Fewer New York Murders, and Even Fewer by Strangers

New York Times ^ | 11/22/07 | Al Baker

[saquin]

New York City is on track to have fewer than 500 murders in 2007, by far the lowest amount in a 12-month period since reliable Police Department statistics became available in 1963.

But within the city’s official crime statistics is a perhaps even more striking figure: so far, with roughly half the killings analyzed, only 35 were found to be committed by strangers, a microscopic statistic in a city of 8.5 million.

If that trend holds up, fewer than 100 murder victims in New York City this year would not have known the assailants who took their lives. The vast majority died in disputes with friends or acquaintances, with rival drug crew members or — to a far lesser degree — with boyfriends, girlfriends, parents and others.The low number of stranger killings belies imagery of New Yorkers being vulnerable to arbitrary attacks on the streets, or dying in robberies or muggings that turned violent.

In the eyes of some criminologists, the New York murder rate at such base levels means the police will be hard pressed to drive it down further because most killings are now occurring within the four walls of an apartment or in the confines of close-in relationships.

“What are you going to do send cops to every house?” said Dr. Peter K. Manning, who is the Brooks professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University in Boston.

[...]

The numbers on file from before 1963 are not considered reliable because in those years, many homicides were not recorded until an arrest was made and the case was closed, making any comparisons faulty. For example, there were 390 murders recorded in 1960, but the different methodology means that number cannot be compared to today’s.

[Steely Tom]

In 1990, it was 2,245.

Whoa. Dinkins took office in January 1990.

[Snickering Hound]

Color me dubious.

Indeed. In Houston HPD is deliberately undercounting murders including one the Examiner determined a homicide that HPD later decided was a suicide.

The victim was shot 3 times in the chest and once in the back of the head.

http://www.khou.com/news/defenders/investigate/stories/khou071119_tj_murdercount.1d78917e.html

Looks like that trend is spreading across the country.