Crime in New York City has exploded this year. The last time the Big Apple saw more theft rotting its core, Frank Sinatra was still alive. After a surge in shootings over the previous two years, murders have somehow subsided. Instead, nearly all other forms of crime have mushroomed. The city’s police department, the NYPD, has been arresting people at numbers not seen for decades, but with limited effect—the criminals are often quickly back on the street.
In what appears to be a new trend, street crime has become more brazen and systematic.
Just as in many other major cities across the country, New York City is scourged by unscrupulous shoplifters who fill up their bags with merchandise and walk out of the store in plain view. Petty theft is up some 43 percent so far this year with over 82,000 reported incidents. That’s the most since at least 1995, according to the NYPD crime data portal, CompStat.
Grand theft, which usually refers to pickpocketing or theft of over $1,000 in value, went up more than 44 percent with over 36,000 incidents—the most since 1998. Read more…
