New York City is a different beast depending on who you ask and, more importantly, when you ask them. If you’re standing on a street corner in Brownsville today, the reality feels a world away from the neon-soaked chaos of 42nd Street in 1990. People obsess over the data. They track murders in NYC by year like they’re checking the volatility of a tech stock. But numbers are slippery. A "downward trend" doesn’t mean much if your neighborhood is the one outlier where the sirens never stop.
I’ve spent years looking at how urban policy intersects with actual human lives. The data isn't just a spreadsheet. It’s a map of grief, policy failures, and occasionally, genuine miracles of social engineering.
To understand where we are, you have to look at the peak. 1990. That was the year the city almost broke. There were 2,245 murders. Think about that for a second. That is more than six people killed every single day, 365 days a year. The crack epidemic was tearing the social fabric apart at the seams. Fast forward to 2017, and that number plummeted to 292. It was the lowest since the 1950s. People called it the "New York Miracle." But then 2020 happened, and the world—and the city—shifted again.
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The Chaos of the 90s vs. The Modern Era
The 1990s started in blood. It’s hard for younger New Yorkers to grasp the sheer scale of the violence back then. It wasn't just "high crime." It was a constant, low-grade fever of anxiety that dictated where you walked, what train car you entered, and whether you made eye contact. When we talk about murders in NYC by year, 1990 is the grim benchmark.
Then came the "Broken Windows" theory. Rudy Giuliani and William Bratton stepped in with a philosophy that if you fix the small things—graffiti, turnstile jumping—the big things like murder would follow. Critics like Bernard Harcourt have since argued that the decline was part of a larger national trend and had less to do with aggressive policing than we thought. Honestly? It’s probably a bit of both. The city grew wealthier, the lead paint that messed with kids' brain development was phased out, and the crack trade stabilized or moved indoors.
By the time Bloomberg took over, the numbers were dropping consistently. We saw years like 2013 with 335 homicides, and 2014 with 333. It felt like the city had finally solved the puzzle. But the puzzle changed.
What Really Happened in 2020?
Everyone has a theory about the 2020 spike. The stats don't lie: murders jumped from 319 in 2019 to 468 in 2020. That is a nearly 47% increase in a single year. It was jarring.
Some blame the "Defund the Police" movement or the 2019 bail reform laws. Others point to the absolute social isolation caused by the pandemic. When you shut down schools, community centers, and jobs, you lose the "eyes on the street" that Jane Jacobs famously wrote about. Courts were closed. Illegal guns flooded the city because people felt they needed protection in an uncertain world.
It wasn't just NYC, though. Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles saw similar or worse spikes. This tells us that whatever happened was larger than just New York policy. It was a national psychic break.
Breaking Down the Recent Stats
- 2021: The violence stayed high, with 488 murders. The city felt on edge.
- 2022: A slight dip to 438. Better, but still not back to the pre-pandemic lows.
- 2023: A more significant drop to 386.
- 2024: The downward trend continued, hovering in the mid-300s.
Looking at the murders in NYC by year through the lens of 2025 and early 2026, we see a city trying to find its equilibrium. The NYPD’s CompStat data remains the gold standard for tracking this, but you have to read between the lines. A murder in the 75th Precinct in East New York is a different statistical animal than a random act of violence in the West Village.
The Geography of Violence
Murders aren't distributed evenly. This is the part people get wrong when they look at city-wide totals. You could live in the Upper East Side for fifty years and never hear a gunshot. Meanwhile, in parts of the Bronx or North Brooklyn, the stats are a daily reality.
In 2023, for instance, a huge chunk of the city's homicides were concentrated in just a handful of precincts. The "Safe City" narrative works for tourists, but it rings hollow in NYCHA housing complexes where gang rivalries—often fueled by social media "diss tracks"—lead to retaliatory shootings.
The nature of the violence has changed, too. It’s less about organized drug cartels and more about "beefs." Two kids get into an argument on Instagram Live, and by the end of the week, one of them is a statistic in the murders in NYC by year report. It’s impulsive. It’s tragic. And it’s incredibly hard to police with traditional methods.
The Role of Gun Policy and Bail Reform
You can't talk about NYC murder rates without getting into the political weeds. New York has some of the toughest gun laws in the country, yet the city is still flooded with "Iron Pipeline" firearms coming up I-95 from states with laxer rules.
Then there's the bail reform debate. It’s a lightning rod. Law enforcement unions often claim that "revolving door" justice keeps dangerous people on the street. However, studies from the Brennan Center and the Data Collaborative for Justice suggest that the link between bail reform and the murder spike is tenuous at best. Most people released under the new laws aren't going out and committing violent crimes. The reality is messy, and anyone giving you a simple "it's all the DA's fault" or "it's all the guns' fault" is probably selling something.
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Looking Forward: How the City Stays Safe
If we want to see the numbers return to those 2017 lows, the strategy has to be multi-faceted. It’s not just about more cops on subways. It’s about "violence interrupters"—community members who step in to de-escalate "beefs" before they turn deadly.
It’s also about mental health. A significant portion of the "random" violence that scares the public—the stuff that makes the front page of the Post—is committed by individuals falling through the cracks of a broken healthcare system.
The murders in NYC by year data will always fluctuate. Socio-economic shifts, migration patterns, and even the weather (violence always spikes in the summer heat) play a role. But the long-term trend, despite the 2020 hiccup, shows a city that is fundamentally safer than it was thirty years ago.
Actionable Steps for Understanding NYC Safety
If you want to look past the headlines and understand what's actually happening with crime in your area, don't just wait for the yearly roundup.
1. Use the CompStat 2.0 Portal.
The NYPD maintains a public-facing dashboard. You can filter by precinct, date, and crime type. If you’re moving to a new neighborhood or just curious, this is where the raw truth lives.
2. Follow Neighborhood Coordination Officers (NCOs).
Every precinct has NCOs. They are the bridge between the community and the police. Many have Twitter (X) accounts or hold monthly meetings. This is where you find out if a "spike" is a series of isolated incidents or a genuine trend.
3. Support Community Land Trusts and Youth Programs.
Data consistently shows that neighborhoods with high "collective efficacy"—where people know each other and have shared resources—have lower homicide rates. Investing in local parks and after-school programs isn't "soft" on crime; it’s a proven preventative measure.
4. Contextualize the Fear.
Remember that the media thrives on "if it bleeds, it leads." While one murder is too many, your statistical likelihood of being a victim of a violent crime in NYC is still significantly lower than in many smaller American cities like St. Louis or Baltimore.
The story of murders in NYC by year is really the story of the city itself: resilient, complicated, and always changing. We’ve come a long way from 2,245. The goal now is to make sure we don't let the progress of the last three decades slip through our fingers because of political infighting or social neglect.
Stay informed by checking the NYPD's year-end reports, which are usually released in the first week of January, providing the final, vetted tallies for the previous twelve months. Context is your best defense against fear.