Crime Rate Rises In NYC

According to a report there was an increase in crime last year in six of the nine major crime categories.

The report also stated that response times to crimes in progress increased by a minute.

Murder, forcible rape, robbery and felonious assault went up in the 2011 fiscal year, which ended on June 30. Major felony crimes increased in both the transit system and the NYC Housing Authority.

Response times rose from an average 7.5 to 8.4 minutes, continuing the pattern since 2007, when cops rushed to emergencies in just 6.9 minutes.

Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne however disputes some of the findings in the report and says the newspaper accounts reflect outdated information.

Browne said murder is currently down 7% and says the increase in felony assault is attributed primarily to a new definition of what defines a felony assault. According to Browne, that definition became effective last November which also made choking a felony assault for the first time.

Browne says if the definition remained the same, assaults would be down. As for rapes, Browne said 90% of the victims knew their assailants as either acquaintances or relatives and added that led to a welcome willingness by victims to report assailants even when they were acquaintances or relatives.

The report stated forcible rapes had showed the steepest increase of any major crime, from 860 to 1,138.

Overall, officials downplayed the numbers for individual categories stating the long-term overall trend was "strongly positive" and that the total number of felonies was down slightly, from 105,702 to 105,496.

"Even as New York City is emerging from the most difficult fiscal crisis in a generation, the data show that city agencies continue to provide the high-quality services that New Yorkers have rightly come to expect," said Mayor Bloomberg in a statement.

Browne added that response times are still 20 percent faster than they were in 2000, when it took an average 10.7 minutes to get to a crime at a time when the NYPD had 6,000 more officers than it does today.

NYPD response times 
Year----Minutes 
2011: 8.4 
2010: 7.5 
2009: 7.3 
2008: 7.3 
2007: 6.9 
2003: 7.1*

* Mayor Bloomberg's 1st year 
Source: Mayor's Management Report

READ MORE: NY POST