The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : NY Murder Rate Lower Than When "Mad Men" Roamed the Streets

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The Spectacle Blog

NY Murder Rate Lower Than When "Mad Men" Roamed the Streets

By Philip Klein on 12.28.09 @ 2:05PM

As the year approaches a close, the New York Times reports that the city is set to have the lowest number of homicides since reliable statistics began being kept in 1962.

I've been criticial of Mayor Michael Bloomberg on a number of issues, but the one thing he does deserve credit for is that he built on the successes of Rudy Giuliani in reducing crime.

The number of murders peaked in New York City at 2,245 in 1990. In 1993, the year Giuliani was elected, there were still 1,946 murders. By 2001, his final year in office, that number had dramatically declined to 649, or to about a third of the level at the beginning of his mayoralty.

But under Bloomberg, that number shrunk even lower, the Times notes: "As of Dec. 27, there were 461 murders; the current record low happened in 2007, when there were 496."

View all comments (6) | Leave a comment

LiveFreeOrDie| 12.28.09 @ 5:54PM

"By 2001, his final year in office, that number had dramatically declined to 649, or to about a third of the level at the beginning of his mayoralty. "

September 11th not included?

Akaky| 12.29.09 @ 2:26PM

Live, as far as most New Yorkers are concerned, the deaths on 9/11/01 were not murders, they were the result of an act of war against the United States, not that you could convince anyone in Washington of that nowadays.

philfl63| 12.28.09 @ 8:42PM

Yes, the time of the "Mad Men" was a much more just and civilized time in America. We did not countenance degenerate criminals then. We also did not allow illegal immigration at that time. We were not PC then. We kept the low-lifes and the savages contained or else their heads were busted. Yes all in all, I would rather I had lived in that era than now.

B. Goetz| 12.29.09 @ 6:49AM

New York City is a lot safer than Great Britain, even more so when you read into the statistics. England's biggest concern now is China executing a drug smuggler.

Richard Baker| 12.29.09 @ 8:23AM

philfl63:
Agreed. Remember the "barbaric" time when you could drive the streets without carjackings, streetside assaults, drug dealers and killings in neighborhoods, or drive-by shootings? Yes, we live in a more enlightened time, don't we?