The number of homicides in New York City rose about four percent in 2008 compared with the previous year, preliminary figures from the city’s police department showed.

The NYPD’s CompStat data showed 516 homicides in the city last year, up from 496 in 2007.

That’s still a dramatic change from 1990, when 2,262 homicides earned New York the title of “murder capital” of the nation.

Though the figures are subject to change, the 2008 tally also represents a drop from the 596 homicides investigated in New York in 2006.

The NYPD, which began compiling the report in 1963, cited its Operation Impact as a chief reason for the improvement in recent years.

The operation places more uniformed officers in concentrated areas where crime rates are high, the NYPD said.

Murders and robberies were the only major crimes to record slight increases in 2008; other felony crimes, led by an 8 percent drop in the assault rate, fell and the overall major crime rate dropped by 4 percent, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told the AP last week.

The city’s crime rate has been dropping steadily for the past 18 years. Bloomberg said that the murder rate had dropped 21 percent since he was elected mayor in 2001, and the major crime rate was down 28 percent since then.

(Source: CNN International / Newsday)