Cincinnati Should “Heart” (and Demand) New York City’s Level of Safety

The City of Cincinnati ended 2005 with 79 murders, and racked up its first one in the new year before the noon church bells rang on January 1.

Here are some examples (from the first link) of lives snuffed out in the mayhem on city streets and in city neighborhoods:

A 23-year-old woman watching her child play in an inner-city park was killed when she was struck in the head by a bullet that police believe was intended for someone else.

A 16-year-old boy sitting in a parked car with friends was shot to death by someone on a bicycle in what family members called a turf war with youths from another neighborhood.

A 19-year-old woman was killed by a stray bullet in a melee outside a crowded party where, witnesses said, several teens had guns.

Meanwhile, New York City’s murder count was the lowest in 42 years, and down 75% in 15 years:

The crime rate in New York has dropped for the 17th consecutive year, with the fewest number of recorded murders in the city since 1963.

Over the past year, there have been 537 murders, down from 566 in 2004, and a peak of 2,245 in 1990. Rape, assault, burglary and car theft have all tumbled, with subway crime down by five per cent, according to New York Police Department statistics.

New York is now the safest big city in America, while other major cities, including Boston, Houston and Philadelphia, are witnessing soaring crime rates.

Vast areas of the city that were once no-go areas are now no-murder areas. In 2005, eight precincts recorded no murders, including Central Park, which was once infamous for night-time killings.

If New York’s murder rate on a population of 8.1 million was applied to Cincinnati’s estimated population of 310,000 (the last reported number was 314,154 in July of 2004, and the city lost over 4,000 in population in each of the last three reported years), Cincinnati would have had only 21 murders. If Cincinnati’s murder rate were applied to New York’s population, The Big Apple would have have had 2,064 murders, over 1,500 more than actually occurred.

So let’s face it. Cincinnati in 2006 is for all practical purposes as dangerous as New York was when Rudy Giuliani was first elected mayor. There are plenty of excuses, but no good reasons, why Cincinnati cannot accomplish what Giuliani and his successor Michael Bloomberg have, and more quickly.
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UPDATE: This New York Times story notes that crime in The Big Apple dropped in virtually every major category in 2005. I would add that the real big drops in crime did not begin to occur until Giuliani took office in November 1993.

UPDATE 2: This graph, done just before the murder count of 79 was finalized, shows the five-year negative progression, which I believe can be traced to the letup in police effort that occurred after the April 2001 riots: