In 2012, there were 451,142 crimes reported in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, including 686 murders. In 2014, 409,386 crimes were reported in the state, including 616 murders. This number further decreased in 2019, in which 335,736 crimes were reported, with 558 cases of murder. Throughout 2010-2019, violent crime dropped by 8.0%, and property crime dropped by -29.0%.

Crime in Yonkers

In 2000 ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' reported that there were at least 30

street gangs A gang is a group or society of associates, friends, or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collecti ...

operating in

Yonkers Yonkers () is the List of municipalities in New York, third-most populous city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and the most-populous City (New York), city in Westchester County, New York, Westchester County. A centrally locate ...

. Mexican immigrants have contributed to the rise of Mexican gangs in Yonkers. The largest Mexican gangs operating in Yonkers in 2000 were

Chicano Nation Chicano (masculine form) or Chicana (feminine form) is an ethnic identity for Mexican Americans that emerged from the Chicano Movement. In the 1960s, ''Chicano'' was widely reclaimed among Hispanics in the building of a movement toward politic ...

, Aztec Pride,

Vatos Locos Vatos Locos is a Chicano slang term that means "crazy Dudes". It is also used as the name of multiple small gangs around the USA, Canada and Mexico. Many "Vatos Locos" use the colors red, black, green, or brown. The film ''Blood In Blood Out ...

and 13 Locos. A district attorney for

Westchester County Westchester County is a county located in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of New York, bordering the Long Island Sound and the Byram River to its east and the Hudson River on its west. The county is the seventh most populous cou ...

attributed the high levels of gang activity to strict law enforcement practices within the city limits of

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. Gang units collected intelligence on gangs by photographing gang tags and passing the data on to graffiti cleanup crews. 22 gang members were charged with narcotics and firearms offenses in 2012 in three federal

indictments An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a legal person, person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offense is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use that concept often use th ...

in the

United States District Court for the Southern District of New York The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (in case citations, S.D.N.Y.) is a federal trial court whose geographic jurisdiction encompasses eight counties of the State of New York. Two of these are in New York Ci ...

. ''United States v. Mark David et al'' charged the gang with intent to distribute

crack cocaine Crack cocaine, commonly known simply as crack, and also known as rock, is a free base form of the stimulant cocaine that can be Smoking, smoked. Crack offers a short, intense Euphoria (emotion), high to smokers. The ''Manual of Adolescent Sub ...

and

marijuana Cannabis (), commonly known as marijuana (), weed, pot, and ganja, List of slang names for cannabis, among other names, is a non-chemically uniform psychoactive drug from the ''Cannabis'' plant. Native to Central or South Asia, cannabis has ...

, and firearms charges related to that offense. In 2016 the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a United States federal executive departments, federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of Law of the Unite ...

announced that Da'quan Johnson had been sentenced to 30 years for murder, racketeering and narcotics crimes that he committed as a member of street gang based in Yonkers.

Gang violence A gang is a group or society of associates, friends, or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collecti ...

was the source of over half the shootings in Yonkers in 2020. Shootings were up 60% in 2020 compared with the previous year, and gang related shootings were up 30%. Mayor

Mike Spano Michael Joseph Spano (born April 22, 1964) is an American politician who is the 42nd mayor of Yonkers, New York. He is a member of the Democratic Party. A former Republican, he served as a member of the New York State Assembly. Biography Bor ...

and the

Yonkers Police Department Yonkers () is the third-most populous city in the U.S. state of New York and the most-populous city in Westchester County. A centrally located municipality within the New York metropolitan area, Yonkers had a population of 211,569 at the 20 ...

announced that the rise of gang violence would be met with increased surveillance, law enforcement and collaboration with federal officials.

Crime in New York City

Crime rates in

spiked over the

post-war A post-war or postwar period is the interval immediately following the end of a war. The term usually refers to a varying period of time after World War II, which ended in 1945. A post-war period can become an interwar period or interbellum, ...

period as the city experienced

white flight The white flight, also known as white exodus, is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the Racism ...

. The highest crime totals were recorded in the late 1980s and early 1990s as the

crack epidemic The crack epidemic was a surge of crack cocaine use in major cities across the United States throughout the entirety of the 1980s and the early 1990s. This resulted in several social consequences, such as increasing crime and violence in Americ ...

surged, and then dropped through the 1990s and 2000s. During the 1990s, the

New York City Police Department The City of New York Police Department, also referred to as New York City Police Department (NYPD), is the primary law enforcement agency within New York City. Established on May 23, 1845, the NYPD is the largest, and one of the oldest, munic ...

(NYPD) adopted

CompStat CompStat (also written COMPSTAT) is a police management system created by the New York City Police Department in 1994 with assistance from the New York City Police Foundation. Today, variations of the system are used in police departments worldwid ...

, broken windows policing, and other strategies in a major effort to reduce crime. The city's dramatic drop in crime has been variously attributed to a number of factors, including the end of the crack epidemic, the increased incarceration rate,

gentrification Gentrification is the process whereby the character of a neighborhood changes through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents (the "gentry") and investment. There is no agreed-upon definition of gentrification. In public discourse, it has ...

, an aging population, and the decline of lead poisoning in children. The boroughs of

Queens Queens is the largest by area of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is bordered by the ...

and

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is the southernmost of the boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County and situated at the southernmost point of New York (state), New York. The borough is separated from the ad ...

have historically had lower crime rates compared to

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

The Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

and

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

. Since 1985, the Bronx has consistently had the highest murder and violent crime rate among the five boroughs. Since 2017, murders in the city have increased bucking the trend. Murders in New York City surged in 2020 by 47% to 468 from 319 the year prior, one of the most significant increases in the city's history, but still lower than any year between 1960 and 2011. There were 488 murders in 2021, the highest total since 2011.

Policing

In 2008, the state of New York had 514 state and local law enforcement agencies. Those agencies employed a total of 95,105 staff. Of the total staff, 66,472 were sworn officers (defined as those with general arrest powers). In 2008, New York had 341 police officers per 100,000 residents.

Capital punishment laws

Capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender b ...

is not applied in this state., but in the past it was. The last execution took place in 1963, when Eddie Mays was electrocuted at

Sing Sing Sing Sing Correctional Facility is a maximum-security prison for men operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in the village of Ossining (village), New York, Ossining, New York, United States. It is abou ...

Prison. The state was the first to adopt the

electric chair The electric chair is a specialized device used for capital punishment through electrocution. The condemned is strapped to a custom wooden chair and electrocuted via electrodes attached to the head and leg. Alfred P. Southwick, a Buffalo, New Yo ...

as a method of execution, which replaced hanging. Following the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

's ruling declaring existing capital punishment statutes unconstitutional in ''

Furman v. Georgia ''Furman v. Georgia'', 408 U.S. 238 (1972), was a landmark criminal case in which the United States Supreme Court decided that arbitrary and inconsistent imposition of the death penalty violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, and const ...

'' (1972), New York was without a death penalty until 1995, when then-

Governor A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...

George Pataki George Elmer Pataki (; born June 24, 1945) is an American politician who served as the 53rd governor of New York from 1995 to 2006. He previously served in the State Legislature from 1985 to 1994, and as the mayor of Peekskill from 1981 to 1984 ...

signed a new statute into law, which provided for

execution Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in ...

lethal injection Lethal injection is the practice of injecting one or more drugs into a person (typically a barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium) for the express purpose of causing death. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but t ...

. In June 2004, the state's

highest court In most legal jurisdictions, a supreme court, also known as a court of last resort, apex court, high (or final) court of appeal, and court of final appeal, is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

ruled in '' People v. LaValle'' that the state's death penalty statute violated the state constitution.

Human trafficking

New York has one of the highest rates of human trafficking in the country, partially due to its large immigrant population and status as a major port of entry. According to a 2011 Department of State report, New York, together with California, Texas, and Oklahoma, has the largest concentrations of survivors of human trafficking. (archived fro
the original
on 2007-08-30)

References

{{CrimeUS