currently they are taken only from convicted felons and convicts of some misdemeanors.
“It’s not about breaking records or crime suppression alone, it is all about saving lives. That’s something we can all celebrate on New Year’s Eve and then immediately resolve to keep up the good work in 2008,” Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said in the press release.
But the opening of 2008 in West Harlem was a bloody one. On Jan. 8, police found a 31-year-old man shot dead in a car on 159 W. 122nd Street. An attempted robbery on Jan. 10 outside of St. Nicholas Park, on 139th Street, resulted in one death and three nonfatal stabbings. A 29-year-old man was murdered in front of 133 W. 104th Street on Jan. 11.