Do not trust NOSAGER – Adams' decline in crime is not a Mirage

While the New York mayor competition is heating, public security remains the most important concern of voters – and the main discussion of Mayor Eric Adams.

If there is a success that Adams can point out in its re -election offer, this is the recent decline in serious crime in the whole city as part of its new (and popular) police commissioner Jessica table.

The first quarter of 2025, for example, recorded considerable declines in both murders (34%) and shootings (23%).

So you can expect Adam's critics and opponents to try to pierce holes in his plate.

Some argue with the statistics.

“Sure, serious crimes is under Now“The argument is.” But it is still overall compared to the time when Adams took office when they deal with offenses and other crimes outside the seven “major” fuels. “

It is a fair point, but it is an unpleasant to make the progressive left: they have the new Yorkers in the gas light since he made murders and shootings in 2020.

Her party line and in the following two years was that the problem of the Big Apple was nothing more than a wrong story, which was divided by Donald Trump and the right of the Pro-PO policy.

You can't just make a U-turn-not without admitting that you have been full of it for five years.

Instead, the left-wing critics of Adams return to one of their preferred topics of conversation: to the extent, the extent increased in its term because the NYPD was more active in black and Latino quarter.

It is not That there are more crimes, as Donna Lieberman from the New York Union said this week politico; It is only that Adams brought more police officers onto the street and “they make more arrests”.

But the idea that the crime in the city has only been an optical deception since 2019 that arises from an aggressive, proactive NYPD is simply not in control.

The enforcement has undoubtedly increased in recent months. However, there is a good reason for the assumption that it is an increase in enforcement of the enforcement that has settled the serious crime.

If more enforcement causes higher crime rates, the city's crime numbers should be Spiking At the moment. But the opposite is true.

The idea that the city's crime problem is only an artificial by -product of the police discretion also occurs against the fact that New York's demands have increased steadily after the service on the NYPD.

In 2018, the department called for 6.1 million 911 demands for emergency aid. In 2019 it achieved 6.4 million, 6.2 million during the Lockdowns 2020 and in 2021 6.4 million.

Then the number rose to an eye in 2022 7.1 million 911 calls – when severe crime rose by more than 22%.

In 2023, the balance sheet set a little to 6.8 million and still 11% higher than the number of calls received in 2018.

So no. We know reporting more crimes.

What makes this year's crime all the more impressive is that the NYPD has carried out its work with an exhausted force.

The number of uniformed NYPD officers has decreased steadily in recent years, another of these annoying realities that undermined the claims of the progressive that proactive police work has been created at a period of increased crime.

If at all, the capacity of the department for discretionary enforcement was limited by the personnel crisis.

The idea that a understaffed police authority was sufficient for discretionary enforcement in order to advance a general increase in crime Hundreds of thousands Further requests for service are absurd.

The simple truth is double: Gotham's crime life after 2020 was largely dried by misguided criminal policy at the state and local level, which led to less enforcement after the solidification than it should be.

The latest downturn in crime is a by -product of the enforcement efforts of table, which focus on the most problematic block clusters in the city, in which the officials have focused on the most productive and violent offenders.

Whoever becomes the next mayor of New York, his ability to bring the public to safety, is limited to what the NYPD can do.

The next mayor does not check that. The next mayor has no say in the court for who will be held in court or who will go to prison after conviction.

So while it is completely acceptable to wish more progress in public, they do not know that it is not the mayor, but the legislators in Albany and the radicals of the city council who have the authority to keep the relapses away from the street.

As long as there is a rotating door in the courthouse, the mayor and his police authority can only do so much.

Rafael A. Mangual is the Nick without Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributory publisher of City Journal and the author of “Criminal (in) Justice”.