Less Murder, More Rape
Crime statistics for the seven major felony offenses regarded as a bellwether in gauging public safety are now available for NYPD’s First Precinct, covering the full year of 2022. The command—which covers Lower Manhattan, south of the Brooklyn Bride and City Hall, along with the area west of Broadway, up to Houston Street—logged no murders, 21 rapes, 134 robberies, and 131 felony assaults. These were in addition to 255 burglaries, 1,221 grand larcenies, and 72 grand larcenies of a motor vehicle.
These metrics represent fluctuations from the prior calendar year, when the First Precinct experienced two murders, 15 rapes, 135 robberies, and 121 felony assaults. During 2021, the First Precinct also cataloged 191 burglaries, 848 grand larcenies, and 68 grand larcenies of an automobile.
Those deviations mean that Lower Manhattan saw two fewer murders and six additional rapes between 2020 and 2021, while there was one less robbery, but ten more felony assaults. Other large jumps in year-to-year comparisons registered in burglaries (which increased by 33 percent) and grand larcenies (which rose by 44 percent). Grand larcenies involving a motor vehicle barely budged, increasing six percent.
For historical context, in the year 1990, the First Precinct saw sharply higher rates of crime in nearly every category than in recent decades. In the year that Margot Robbie was born and the Human Genome Project was started, Lower Manhattan clocked eight murders, 13 rapes, 1,281 robberies, 350 felony assaults, 1,486 burglaries, 5,554 grand larcenies, and 1,191 grand larcenies of a motor vehicle. These statistics are all the more remarkable in view of the fact that Downtown’s population in 1990 was a fraction of its current level.