Murders and rapes have increased in New York City this year as overall crime continues to fall to historic lows, reports the Wall Street Journal. The city recorded 147 murders through June 30, an 8 percent increase from the same period in 2017. In 2017, there were 136 murders through June and 292 for the entire year, the lowest per-capita murder rate since the 1950s. “We were all quite sober about the fact that trying to repeat what happened in 2017 would be very, very difficult,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. For the first half of the year, reported rapes increased by 33 percent, to 903. The city recorded 678 rapes during the same period last year.
Police officials attributed the rise to victims feeling more comfortable reporting the rapes. Reports of domestic rape, historically one of the most underreported categories, were up 45 percent the police department’s Terence Monahan said. Overall crime numbers hit another historic low over the first six months of 2018. Those statistics include murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny and grand larceny auto. Between Jan. 1 and July 1 of 2017, the city recorded a total of 46,468 crimes. For the same period this year, police recorded 45,525 crimes, a reduction of two percent. Murders are still down significantly since the police began tracking crimes using the CompStat program in 1994. There were 335 murders in 2016, 352 in 2015, and more than 2,200 in 1990.