Murders in New York City Reach Historic Lows Without Use of the Death Penalty

Homicide fig­ures for New York City show that the num­ber of mur­ders in 2005 may fall below 500, a fig­ure that would be the fewest since 1961 and would bring the city’s mur­der rate below the rate for the nation as a whole. So far this year, ran­dom mur­ders and mur­ders com­mit­ted dur­ing rob­beries and bur­glar­ies have also declined. Experts note that both declines appear to be large­ly attrib­ut­able to a greater police pres­ence, few­er guns, and the decrease in ran­dom vio­lence in the city that came with the wan­ing of the crack epi­dem­ic. In Manhattan, the annu­al num­ber of mur­ders recent­ly dipped below 100 for the first time since the 19^th cen­tu­ry. (New York Times, August 7, 2005). New York City’s steady mur­der-rate decline began after 1990, five years before the state restored the death penal­ty. The decline in mur­ders has con­tin­ued since the law was struck down as uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in 2004. See Deterrence.