NYC Murder Rate at Record Low

With nearly a week passing in 2009 without a single homicide, New York City is on its way to a record low year of murders. As of Monday, there were 461 murders—35 less than the current record low from 2007. The city has not seen such small numbers since 1962, when the New York Police Department first began tracking homicides. Despite the financial crisis, 12 of the 77 police precincts (mainly in Upper Manhattan and Park Slope, Brooklyn) counted just a single murder in 2009 as of Christmas Day. It’s good news for a metropolis with a $4.1 billion budget deficit that has already reduced its police force and may make more cuts. “The mantra of ‘Do more with less’ is certainly a very important principle in the Police Department,” said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. “And these numbers show it.” Homicides also decreased 10 percent nationwide according to FBI reports from the first half of the year, but no city’s as much as New York’s. One police historian says the numbers would further decrease “if the federal government would shut off the flow of illegal guns from other states to New York.”