Even as New York City’s overall crime rate drops for the 22nd straight year, murders, rapes and robberies are all on pace to show increases.

The New York Police Department and many outside experts say this one-year spike in violent crimes is well within natural statistical fluctuations.

Eli Silverman, a professor emeritus at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and co-author of a study challenging the accuracy of the NYPD’s statistics, has a different explanation. He believes the police department is manipulating statistics by downgrading many property crimes to minor offenses that don’t show up in the official crime rate. Violent crimes are much harder to downgrade and may be being reported more accurately, he says.

“They’ve made it [low crime] symbolic for all their achievements,” said Mr. Silverman, “They’ve made it a selling point for tourism and business….They made it a narrative, a story and they can’t deviate from that story. They’re stuck in that story.”

The NYPD emphatically rejects that notion. It says Mr. Silverman’s study is flawed because it relies on an anonymous survey of past police officials to support its allegation of data manipulation.

Despite the spikes in violent crime, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly recently said he believes “in general that our strategies have continued to work.”

Figuring out if the jump in violent crime is a blip or a turning point isn’t easy. Michael Rand, a statistician with the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, considers one-year spikes statistically insignificant. “A 15% increase is only important if it’s the beginning of an upturn,” he said. “And unfortunately we won’t know that for many years.”

As of Nov. 7, New York City’s overall crime rate—calculated by totaling seven so-called index crimes: murders, rapes, robberies, felony assaults, burglaries, grand larcenies and auto thefts—dropped 1.26% from a year earlier. The drop is attributable to a reduction in property-crime complaints, most notably fewer grand larcenies. Meanwhile, all four violent crimes are projected to show increases at year’s end, including 15% hikes in both murders and rapes.

Henry Brownstein, the former chief of statistical services for the New York State’s Division of Criminal Justice Services, said the most useful information to be gleaned from a one-year spike is if a discernible trend emerges about “what’s driving the increase.” However, police say no such trends can be found.

Read Full Article At The Wall Street Journal

(YWN Desk – NYC)