The rise in crime in New York is affecting everyone’s lifestyle

I started writing a column on crime statistics. They’re still stubbornly bad, even though some ideologues are bizarrely celebrating the decline in murders and shootings “this year” by looking at snapshots of crime from week to week or month to month. The bottom line is that crime in New York City was 31% higher in 2022 than it was in 2019, before the criminal justice reform, and there were almost 55,000 more victims in 2022 than in 2019, including 30,000 victims. criminal offenses.

According to The Post, crime in New York is the highest in 15 years.

But our life is not lived in statistics. It is about the disorder that we feel around us.

Last week my wife and daughter went to Manhattan for dinner and a performance. They took the subway and walked down Eighth Avenue from 42nd Street to a restaurant on 46th Street. They arrived at the restaurant at 5:15 pm. They were inside a restaurant when a man was gunned down just two blocks away on 44th Street and Eighth Avenue. (Kill rates are up 33% since 2019.) They missed in minutes.

About two weeks earlier, my wife and her cousin went to Manhattan to have dinner at a restaurant on the Upper East Side, on 62nd Street. When they got to the restaurant, the front door was inaccessible because someone had tried to rob the restaurant earlier in the day, so they had to use the side entrance. (Burglary in New York City is up 45% since 2019.)

We later learned that our nephew was robbed that same night outside Pennsylvania Station on his way home from work. He reported this to the police, but no one was arrested. (Robbers in New York are up 29% since 2019.)

Last fall, my wife and I were walking down Lexington Avenue and 62nd Street when we saw a man picking up bouquets of flowers from a convenience store on the corner. He took three of them out of the water containers and walked calmly down Lexington Avenue without paying. The owner of the store came out, ran up to him and took the flowers, and the “alleged” thief calmly continued to walk down the street. I thought to myself, “Another unreported crime.” (Petty theft in New York City is reported to be up 28% since 2019.)

In December, I mailed a check to a mailbox about a block from my home in Queens, no less than in front of a church. A few weeks later, I discovered that someone had received the check, changed recipients, increased the amount to $2,000, and cashed it out. My wife and I went to our bank, reported it, closed the account and opened a new account. The bank staff told us that this is a common occurrence. Then I went to the 102nd police station and reported the theft. The police told us that this happens often. (Grand thefts are up 18% since 2019.)

We spent most of the day between the bank and the site. We had to change all of our automatic payments, direct deposits and Bill Pay to our new account. Just more annoyance in addition to anger at the thought that someone thinks they have the right to steal money from a stranger. As an added annoying insult, they wrote “Happy Holidays” on the fake check line.

Now we have changed our habits. We will no longer use this mailbox, or any other mailbox, even though this one was equipped with an anti-catch device. Now I drive half a mile to the post office to send even the simplest mail, a constant reminder of the theft. We are careful when we stand on the subway platform. I pick up my wife when she is late. We are much more careful when we walk on city streets, especially at night.

For us, these are “minor” lifestyle changes. But what about the hundreds of additional people killed since the 2019 “criminal justice reform”? Or thousands of people shot, wounded and wounded – physically and emotionally – for life? What about the tens of thousands of people who had their cars stolen, their homes invaded, or randomly assaulted on the street by strangers? Or their families and loved ones? Are they also victims?

If you listen to our progressive legislators, you might think that everything was cool. “We solve the problem of mass incarceration!” they shouted as they released 2,000 professional criminals from city jails in 2019. “We are building a kinder and gentler criminal justice system!” they boasted as 70-80% of misdeeds are closed after the disclosure reform.

In the meantime, they brought mass victimization to New York on a scale we haven’t seen in a decade and a half: this year, there were 55,000 more victims (mostly minorities) than before the 2019 reforms, and they created a completely dysfunctional system. criminal justice. Congratulations.

Jim Quinn was the Executive District Attorney for the Queens District Attorney’s office, where he served for 42 years.