Elections

Hillary And Trump Are Both Wrong About New York Murders

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Blake Neff Reporter
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Republican and Democratic presidential nominees Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton clashed over New York’s murder rate, but it turns out neither of them was totally right.

During a segment of the debate dealing with crime and racial justice, Clinton attempted to claim that New York City under Mayor Bill de Blasio has continued to see a drop in murders despite the abolition of stop-and-frisk policies that allowed police to conduct large numbers of stops for criminal searches.

“It’s fair to say, if we’re going to talk about mayors, that under the current mayor, crime is continued to drop, including murders,” Clinton said. But Trump quickly lashed out.

“You’re wrong,” he said. “Murders are up.”

But it turns out both of them are partly wrong and partly right.

Murders in New York City steadily declined from a peak in 1990 until bottoming out at 328 in 2014. But in 2015, the city’s murders lurched up by 7 percent, to 352 murders. So, for the most recent full year of statistics, Trump is correct.

But Clinton’s claims are backed up by New York’s 2016 incomplete crime statistics. While the year is not over, New York is on pace to be even more peaceful than in 2014, with a new per capita low for homicides. So, if Clinton is relying on the most recent information, she is correct that New York is still enjoying a long-term decline in crime.

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