New York City, often called the city that never sleeps, is waking up to a new reality: crime rates that have plummeted to historic lows across several major categories, even as a few troubling spikes persist. On September 2, 2025, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch and Mayor Eric Adams touted a milestone achievement—New York recorded the fewest shooting incidents and shooting victims in its modern history during the first eight months of the year. It’s a headline-grabbing turnaround that’s left city officials hopeful, residents cautiously optimistic, and critics watching for cracks in the surface.
From January to August 2025, the city saw 489 shooting incidents and 611 shooting victims—numbers that narrowly beat the previous all-time lows of 502 incidents and 612 victims set in 2018, according to NYPD data reported by multiple outlets including the Brooklyn Eagle and New York Post. That’s not just a statistical footnote; it’s a tangible sign that recent strategies might be hitting their mark.
Overall, major crime dropped by 6.7% in August 2025 compared to the same month last year, marking the seventh consecutive quarter of decline. The drops weren’t limited to shootings alone. Burglary fell nearly 19% from August 2024 and set a record low for the month. Retail theft plummeted 22% in August and was down 12% for the year so far. Robbery decreased by 8.2%, felony assault by 6.6%, and grand larceny by 4.2%. Subway crime—always a hot topic for New Yorkers—fell by more than 22% in August, making it the safest August on record for transit crime, excluding the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021.
Police Commissioner Tisch credited these gains to a multi-pronged approach. "Our focus has been on taking illegal guns off the streets, arresting violent gang members, and deploying our most valuable resource—the men and women of the NYPD—on foot posts where they are most needed, and the results are clear: Our strategy is working, and our cops are driving down crime," Tisch said in a statement widely reported by local media.
One key ingredient in the NYPD’s recipe for success has been its Summer Violence Reduction Plan, which placed more than 2,000 officers on nightly foot posts across 72 zones, according to NY1 and the New York Post. This boots-on-the-ground approach is credited with driving down crime not just in the subways but in neighborhoods that have historically seen higher rates of violence. The NYPD has also ramped up its recruitment efforts; nearly 1,100 recruits joined the force in August—the largest class since 2016—and the department is on pace to hire the greatest number of new officers in its history, with 2,911 recruits hired so far this year.
Mayor Eric Adams, locked in a tough reelection battle and facing pressure from Washington, was quick to praise the department’s results. "As August closed, we continued to break more records: shooting incidents and shooting victims for the first eight months of the year were at their lowest levels in recorded history, and crime in our subways in August was at the lowest in recorded history," Adams said. But he also cautioned, "Even with the tremendous steps we’ve taken in making our city safer, we know that one crime is still one crime too many, and a number of heartbreaking incidents remain at the forefront of people’s minds."
Indeed, the picture is not uniformly rosy. The city experienced a 33% increase in murders in August compared to the same month in 2024, a spike largely attributed to a series of deadly shooting sprees in the Bronx and Manhattan. One particularly harrowing incident was a gang-related shooting at a Bronx basketball tournament on August 23, which left one dead, a 17-year-old girl critically injured, and four others wounded. The 47th Precinct in the Bronx has seen a 50% increase in shootings so far this year, even as borough-wide shooting incidents fell from 224 to 186 over the first eight months of 2025 compared to the same period last year.
Rape reports also rose sharply, up 24% in August 2025—the highest number in at least six years. Police officials were quick to point out that this increase is partly due to changes in state law last year that expanded the definition of rape to include additional forms of sexual assault. "Many reported cases involved individuals known to each other," a department spokesperson noted, adding that the NYPD continues to encourage survivors of sexual assault to come forward and report incidents.
Despite these spikes, murders are still down nearly 20% year-to-date, with 209 so far in 2025 compared to 260 during the same period in 2024. That’s a far cry from the city’s dark days in 1990, when there were 2,262 murders, and even from 2001, when the number stood at 649.
Gang violence remains a stubborn challenge. In response to the Bronx’s surge, Mayor Adams announced that 1,000 additional cops would be sent to the borough and pledged renewed outreach to gang members and shooters. The NYPD has conducted a record-high 55 gang-related takedowns so far this year, arresting 396 gang members and associates. These efforts, combined with increased foot patrols and coordination with transit cops, have contributed to the broader decline in retail theft—a category that’s become a flashpoint for frustrated shoppers at pharmacies and big-box stores, where everyday items are increasingly locked behind glass.
Officials attribute the drop in retail theft to smarter policing and more visible officer presence. "We have attacked the retail theft trend by having more officers on foot patrol and by coordinating with transit cops, who catch shoplifters fleeing in the subway," one NYPD official explained, echoing the department’s focus on targeted, data-driven strategies.
Yet, as the city celebrates these hard-won gains, there’s an undercurrent of caution. Mayor Adams summed up the city’s mood best: "We see so much promise in New York City, and it is readily apparent that our public safety plan is working. We will continue to make adjustments as we see spikes, but thanks to the brave men and women of the NYPD, New York continues to be America’s safest big city."
Still, the numbers offer both hope and a reminder—progress is fragile, and public safety remains a work in progress. For New Yorkers, the challenge will be holding on to these historic gains while tackling the persistent problems that threaten to overshadow them.
