Top NYPD brass unveiled the latest crime statistics on Thursday afternoon — and again expressed their ire over grappling both criminals and those who allow them to return to the streets continuing their crime spree.
NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell led a panel of top police officials at the NYPD headquarters to report on the year’s crime rate. There was some good news: Shooting incidents decreased by 24.2% in every patrol borough except Northern Queens, where the tally rose by two incidents in June 2022 compared with June 2021.
Murders also declined for the month by 31.6%. The same also went for hate crimes declining by 8%. The month saw 355 gun arrests, bringing the total number of citywide gun arrests in 2022 to 2,381 – a 4% increase compared with the 2,290 gun arrests through the first six months of 2021.
Yet property crimes were higher again in June — with robberies up 36.1%, burglaries jumping 33.8%, grand larcenies spiking by 41% and auto thefts up 25.9%. That resulted in a 31.1% increase in overall major index crime throughout the Five Boroughs for June.
And while Sewell expressed pride for the number of arrests made, she joined by fellow brass in lamenting the state of the justice system, including bail reform.
“We are arresting the same people over and over and we are not going to stop trying to put them in custody to face the consequences for those actions,” Sewell said. “I do think some of these points [criminal justice reform] are very well meaning but they need to be changed, some of them need to be tweaked.”
Chief of Department Kenneth Corey drove home the numbers that 25% of people arrested for burglary are re-arrested for another felony within 60 days. He also spoke to the fact that a staggering 80% of the people who are arrested with an illegal gun are back out on the street.
The year 2022 is also seeing a 27-year high of gun arrests, consisting primarily of repeat offenders.
One other member of the brass pointed the judges and suggested they step up efforts to keep violent offenders locked up.
“There’s another side to this too, that’s the judges also. The judges can set a bail and a bail is asked for and that person gets released without a bail,” Chief of Crime Control Strategies Michael LiPetri said. “I am just stating a fact because I want you to know how much it means to us to have that conversation.”
Although Sewell reinforced that the city’s district attorneys are their partners in this matter, amNewYork Metro asked if she believed law enforcement has been impacted negatively since they are arresting the same individuals on a repeated basis.
“The NYPD take great pride in what they do, and they are out there every single day even though they are arresting the same people over and over again,” Commissioner Sewell told amNewYork Metro. “I’m proud of them.”
Chief LiPetri added that a revolving door justice system only emboldens those who do the city harm.
“But it emboldens the criminal and when you see we are taking the guns off the street, they are, the vast majority, crew members, previously convicted felons, or people who have open felony–guess what? The crew members are back with them the next day,” LiPetri added.
Even so, advocates who support the bail reform laws enacted in 2020 have contended the rate of crime has nothing to do with recidivism.
A report that the city released in December 2021 found that 99% of the nearly 45,000 people awaiting a resolution on their case were not rearrested on a violent felony, and 96% were not rearrested at all.
Additionally, in April, Governor Kathy Hochul and the state legislature agreed to modest changes to the bail reform law, giving judges greater authority to hold individuals arrested for minor thefts or property damage offenses.
Despite setbacks such as 4th of July shootings and rising grand larceny, the NYPD say they refuse to give up any ground, even though they also alluded to political handcuffs keeping them from staving off repeat offenders.
With reporting by Robert Pozarycki
