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GOP has cast NYC as a crime-ridden hellscape. Data is countering the narrative.
By
Jon Campbell
Published Apr 16, 2023
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By
Jon Campbell
Published Apr 16, 2023
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When the House Judiciary Committee rolls into Manhattan on Monday for a public hearing on District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s policies in the borough, it’ll mark the latest and most high-profile use of one of New York’s favorite political footballs: crime.
A pandemic-era rise in crime has dominated the political landscape in New York City and across the state in recent years, with Republicans using it to help propel them to wins in congressional races on Long Island last year and a closer-than-expected showing in the governor’s race.
Now, as Bragg leads the prosecution of former President Donald Trump, the Republican-led committee is pushing ahead with a hearing that promises to put the issue on a national stage. The committee is making no secret of its agenda, with an official advisory promising the event will examine how Bragg’s “pro-crime, anti-victim policies have led to an increase in violent crime and a dangerous community for New York City residents.”
It all comes despite what crime data shows: New York City is one of the safest big cities in the U.S., with per-capita violent crime rates below many of the nation’s other large metropolises, such as St. Louis, Missouri.
That’s what makes Monday’s hearing particularly vexing to crime data experts like Christopher Herrmann, an associate professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice who said he believes it’s “much more political than it is meant for crime prevention and crime control purposes."
“As someone who studies crime victimization and the numbers around it, it's frustrating to see when people kind of put the victims in the political sphere and they want to debate whether it's good or bad, or right or wrong,” Herrmann said. “The reality is crime is a byproduct of our environment.”
Major crime did increase in 2021 and 2022 in New York City, according to NYPD data that tracks seven serious felony crimes — murder, rape, assault, burglary, robbery, grand larceny and vehicle theft. In 2020, there were about 95,000 instances of those crimes; by 2022, it was up to 125,000.
But those numbers are below where crime was in the early 2000s, when they regularly exceeded 150,000 a year. So far in 2023, the number of major crimes is about even where it was at the same point in 2022 citywide — though shooting incidents are down about 23% and murders are down 10% this year, according to the NYPD. In Manhattan, major crime is down 2% so far this year, with 8,252 major crimes reported in 2023 so far compared to 8,453 the same time a year ago.
The increases in 2021 and 2022 mirrored similar trends in many other cities — both Democratic and Republican — across the country during the pandemic, Herrmann said. And New York City’s murder rates are well below those of cities like Columbus, Ohio — near the home of Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, the House Judiciary Committee’s chair — which had a murder rate three times as high per 100,000 residents as New York City’s in 2022, a statistic Bragg's office recently pointed to.
“They're picking on (Bragg’s) policies and they're highlighting some of the victims of crime, and you can do that anywhere,” Herrmann said. “If you want to compare cities, then let's compare cities and let's figure out which city is safer than the other city. And there's no doubt in my mind that the numbers for New York City and for Manhattan specifically are much lower.”
In a statement posted to Bragg’s Twitter account, his office said Jordan should examine crime in “Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Akron or Toledo in his home state, instead of using taxpayer dollars to travel hundreds of miles out of his way.”
Public polls, however, show New York voters' perception of crime does not necessarily match up with reality.
For a year, Siena College has been polling voters on crime and whether they feel it’s a problem in New York state. Last month, 92% of those polled said they believe it’s either a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problem, while 60% said they’re concerned they may be a victim of a crime.
“I think crime will continue to be an important issue for voters until it's not, and when will it not be? When voters feel safer,” said Siena pollster Steve Greenberg. “When voters feel that they can get onto a subway or walk the streets late at night. When voters feel safe, then crime won't be a big issue for them anymore. They'll have moved on to one of a dozen other issues as a top priority.”
Former Rep. Lee Zeldin, a Long Island Republican, made the issue of crime the centerpiece of his 2022 gubernatorial campaign, which he lost to Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul by 6 points — a small margin in a deep blue state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 2 to 1. And he specifically zeroed in on Bragg, then a brand-new district attorney whose progressive, pro-reform stances made him a target for conservative scrutiny well before he prosecuted Trump.
At the same time, Democrats have struggled with how — or whether — to respond to the crime increase and the Republicans’ resulting attacks, which have at times centered on criticizing Democrat-led criminal justice reforms in 2019 that included scaling back the use of cash bail. This year, state budget negotiations have deadlocked as progressives in the state Legislature have resisted calls from Hochul, a moderate Democrat, to further scale back those reforms. Her ally has been Mayor Eric Adams, a former NYPD officer who has made public safety a centerpiece of his administration and has pushed the state to further revamp the state’s bail laws.
Zeldin, if he won the governor’s race, pledged to remove Bragg from office, citing a since scaled-back memo in which the district attorney said he wouldn’t prosecute certain low-level crimes. Zeldin’s campaign also focused on the case of Jose Alba, a Manhattan bodega clerk whom Bragg’s office briefly charged with murder despite Alba apparently acting in self-defense.
Now, House Republicans are also set to highlight Alba’s case; he’s scheduled to testify at Monday’s hearing.
Bragg’s office, for its part, has blasted the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing as a “political stunt,” and has sued in an attempt to block what it claims is ongoing interference with his prosecution of Trump.
Herrmann said it’s fine for politicians to focus on crime, but he holds out hope that someday it will be done in a more constructive way.
“I think it's great that politicians want to talk about crime,” he said. “But my hope is that they talk about it with the hopes of helping victims or helping decrease the amount of crime happening.”
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Jon Campbell
Jon Campbell covers the New York State Capitol for WNYC and Gothamist. Prior to that, he covered the Capitol for more than a decade for the USA TODAY Network. He has twice earned the Walter T. Brown Memorial Award, an honor given annually by the Legislative Correspondents Association alumni for outstanding state government coverage. Jon grew up in the Buffalo area and graduated from the University at Albany. Got a tip? Email Jon at [email protected] or Signal at JonCampbellNY.90.
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