# NYC murder up this year, union in fight with mayor blames mayor **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 5, 2015, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824 "2015-06-05T07:20:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/41 "2015-07-26T02:20:21Z")
Figured it is a reasonable amount of time to see how that alleged trend of crime rate, especially murders, being “up, way up” has progressed [since last checked](http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/crime_statistics/cs-en-us-city.pdf). A bad last week for murders but even so the last 28 day period has 3.2% fewer murders than the same 28 day period in 2014 and 18% fewer shooting victims. Year to date shooting victims is roughly the same to 2014 (under 2% difference, 728 to 716) and down over 24% over 5 years. Murders ytd down about 35% over 5 years. The major crimes all together are overall down over 6%. Who could have predicted? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/42 "2015-07-26T02:24:08Z")
Murders are up by 10% year over year though. But yes, I agree that with crime overall still dropping, it seems opportunistic for the police to be going after de Blasio. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/43 "2015-07-26T03:17:55Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Murders are up by 10% year over year though. But yes, I agree that with crime overall still dropping, it seems opportunistic for the police to be going after de Blasio. Replace police with **adaher** and you also have a true statement. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/44 "2015-07-26T03:50:20Z")
Well, crime in NYC has skyrocketed if you consider people being illegally picked up by Uber to be a “crime”. De Blasio sure did.🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/45 "2015-07-27T18:05:01Z")
So lets look at the [numbers](http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/murders-20-2015-year-to-year-comparison-nypd-article-1.2134509) that went into the report. There were 54 murders this year as compared to 45 last year at this time. If we assume a Null hypothsis that the murder rate is unchanged and that the number of murders assumes a Poisson distribution then we find that there is about a 42% likelihood that we would see this degree of difference between one year and the next. The shooting come a little closer, with 149 vs 126, having a 18.4% chance of occurring just due to random variation. But both of these actually probably over estimate the significance since murders can come in clusters increasing the variance and making it more likely that there is a large change from year to year. It also doesn’t take into account the possibility of cherry picking of data, other factors that might lead to an increase, regression to the mean after a trend of decreasing murder rates, etc. Still, it’s clearly much ado about nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/46 "2015-07-27T20:41:32Z")
The murder rate in St. Louis is the [highest since 1995](http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/growing-body-count-turns-crime-focus-to-st-louis-city/article_630affc0-09f4-55a6-b5cb-e81e7d3b2dba.html). But St. Louis is not New York is not Houston is not Chicago is not San Francisco et al. If someone can show what one thing all those cities had in common that changed in all of them, and was followed by an increase in the murder rate, and then explain why it affected just the murder rate and not necessarily the rates for other violent crimes, I’d be willing to listen. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/47 "2015-07-27T20:52:22Z")
Buck, You are using numbers from the first two months of the year only, which provoked the breathless conclusions of a trend of up way up (!). The link I provided gives through the week of July 13 to 19, a bit more than half of the year. Not a great stats person myself but for murders it is 186 to 169 and for shooting victims 728 to 716. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/48 "2015-07-27T21:02:45Z")
Thanks for the updated numbers. I was trying to counter the up way up argument directly. Your numbers make my point even more strongly. For murders the probability of getting such a difference or greater by chance is 39.6%, for shootings its 77.2%. Basically these differences are pure noise. (For all you stat junkies out there, the p-values reported are two sided, based on a binomial distribution with p=0.5, which is the same as joint distribution of two Poissons conditioned on the number of murders observed.) ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/49 "2015-07-29T04:38:04Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Murders are up by 10% year over year though. and really, what’s 10% among friends. It’s just a number. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2017, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/50 "2017-12-28T01:20:21Z")
A _very belated bump_ to further put the comment of the op into rear view mirror context. Yes, again, [who could have predicted?](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/27/nyregion/new-york-city-crime-2017.html?_r=0) > [@](#): > > … It would have seemed unbelievable in 1990, when there were 2,245 killings in New York City, but as of this week there have been just 285 in the city this year — the lowest since reliable records have been kept. > > In fact, crime has fallen in New York City in each of the major felony categories — murder and manslaughter, rape, assault, robbery, burglary, grand larceny, and car thefts — to a total of 94,806 as of Sunday, well below the previous record low of 101,716 set last year. > > If the trend holds just a few more days, this year’s homicide total will be under the city’s previous low of 333 in 2014, and crime will have declined for 27 straight years, to levels that police officials have said are the lowest since the 1950s. The numbers, when taken together, portray a city of 8.5 million people growing safer even as the police, under Mayor Bill de Blasio, use less deadly force, make fewer arrests and scale back controversial practices like stopping and frisking thousands of people on the streets. … ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2017, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/51 "2017-12-28T09:13:05Z")
A rule of thumb is that, for social trends, you should consider at least five years of statistics. When things are changing in society (including crime), it’s rare that the change will be consistently up or down from one year to the next. When you look at a graph of any social phenomenon, it’s unlikely that it will be a consistently upward or downward line. It’s more likely to be a jagged line. It will be necessary to look at five to ten years of statistics to be able to tell what the trend is. There are mathematical methods which allow you to say more precisely how significant an upward or downward movement over a shorter period is, but if you don’t want to have to do the math, you can just use this rule of thumb. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2017, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/52 "2017-12-28T11:57:12Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The crime rate is now way up: > > [Public Outcry Directed At Mayor De Blasio As NYC Murder Rate Shoots Up - CBS New York](http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2015/06/02/nyc-crime-rate-nyc-murder-rate-mayor-bill-de-blasio-nypd/) > > Who could have predicted? You got actual **numbers** , rather than percentages? Because in percentage terms, time series of small numbers bounce around like a major-league knuckleball in a fair breeze. A change from one year to the next is often both large in percentage terms, and meaningless by any non-P.R. measure. ETA: And what **Wendell** said. ETA2: Cripes, a bump of an ancient thread. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2017, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/53 "2017-12-28T13:37:38Z")
As long as we’re bumping… [“Crime in New York City Plunges to a Level Not Seen Since the 1950s”](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/27/nyregion/new-york-city-crime-2017.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0) > [@](#): > > It would have seemed unbelievable in 1990, when there were 2,245 killings in New York City, but as of Wednesday there have been just 286 in the city this year — the lowest since reliable records have been kept. > > In fact, crime has fallen in New York City in each of the major felony categories — murder and manslaughter, rape, assault, robbery, burglary, grand larceny, and car thefts — to a total of 94,806 as of Sunday, well below the previous record low of 101,716 set last year. > > If the trend holds just a few more days, this year’s homicide total will be under the city’s previous low of 333 in 2014, and crime will have declined for 27 straight years, to levels that police officials have said are the lowest since the 1950s. … It’s still a lot of crime, but there are a lot of people crammed into a small space, too. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2017, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/54 "2017-12-28T13:40:13Z")
Other context: [murders are increasing in a number of U.S. cities](https://qz.com/1086403/fbi-crime-statistics-us-murders-were-up-in-2016-and-chicago-had-a-lot-to-do-with-it/) (I’m proud to announce that Columbus, Ohio [just set a new record](http://www.dispatch.com/news/20171226/columbus-breaks-homicide-record-with-140-lives-cut-short-so-far-this-year)\*). \*It’s DeBlasio’s fault. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2017, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/55 "2017-12-28T15:15:44Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > A _very belated bump_ to further put the comment of the op into rear view mirror context. > > Yes, again, [who could have predicted?](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/27/nyregion/new-york-city-crime-2017.html?_r=0) Thank you president Trump! MAGA!!! Or maybe they figured out how to police communities without acting like criminality is color coded. Seriously, as much as I hate De Blasio, stop & frisk basically expanded reasonable suspicion to include young black and Hispanic males. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2017, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824/56 "2017-12-28T15:17:19Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Other context: [murders are increasing in a number of U.S. cities](https://qz.com/1086403/fbi-crime-statistics-us-murders-were-up-in-2016-and-chicago-had-a-lot-to-do-with-it/) (I’m proud to announce that Columbus, Ohio [just set a new record](http://www.dispatch.com/news/20171226/columbus-breaks-homicide-record-with-140-lives-cut-short-so-far-this-year)\*). > > \*It’s DeBlasio’s fault. Thank you President Trump! MAGA!!! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyc-murder-up-this-year-union-in-fight-with-mayor-blames-mayor/721824.md?page=2)