NYC Marks Significant Decline in Most Violent Crime Rates

Where crime is concerned, New York City had a pretty good 2025. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced yesterday that the New York Police Department (NYPD) recorded the fewest shooting incidents and shooting victims in the city’s recorded history last year.

NYC recorded 688 shooting incidents in 2025, notably lower than the previous record low of 754 in 2018. Shooting incidents declined 24 percent from 2024 (688 incidents vs. 904). In December 2025, there were only 35 shootings recorded citywide—the fewest ever recorded in a single month in the city’s history.

There were 856 shooting victims in NYC in 2025—22 percent fewer than in 2024.

Tisch attributed the decline to a strategy that deployed large numbers of police officers to patrol high-crime areas at night, including in public housing complexes and the subway system. Both areas saw a 4 percent decrease in major crimes last year.

“The historic decline reflected a citywide effort, with reductions across all five boroughs in 2025,” according to an NYPD press release. “Shooting incidents declined by 38 percent in Manhattan, 26.7 percent in Staten Island, 25.4 percent in the Bronx, 24.4 percent in Queens, and 15 percent in Brooklyn. Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island each recorded their lowest number of shooting incidents in city history.”

The trend in NYC mirrors decreasing crime rates in other large cities. The number of homicides in Chicago fell about 29 percent between 2024 and 2025 and about 10 percent in Los Angeles, The New York Times reported. In Washington, D.C., violent crime dropped 29 percent in 2025, and total crime (including violent crime and property crime like burglaries) decreased 17 percent, according to Metropolitan Police data. These falling rates suggest that the broad crime surge that took place early in the COVID-19 pandemic is reversing, helped along by some strategic policing.

NYPD officers seized more than 5,293 illegal guns last year, and NYPD detectives carried out 70 gang-related takedowns.

Citywide, murders decreased more than 20 percent in 2025 compared to the previous year (305 vs. 382), and the NYPD maintained a murder clearance rate of 69 percent.

Robberies decreased as well, marking the third straight year of declines.

Hate crimes decreased by 12 percent (576 vs. 657) compared to 2024.

Retail theft also decreased 14 percent in 2025, which the NYPD attributed to a revamped strategy that included “identifying the patterns driving retail theft, concentrating resources at high-propensity locations during peak hours, and shifting from pass-through enforcement to sustained investigation.”

One notable increase in the crime rates was incidents of rape. The 16 percent rise in reported incidents is partly attributed to a new legal definition of rape from 2024—this broadened the category to include additional forms of nonconsensual, forced sexual conduct.

Domestic violence-related rapes increased by 25 percent last year, and they now account for roughly half of reported rape cases citywide, the NYPD reported. The NYPD launched a new unit of 450 fully dedicated domestic violence investigators in October 2025 to help address this trend.

Youth crime is also up, even though violent crime rates are down. In 2025, 14 percent of shooting victims were under the age of 18, and 18 percent of shooting perpetrators were under 18.

“In response, last fall, the department implemented School Safety Zones, modeled after Violence Reduction Zones, to ensure youth are safe,” the NYPD said. “These zones focus on the places where young people are most at risk: commuter corridors, bus stops, and the routes students take to and from school. The early results show that the data-driven strategy is working—overall crime is down 53 percent and shooting incidents and shooting victims are down more than 75 percent. The NYPD also changed its strategy with school safety agents, increasing deployments in and around schools. Since implementing this new approach, crime in schools is down 22 percent with less enforcement. Arrests in schools have dropped 21 percent.”