> the crime seemed to follow and exacerbate the problem
Did it? Not in NYC. Crime is very low; it's arguably one of the safest places to be in the country.
Did it? Not in NYC. Crime is very low; it's arguably one of the safest places to be in the country.
That is now. NYC was famously crime ridden for at least a century. Today, just as in London, crime past a certain value or a non injury car accident, is not investigated.
Where does that come from? All of the US had high crime rates from ~1970s to 2000 (as a rough guess). NYC doesn't stand out, afaik; some other cities had higher crime rates.
> Today, just as in London, crime past a certain value or a non injury car accident, is not investigated.
What makes you say that has changed from the past?
Murder may be low.
Are assaults low? Petty theft? What about pedestrian sentiment when walking the street? Not all crime is reported and not all threats are crimes yet threats will certainly cause someone to feel unsafe.
> Not all crime is reported and not all threats are crimes yet threats will certainly cause someone to feel unsafe.
What does that mean? We don't know anything about anything? Then maybe crime is even lower than I think. Everyone feels threatened all the time? What basis do you have for saying that crime is _____ (what?)? It's all fabricated so far.
> In its annual survey, BJS asks crime victims whether they reported their crime to police. It found that in 2022, only 41.5% of violent crimes and 31.8% of household property crimes were reported to authorities. BJS notes that there are many reasons why crime might not be reported, including fear of reprisal or of “getting the offender in trouble,” a feeling that police “would not or could not do anything to help,” or a belief that the crime is “a personal issue or too trivial to report.”
> Most of the crimes that are reported to police, meanwhile, are not solved, at least based on an FBI measure known as the clearance rate. That’s the share of cases each year that are closed, or “cleared,” through the arrest, charging and referral of a suspect for prosecution, or due to “exceptional” circumstances such as the death of a suspect or a victim’s refusal to cooperate with a prosecution. In 2022, police nationwide cleared 36.7% of violent crimes that were reported to them and 12.1% of the property crimes that came to their attention.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/04/24/what-the-...
What shows that it's high? It's circular to say that the unknown numbers are higher, not lower, because you think crime is high.
> a large Democrat-dominated city
What does the political party have to do with it, unless this really is about your politics? Republican areas of the country have higher crime rates, last I checked. If you think there's a correlation between party and crime rate, feel free to show us.
> (Pew data)
It's great to have some data, thanks. I don't know that anything has changed, however, though I imagine numbers were different during the pandemic and immediately after.
Numbers could be better now, for all we know.
You have actual data - why kill your argument by exaggerating it?
The stats you posted are about perception, not actual events. If people read other people constantly badgering them about safety, of course they will worry about it.
I never felt unsafe in LA, but I sure as hell felt disgusted when someone spit on us, and a bunch of other negative emotions when you saw the worst of the homeless population or drug use or anything else.
Was I unsafe ? No, but was it clearly disorderly? Yep.
I've read one news story on an analysis of Broken Windows (so not a lot of data) said that outcomes were not correlated with that strategy. Crime went down everywhere, whether or not they used Broken Windows.
Mayors and police chiefs, etc. are called geniuses or fools in strong correlation with national trends, especially the economy. Lots of 1990s mayors, etc. were geniuses as the economy boomed and crime came down nationwide.
The relevant bits:
>>>Only 37 percent rate public safety in their neighborhood as excellent or good, down from 50 % in 2017 [1] (yikes!)
>>> In fact, New Yorkers feel only marginally safer riding the subway during the DAY now as they felt on the subway at NIGHT in 2017 [1]
In fact, this source confirms my entire premise, that while murder has been down vs the horrendous stats of 20 years ago, nonmurder felonies and other crimes have spiked only recently. These 2 now EXCEED the stats of horrendous stats of 20 years ago. [2]
[1] https://cbcny.org/research/straight-from-new-yorkers [2] See article, figure 2.
You don't need all caps or exaggeration - you have data!
In other words: people who are not from New York come to the city. They falsely believe it to be a dangerous place compared to where they're from. They walk around fearfully, unable to escape their mindset. Now they would like this fear they experienced to be reflected in crime statistics.
(Tourists' impressions of safety are a really terrible guide to anything, and can be dramatically incorrect in either direction.)
On a 100k to 250k list, NYC is above average safety.
Per capita crime rates, while useful for comparing the likelihood of crime between areas with different population sizes, don't determine the absolute safety of a place. They normalize crime data by population to show relative safety, which is a different metric.
Idk who you think "we" is. It's not in my definition of safety, nor probably the general populace to think of Stockton, California as "safer" than NYC, just because Stockton had 50 murders a year compared to NYC's 240... Because Stockton has a 17.77 murder rate per 100k, and NYC 3 per 100k. You bet your ass you'd be "safer", as in less likely to get shot or stabbed to death, living in NYC.
If anything, the real # in 2023 of 386 only further proves my point. That it's ridiculous to assert even that many more murders is less safe than Stockton, CA.
Safety is about "am I more or less likely to have something happen to me" and no one is thinking that means moving to the tiniest country of 2,000 people where only 10 murders happened in the entire country last year.
I contend it is significantly safer in the majority of cities in the US than New York City.
You're factually wrong.
You seem to be implying per capita is a bad measure of safety. But you're not being clear why. Can you elaborate?
Your conclusion is without any evidence and is in fact, wrong, based on the crime metrics we can easily compare.
It's quite uncanny that it's the people who most fear crime, think they're going to something like "stay the hell away from crime infested NYC" and proceed to move somewhere where they're more likely to be affected by crime.
Rational or not, proximity of crime freaks some people out much more than probability of being the victim.
That said, I understand the desire to frame crime in the absolute. Either you’re the 1 guy who gets unlucky and experiences a crime in your small town, or there are 999 people like you in the big city). Crime is a problem of scale, and a bigger scale freaks people out even if the coefficients are the same.
Majority of murders are among people who know each other. You personal risk is all about who your partner is, who your friends are, how much aggressive your uncle is. A guy you never met that is just about to murder his wife has nothing to do with your personal risk.
It freaks out people who live elsewhere and all they know of cities is what they see on cable news, especially a certain channel.
> There’s a psychological reason (rational or not) people equate cities with violence
Maybe it's simply that it's repeated at them endlessly - a simple, effective tactic used by conservatives for decades.
I lived in NYC for 20 years, people who live there too long develop stockholm syndrome excusing the shit that goes on on a daily basis. Every new yorker experiences it given enough time.
The common saying is that when a 'transplant' moves and starts questioning the filfth, noise, qol issues and minor crime they are told to go back to Ohio.
I used to be that person , then I realized that living in an environment where you excuse this behavior as normal... is not normal.
So you can spread your message of "statistically safe" as much as you want but everyone knows that new yorkers put up with a different amount of s*t than most.
Lots of NYers love living there, obviously - they are willing to pay far more for the privilege (another objective fact). You dismissing their preferences is just one person's baseless speculation.
People are just reaching for possible straws. Do you have any factual basis to say that? We can make up anything and put the word 'might' or 'maybe' in front of them.
I've spent lots of time in NYC and other dense, major cities, and I think I've seen one crime ($20 stolen). The interstate highway is more threatening, with the aggressive drivers.
Really, go to NYC. Look at the millions of people walking around without a care, going about their days.
You are correct that if the average number of observers per crime is higher, that could indeed make a place feel comparatively more dangerous since the while the liklihood of being a victim is lower, the liklihood of seeing a victim is higher. However, I would posit that a lot more goes into feelings of safety and we haven't seen any data on how large this effect size might be.
Yes, agreed (of course). I'm not sure what that says about the original statement.
> The reality might be you're less likely to be murdered, but you might be way more likely to witness a crime. That matters.
First, it seems like we are really shifting the goalposts. Being victimized by crime is a lot different than witnessing it, though the latter isn't pleasant, of course.
How much does it matter? In a place that dense, you see a lot more of everything. For people there, it's a feature and not a bug. That's why people pay so much to live there.
Is witnessing a crime so bad? I suppose something traumatizing would be, but I think NYers are used to seeing 'everything, all the time', and they would not be traumatized by most crime. Murder? I think that would leave a mark, depending on what you saw, but that's very rare. Shoplifting? Public intoxication? A carjacking would be alarming, I suppose, speaking for myself.
You may be thinking of a median or mode, which can differ based on the shape of the distribution curve.
As less persecutions end up in convictions, and as accusations of bias can mean the end of a police officer career, there's also a more lax attitude from the police force.
Crime becomes less risky and more rewarding, what drives crime force recruitment up, the culture becomes more and more accepting, and petty criminals over time graduate to more serious crimes. Substance abuse, violence, it all just adds to the culture.
Soon you'll start noticing that there areas of the city where police presence is virtually inexistent, and the people who live on those places realize that involving the police could bring unpleasant consequences. Those liberated areas are for all practical purposes, outside the reach of the State.
Soon, murders start going unnoticed, fights against rival gangs lead to deaths, but unless the bodies are found, nobody is going to involve the police. People simply cease to exist and disappear, no records.
Politicians, prosecutors and police chiefs soon realize the political advantage of not digging too much into reality and promoting the lie that the official statistics, utterly corrupted by the incomplete data collection, are trustworthy and represent the reality.
Terminally political people and journalists, that are nowadays basically propaganda officers, start gaslighting everyone that dares to say otherwise. You can't feel safe in the subway, but you are either crazy or a simpleton if you don't believe NYC is one of the safest places in the world, look at the data!
But I also think it’s odd that you think NYC is underreporting murders and not going after serious crimes, when if you go into rural areas, you’ll find many that are a few Sheriffs stretched thin over hundreds of miles, and infinite more potential for “murders going unnoticed.”
https://magazine.atavist.com/outlaw-country-klamath-county-o...
Paints a picture
Averages, per-capita, even if we could trust the data, and we definitely can't because NY government is a cesspool of corruption means absolutely nothing, because every one who lives in the real world knows that violence is not uniformly distributed. You can lie to yourself as much as you want, it is your choice, but I've seen this movie before, that's how things start, and them there's a moment when even people like you can't deny it anymore, but it will only get there exactly because of folks like you that prefer to live in the bizarre illusion that being a member of your ideological bubble makes you a high status person.
People like you make me remember the old soviet joke when they get astounded with the faith Americans had in their media, because the soviets at least were able to recognize propaganda for what it is.
'Everyone knows' is a group of people repeating something to each other enough that they believe it must be true. Those are the things that most need skepticism, an objective factual basis. Look at your comment - there is no factual basis for any of the claims. Some is conspiracy - if they disagree, they are gaslighting, incompetent, etc.
Objective facts are our only salvation from our own delusions - which we're all subject to. There is factual basis to say that NYC is very safe, but it's not conclusive. That doesn't support baseless claims. If you have an alternative claim, there's not reason to believe it without factual support.
Almost everyone you're talking to here lives in the developed world, and it doesn't seem like they 'know' the same thing.
> You can't feel safe in the subway
You can, and many do. I do.
I would expect to see a mathematical argument as to why the statistics are wrong, size of population skews the statistics, cool. How does that work and why has it made New York seem safer when you contend it isn't!?
There are different kinds of crime than murder - ok, show the stats as to why people suffer more from other crime in New York than the rest of the country!
You're more likely to see a crime in New York than in other places with more crime because there are more people, ok sounds like a cool statistical "paradox", show your work. This is HN and all that stuff!
I mean it is just a weird little discussion here, reminds me of twitter, although with more text and admittedly more grammatical correctness.
And while subjective experience is important, it’s hard to argue with a position someone didn’t logic themselves into.
I live in Chicago and it’s much the same. I hear about carjackings and muggings and all sorts yet the one thing I see and experience nearly every single time I leave the house is being nearly run over by some impatient wanker in a car. I don’t feel that other stuff because I yanked the IV drip of fear-news-weather garbage media out of my arm and that’s really the only thing feeding this crap to people.
Most big cities are the safest they have been in history. Someone wants people to feel otherwise. I wonder why.
What is that based on? Is there a survey? When I've been in NYC, people seem to feel very safe and relaxed, 24/7 (of course, in the city that never sleeps).
Another thing might be that it feels unsafe due to social isolation maybe, for people who are actually there, but that is just a supposition.
I think it's reasonable that they feel it's less safe. I often feel things that I know do not exactly correspond to statistical reality, one should just try to be aware of where the feelings slightly diverge and not go arguing that what one feels is objective reality.
That image is incredibly outdated and has become an increasingly tired cliche.
This applies equally to the outer boroughs. Poorer neighborhoods (in any borough) are scrappier, of course, than the rich areas. But they're just as full of life and vibrancy.
I really take your point on the media projection. It's relentless. And it really keeps an outdated image alive, especially in the minds of people who don't live here and can't directly contrast with their own eyes.
I agree, but I'm not that old and that's the image of New York City I grew up with because it was then true.
It takes more than a generation to overcome that kind of impression. I'm pretty confident that if you asked New Yorkers my parents' age what the South is like you'd get a lot of answers that were unpleasantly accurate in 1965. This is particularly true when a lot of political polarization is based on region and urbanization.
I think there is an important distinction to make here. Crime is unlikely to affect most people, but that doesn't mean that an increase should be tolerated. In fact, it should be alerting to the people and authorities to reverse course as much as possible.
Of course that doesn't mean that NYC is unsafe to visit. It's reasonably safe. Bogota is also not unsafe to visit. It's kinda safe though and requires extra precautions.
> Someone wants people to feel otherwise. I wonder why.
There is an ongoing campaign to show Western cities as collapsing/decaying. There is also another ongoing campaign to show that China is collapsing any minute now. Welcome to the new cold war.
The campaign about Western cities is not from China, but from Western conservatives. Look at Trump and the GOP (and now the Democrat governor of NY!) repeatedly calling for the national guard or military to be sent into cities.
If you don't collect some numbers that skews your data away from the truth. If you collect false numbers (many ways to do that) it also skews your data. If you collect numbers but then exclude them in some way that skews results. Thus the first question needs do be do we even have correct valid numbers to work with. If the source data is wrong in anyway then no amount of statistics can correct for that (statistics can correct for sample bias in some situations, but that is different from completely missing or intentionally wrong data by someone who knows how to fool that correction).
Once we have accurate data, then there are a lot of ways to lie with statistics. Is shoplifting a "serious crime" - different people will have different answers. There are many ways to slice up the data we have and if you want to get any particular result you will slice in many different ways until you find a result you like and then work the questions backward to make it seem like they were correct. I'm sure someone better trained in statistics can come up with other ways to make the data show whatever they want.
One set is reported (to the police) crime. This is fairly concrete but is affected by people, for example, deciding not to report petty theft because they don't believe it will be investigated.
The second set is a survey of personal victimhood. The British Crime Survey, for example, gets a representative sample of the population and asks questions like "Did you get burgled last year?". This is a smaller (so less sensitive) dataset than the first and misses crime without an individual victim, but has far fewer misincentive problems.
The third is surveys perceptions of crime, either personal or geographical. This is a much weaker measure for actual crime, but captures how people are feeling, and is useful for understanding whether, for example, people are afraid of certain places because of perceived criminality.
The first two correlate reasonably well, though not perfectly. My understanding is that the third is much more weakly associated, has a fairly lengthy time lag between crime changing and perceptions changing, and is affected by changes in political and news attention. Plus, in general, humans are not good at guessing about things they don't have experience of. You can do a similar exercise looking at people's perception of average incomes and they're way out.
In GP comment - sorry too late to edit.
https://www.city-journal.org/article/how-new-york-became-saf...
I'm not sure how the no-snitch culture lowers the crime rate; it would seem to lower the conviction rate.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-city-rankings/cities-wi...
In fact NYC is a very safe city. That it's inconvenient for you to believe that doesn't change the facts.
[1] https://nationalpolice.org/main/not-letting-cops-enforce-law...
Is it so hard to believe that your political aliance is just wrong on this? Would it really be such a terrible thing if, y'know, US cities were safe?
Here is yet another source from the U.S. Department of Justice [2]: "During the period from 2006 to 2010, 52% of all violent victimizations, or an annual average of 3,382,200 violent victimizations, were not reported to the police.".
Realistically speaking it is hard to measure unreported crimes given that by definition they are - after all - unreported. And yet the fact that some data is not collected or it is hard to collect, doesn't mean that the data doesn't exist.
> Is it so hard to believe that your political aliance is just wrong on this?
I could be asking you the same question, based on your stance.
[1] - https://www.csustan.edu/sites/default/files/groups/Universit...