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PissingOffTheLeft@excite.com
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....But within the city's official crime statistics is a figure that
may be even more striking: so far, with roughly half the killings
analyzed, only 35 were found to be committed by strangers, a
microscopic statistic in a city of more than 8.2 million.
SO, COMRADES, IS THIS GOING TO HELP, OR HURT, THE EVIL, HORRIBLE RUDY?
If that trend holds up, fewer than 100 homicide victims in New York
City this year will have been strangers to their assailants. The vast
majority died in disputes with friends or acquaintances, with rival
drug gang members or -- to a far lesser degree -- with romantic
partners, spouses, parents and others.
The low number of killings by strangers belies the common imagery that
New Yorkers are vulnerable to arbitrary attacks on the streets, or die
in robberies that turn fatal.
In the eyes of some criminologists, the police will be hard pressed to
drive the killing rate much lower, since most killings occur now
within the four walls of an apartment or the confines of close
relationships.
"What are you going to do, send cops to every house?" said Peter K.
Manning, the Brooks professor of criminal justice at Northeastern
University in Boston.
"We know that historically, homicide is the least suppressible crime
by police action," he added. "It is, generally speaking, a private
crime, resulting from people who know one another and have
relationships that end up in death struggles at home or in semipublic
places."
Police officials did not dispute the validity of that assessment.
The homicide figure continues a remarkable slide since 1990, when New
York recorded its greatest number of killings in a single year, 2,245,
and when untold scores of the victims were killed in violence between
strangers.
Homicides began falling in the early 1990s, when Raymond W. Kelly
first served as police commissioner, and plummeted further under
subsequent commissioners. Mr. Kelly returned to serve under Mayor
Michael R. Bloomberg in 2002, the first year there were fewer than 600
homicides. There were 587 that year, down from 649 in the previous
year.
Nearly two decades ago, the city's crack-cocaine epidemic led to
headlines about gang wars, semiautomatic gunfire in schoolyards and a
police blotter that showed more than six homicides a day, on average.
This year, with 428 killings logged through Sunday -- 412 actual
killings plus 16 crime victims who have died this year from injuries
sustained long ago -- the average number of killings is a bit more than
one a day.
The numbers on file from before 1963 are not considered reliable for
comparison because until then, many homicides were not recorded until
an arrest was made and the case was closed, but ever since, they have
been recorded as they occurred. There were 390 homicides recorded in
1960, fewer than this year, but any comparison would be faulty.
The killings that have seized the headlines this year appear to have
personal motives at their core: An assistant has been charged with
killing her boss, Linda Stein, inside Ms. Stein's Fifth Avenue
penthouse after a vicious argument; a Queens orthodontist, Daniel
Malakov, was gunned down, and a relative of his estranged wife, whom
he was fighting in divorce and child custody proceedings, has been
charged.
In contrast to the 35 cases this year in which officials have found
that victim and assailant were strangers, there were 121 in the whole
of last year, officials said. The motives in the remainder of the
killings this year are still being analyzed.
The dropping homicide rate raises a question of whether other types of
crime are on the rise. But police statistics, which are subject to an
internal auditing system in use since the early 1990s, show dips in
six of the seven major crime categories, according to the department's
latest reports.
As of Sunday, overall crime was down 6.47 percent, compared to the
same period last year. In addition to the homicide rate, the number of
rapes, robberies, burglaries, grand larcenies and car thefts are all
on the decline.
Felony assaults have increased slightly, to 15,372 from 15,344, a 0.1
percent increase, according to the police statistics. Shootings, which
the department has tracked for 14 years, as well as the number wounded
in those shootings, are both down.
After years when crime fell across the nation, many cities in the
country are now experiencing a surge in homicides, said Thomas A.
Reppetto, a police historian who monitors the city crime numbers and
helped write "NYPD: A City and Its Police."
"You would expect New York to follow the national trend, but instead,
murders continue to go down considerably," Mr. Reppetto said.
"Not only has the N.Y.P.D. reduced murder, by nearly 80 percent, but
it has changed the pattern of homicides," he added. "In the early
1990s, many innocent citizens were killed by bullets from battling
drug gangs. Today, thanks to the police drive against the gangs, that
type of homicide is far less common."
It is extremely common around the nation to find in killings involving
acquaintances that those involved are not family members but criminals
or drug gang members, said David M. Kennedy, the director of the
Center for Crime Prevention and Control at the John Jay College of
Criminal Justice in Manhattan.
In the 412 killings this year, the number of people with previous
arrests for narcotics was striking: 196 victims and 149 assailants.
And 77 percent of the assailants had a previous arrest history, while
70 percent of the victims did, the statistics showed.
Killers and those killed are overwhelmingly male and most in both
categories are between 18 and 40, according to the police analysis. In
terms of race and ethnicity, whites make up 7 percent of victims and
assailants, while 66 percent of the victims and 61 percent of the
assailants are black and 26 percent of the victims and 31 percent of
the assailants are Hispanic.
When told about the low homicide numbers, Dr. Manning uttered a single
word: "Wow."
Mr. Kennedy said, "What this shows is that the N.Y.P.D. -- and whatever
else is going on in New York -- has managed to squeeze the problem of
active offenders against active offenders down to a remarkably,
historically low level."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/23/n...&ex=1196485200&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print
may be even more striking: so far, with roughly half the killings
analyzed, only 35 were found to be committed by strangers, a
microscopic statistic in a city of more than 8.2 million.
SO, COMRADES, IS THIS GOING TO HELP, OR HURT, THE EVIL, HORRIBLE RUDY?
If that trend holds up, fewer than 100 homicide victims in New York
City this year will have been strangers to their assailants. The vast
majority died in disputes with friends or acquaintances, with rival
drug gang members or -- to a far lesser degree -- with romantic
partners, spouses, parents and others.
The low number of killings by strangers belies the common imagery that
New Yorkers are vulnerable to arbitrary attacks on the streets, or die
in robberies that turn fatal.
In the eyes of some criminologists, the police will be hard pressed to
drive the killing rate much lower, since most killings occur now
within the four walls of an apartment or the confines of close
relationships.
"What are you going to do, send cops to every house?" said Peter K.
Manning, the Brooks professor of criminal justice at Northeastern
University in Boston.
"We know that historically, homicide is the least suppressible crime
by police action," he added. "It is, generally speaking, a private
crime, resulting from people who know one another and have
relationships that end up in death struggles at home or in semipublic
places."
Police officials did not dispute the validity of that assessment.
The homicide figure continues a remarkable slide since 1990, when New
York recorded its greatest number of killings in a single year, 2,245,
and when untold scores of the victims were killed in violence between
strangers.
Homicides began falling in the early 1990s, when Raymond W. Kelly
first served as police commissioner, and plummeted further under
subsequent commissioners. Mr. Kelly returned to serve under Mayor
Michael R. Bloomberg in 2002, the first year there were fewer than 600
homicides. There were 587 that year, down from 649 in the previous
year.
Nearly two decades ago, the city's crack-cocaine epidemic led to
headlines about gang wars, semiautomatic gunfire in schoolyards and a
police blotter that showed more than six homicides a day, on average.
This year, with 428 killings logged through Sunday -- 412 actual
killings plus 16 crime victims who have died this year from injuries
sustained long ago -- the average number of killings is a bit more than
one a day.
The numbers on file from before 1963 are not considered reliable for
comparison because until then, many homicides were not recorded until
an arrest was made and the case was closed, but ever since, they have
been recorded as they occurred. There were 390 homicides recorded in
1960, fewer than this year, but any comparison would be faulty.
The killings that have seized the headlines this year appear to have
personal motives at their core: An assistant has been charged with
killing her boss, Linda Stein, inside Ms. Stein's Fifth Avenue
penthouse after a vicious argument; a Queens orthodontist, Daniel
Malakov, was gunned down, and a relative of his estranged wife, whom
he was fighting in divorce and child custody proceedings, has been
charged.
In contrast to the 35 cases this year in which officials have found
that victim and assailant were strangers, there were 121 in the whole
of last year, officials said. The motives in the remainder of the
killings this year are still being analyzed.
The dropping homicide rate raises a question of whether other types of
crime are on the rise. But police statistics, which are subject to an
internal auditing system in use since the early 1990s, show dips in
six of the seven major crime categories, according to the department's
latest reports.
As of Sunday, overall crime was down 6.47 percent, compared to the
same period last year. In addition to the homicide rate, the number of
rapes, robberies, burglaries, grand larcenies and car thefts are all
on the decline.
Felony assaults have increased slightly, to 15,372 from 15,344, a 0.1
percent increase, according to the police statistics. Shootings, which
the department has tracked for 14 years, as well as the number wounded
in those shootings, are both down.
After years when crime fell across the nation, many cities in the
country are now experiencing a surge in homicides, said Thomas A.
Reppetto, a police historian who monitors the city crime numbers and
helped write "NYPD: A City and Its Police."
"You would expect New York to follow the national trend, but instead,
murders continue to go down considerably," Mr. Reppetto said.
"Not only has the N.Y.P.D. reduced murder, by nearly 80 percent, but
it has changed the pattern of homicides," he added. "In the early
1990s, many innocent citizens were killed by bullets from battling
drug gangs. Today, thanks to the police drive against the gangs, that
type of homicide is far less common."
It is extremely common around the nation to find in killings involving
acquaintances that those involved are not family members but criminals
or drug gang members, said David M. Kennedy, the director of the
Center for Crime Prevention and Control at the John Jay College of
Criminal Justice in Manhattan.
In the 412 killings this year, the number of people with previous
arrests for narcotics was striking: 196 victims and 149 assailants.
And 77 percent of the assailants had a previous arrest history, while
70 percent of the victims did, the statistics showed.
Killers and those killed are overwhelmingly male and most in both
categories are between 18 and 40, according to the police analysis. In
terms of race and ethnicity, whites make up 7 percent of victims and
assailants, while 66 percent of the victims and 61 percent of the
assailants are black and 26 percent of the victims and 31 percent of
the assailants are Hispanic.
When told about the low homicide numbers, Dr. Manning uttered a single
word: "Wow."
Mr. Kennedy said, "What this shows is that the N.Y.P.D. -- and whatever
else is going on in New York -- has managed to squeeze the problem of
active offenders against active offenders down to a remarkably,
historically low level."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/23/n...&ex=1196485200&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print
