CM Morano on benchmarking NYC crime reductions against other cities

The crime is down in New York City, right?

Crime's declining in cities across America, right?

Baltimore is one particularly striking example.

I don't mention that to diminish the accomplishments of our police officers.

I want to identify what's working and amplify that.

Does the NYPD benchmark New York's crime reductions against comparable American cities?

And how are we doing when measured that way?

Which crime categories are improving faster than the national trend and which are improving more slowly?

Right.

So certainly in terms of the Comstat book and sort of the regular data that we're using, no, we're benchmarking it against New York City numbers, looking back, you know.

Year over year, five year, beginning of the Comstat era, right?

That's how sort of we think about the data.

I understand what you're asking about.

Basically what I'm trying to get is how you determine how much of New York's improvement is attributable to specific NYPD strategies.

Rather than broader national trends.

For instance, I've heard some, I'm not saying this is accurate, but I've heard some say that a more stringent deportation policy has resulted in a national crime reduction.

I'm not saying that's true, but I'm just wondering, how do we know what we're doing is working if crime is down in every major city?

Right, but so a few points on that.

I mean, one is...

And it's part of the challenge in doing this sort of analysis.

I understand what you're saying in terms of national trends, but of course, cities are different.

They present different challenges, right?

And New York City, I would say, in many ways is actually singular.

I think it's different than every other city in this country.

The other thing I just want to point out is, for example,

You know, you see like crime declines, you see murder declines across the country.

I know that's one, maybe that's what you're referring to.

In New York City, what's incredible about it, it's not just the crime decline, it's murders and shootings to historic lows.

In other words, it's one thing to say, okay, what percentage are murders declining in Baltimore or Chicago or New York City?

And that's interesting, relevant, but a separate question is, okay, where was Chicago starting and where was Baltimore starting?

Where is New York starting?

The fact that we have been able to get murders down to the lowest number or shootings to the lowest number ever in terms of Comstat history.

With all the national trends, that is an incredible accomplishment.