How does the decline of lethal violence change the way New York thinks about government leadership?
For my entire lifetime, the central political issue in New York City has been crime, and even more specifically, the murder rate. In the New York City of my youth, the local evening news and the front pages of the Post and the Daily News were effectively a crime blotter, your daily dose of grisly crimes and ineffective politicians, vicious gangs and heroic cops. Worries about crime played a key role in everyday decisions, about whether to take the subway at night or whether it was okay to walk home from school alone.
Political scientists have shown clearly that the murder rate — not the local economy, not the quality of other local services — has been the measuring stick by which we judge the success and failure of politicians. The murder rate has historically played a role in New York City mayoral approval ratings, much like the unemployment rate or GDP growth have in determining presidential approval ratings.
Murders have also always led media coverage, particularly in New York City’s vibrant tabloids. If it bleeds, it leads. Books about New York City’s political history are often mostly discussions of murders, and the political ramifications of those murders.
High murder rates have destroyed the careers of some of the city’s most promising politicians, like David Dinkins. Falling murder rates have elevated extremely unlikely ones, like Rudy Giuliani. Even as the murder rate fell to historic lows, mayors who sought to change the subject to other issues, like Bill de Blasio, have seen their tenures partially defined by conflict with the police, as the specter of “the bad old days” hovered over everyone’s shoulders.
There’s a reason for this. The bad old days were really bad. New York City had more than 2,200 homicides in 1990. The rate fell dramatically in the 1990s and 2000s, making New York City one of the safest cities in the country. As Vital City’s essential annual look into crime statistics noted, all types of crime spiked during COVID, but, while other types of crime have been stubbornly persistent, murder rates have fallen dramatically since.
Last year, there were 309 murders in New York City, a decline of 20% from the prior year. This was close to the 2017’s 290, which was the fewest since the city started recording murder statistics.
In the first quarter of this year, murders were down another 28% year-on-year. That data is noisy, and the low numbers this year almost certainly have something to do with snowstorms and extreme cold, so this year’s huge decline may not stick. But the decline is enormous.
If the number of murders keeps declining at this year’s rates, New York City’s murder rate this year will be about 2.6 per 100,000 residents, a lot like we see in cities like Toronto (1.6) and Berlin (3.2). Crime remains an issue in these cities, of course, but worries about murder do not dominate their politics. Further, a large majority of New York City residents, whether they are transplants or the young, simply have no memory of an era with high murder rates. (They likely do remember the spike during COVID, but, as serious as that was, it was small potatoes when compared to the 1980s and ‘90s.) While some other types of crime are stubbornly persistent, the Bad Old Days of high murder rates are increasingly a ghost story told at night to a population that doesn’t remember and may not care.
The causes of the decline are only partially understood. Scholars have some clear findings, like that increases in the number of police officers generally reduce crime. But while theories abound, they don’t have clear answers for why we saw such a huge decline in the 1990s and 2000s (or why rates fell across the country, although at different rates). We similarly don’t have clear answers about why rates have come back down all over the country post-COVID. So there’s no guarantee this trend will continue.
Whatever the reason why murder has declined, it’s worth asking now what politics in New York City will look like if there are not many murders anymore. On some level, we don’t even have to ask. Mayor Mamdani’s election, according to many, would have been unthinkable if the murder rate was not so low. Would the city have taken a chance on an inexperienced left-wing upstart if people were very afraid of crime? Notably, a number of Mamdani’s rivals in the last election put fighting crime at the center of their appeals to voters, either affirmatively or as defenses against criticism. But, while Mamdani talked about crime, it was not a major part of his appeal to voters — childcare, free buses, rent freezes and tax hikes on corporations and the wealthy were. Further, if homicide continues to fall, it is likely that Mamdani’s own political prospects will be strong, regardless of what else happens with the budget and taxes.
So what would we talk about in a city if we stopped talking about the murder rate? The answers can be broken into the more narrow question of what crime politics will look like, and the broader question of what effect the decline in homicide talk will have on the rest of politics.
I think that, if homicide is truly defeated, city politics will be less consumed by fear and far more focused on the cost-effectiveness of government, an area in which New York City, despite its successes in reducing the murder rate, has long lagged.
Crime politics after murder
It would be wrong to think that homicide becoming less of an issue would be the end of public debate about crime. After all, murder isn’t the only crime, nor is prevention of murder the only thing the police do.
One area where we will see increased attention — indeed, one where we already have — is on the services police provide, without seeking to justify them in terms of their effect on the murder rate.
For instance, since the 1990s, we have had a debate over whether police should focus on arresting people for committing quality-of-life crimes. But that debate has largely been about whether “broken windows policing” reduces murder. (The empirical evidence has never been that strong, but debate continues.) In a city with few murders, that framing will be less important. But it will not end the arguments over whether police, perhaps now freed up from other tasks, should address problems ranging from public urination and littering to threats of violence and harassment on the subway. (Or, indeed, actual assaults, which remain stubbornly high.)
That is, our crime politics will be about whether it is good to arrest people and devote public resources to fighting disorder because people dislike disorder, rather than linking that debate to questions about murder. Rather than focusing on the terror of murder, the question in policing will increasingly be about providing a positive vision of public services and unthreatening public spaces.
Similarly, there is a long debate about the effect that clearance rates, or solving cases, has on murder rates. There's substantial evidence that the certainty of punishment is more important to reducing crime than the severity of punishments. Although it makes logical sense, linking this to the clearance rate is harder to do.
As murder falls, I suspect clearance rates will be thought of in moral, rather than consequential, terms. That is, in a world where there are fewer murders, police will be held to account for solving murders, not because doing so will deter crime, but because people will want the government to provide victims with answers in cases of serious crimes. And, in a world with fewer homicides, police will be in a better place to solve crime, as their efforts will be spread across fewer cases.
Notably, these arguments are about whether the social and economic benefits of order and justice are worth the tax price of police officers and prosecutors (and the social costs of arresting people).
One way to think about this is to ask whether voters will demand a “peace dividend,” cuts to police budgets and shifts of resources to other areas. The city surely has other needs, and, as the murder rate falls, some will put concerns about providing social services above demands for continued policing vigilance. Mayor Mamdani’s proposed Department of Community Safety is partially in this spirit.
On the other hand, defunding the police has never been popular, even in 2020-21. There are plenty of reasons why citizens will continue to want high levels of policing even as murder rates fall. Demand for public services like police and firefighting increase as property values increase, as they provide a kind of insurance for property. Providing public safety beyond murder prevention is important to economic development, as disorder and low-level crime reduces business investment. Rather than a “peace dividend,” citizens may demand the police and other city officials turn their attention to making public space more usable and making the city a more livable place.
Either way, in a city with a lower murder rate, crime politics will be fought out on very different grounds than it has been in living memory.
Local politics more broadly
The main effect of the decline of murder on city politics will probably be to make crime less important to local politics, and to elevate other issues. Indeed, as Mayor Mamdani’s election shows, issues of affordability and redistribution will have more space in a world where murder takes up less attention. More generally, the central question is likely to be about whether the extraordinarily high prices New York City residents pay in taxes and rent are worth it.
Mayor Mamdani’s affordability politics are a perfect fit for a post-murder era. Telling voters you’ll spend scarce tax revenue on free buses or government-subsidized grocery stores is only plausible in a world where higher order concerns about safety have abated somewhat. Whether or not you think these are good ideas, they are responses to the demands of voters less concerned about the murder rate. The fundamental pitch is not about avoiding the criminal downsides of urbanity, but about making it possible for more people to enjoy the upsides of living in the city.
The fights we are seeing over the City’s budget also have a post-murder feel to them. New York City has long had an extraordinarily high “tax price” for services. New York pays more than any other large school district per student, but gets middling results The cost of running jails and prisons is much higher, and the quality again does not seem to be higher. Mayor Mamdani’s focus on “public excellence,” or improving the quality of services for a given tax price, is an effort to justify New York City’s high taxes (and the higher ones he’d like to see). Critics will argue for cuts to services, changes in union contracts or reforms to civil service rules to reduce costs.
Either way, the focus will be on trying to convince New Yorkers they are getting a good deal.
Mayor Mamdani’s embrace of YIMBYism is also a transition to a post-murder politics. At a rhetorical level, Mamdani has recognized that New York City can offer its residents (and potential newcomers) more value if it allows more housing construction to occur, slowing increases in rent. And he can afford more of his promises if population increases and economic growth surges. Critics of this move are very much playing on an older playing field, where fear — of change, of new neighbors — dominated politics.
There will be left-wing and more moderate and even conservative approaches to housing growth. But housing growth and prices almost certainly will increase in salience. If murder ceases to be a major concern, it will lead to increased demand for city living. This will increase demand for housing, creating growth but increasing prices. A falling murder rate will likely increase public support for YIMBY politics, as support for new building is associated with a positive affect towards cities as David Broockman, Chris Elemendorf and Josh Kalla have shown. It would be a healthy sign indeed if the housing growth rate replaced the murder rate as the key statistic in urban politics.
If the murder rate continues to fall, New York City politics will orient itself towards making urban living more affordable and a focus on the quality of services (and the tax price of those services) offered to city residents by its government. Or at least one can hope.
