New York's crime conundrum and what the data actually says

Also: When Delgado says he began to turn on Hochul.

Good afternoon — it’s Friday and Bao Day.

In today’s CapCon:

• There’s disagreement over whether crime is up or down in New York. I spent the day sorting through state data to give you an answer.

• Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado says one moment may have been the beginning of the end of his relationship with Gov. Kathy Hochul.

• Campaign news: Rep. John Mannion loses a challenger and Rep. Josh Riley may be gaining one.

• A different veterinary drug is now ripe for abuse. One lawmaker wants to put safeguards in place to prevent that.

Names in today’s CapCon: Kathy Hochul, Antonio Delgado, John Mannion, John Lemondes, John Salka, Peter Oberacker, Josh Riley, Phil Steck, Erik Dilan

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⚖️ Why some people think crime is up while others say it’s down in New York

After spending the day organizing and analyzing crime data from every county in New York, I can understand why there’s disagreement over public safety across the state.

I spend a lot of time listening to elected officials talk. Too much time. And for the past several years, there have been competing claims on crime rates. Some say crime is up; others say that’s only a matter of public perception divorced from hard reality.

I was tired of not knowing what the data says, so I dug into index crime data from the state Division of Criminal Justice Services.

Index crimes are seven specific offenses that are used in law enforcement to measure the overall pervasiveness of crime: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft.

The first four are considered violent index crimes. The other three are property index crimes but are not considered violent.

These are reported crimes, not charges. Robberies don’t always result in an arrest, for example, but they’re still counted in the data.

This data, unfortunately, only stretches until the end of 2024. The State Police started using a different system in 2025 so the data they have for the first few months of this year isn’t apples-to-apples.

You also can’t use the data reliably from before 2015 because reporting on rape changed that year and resulted in more being counted in that category.

So for today’s purposes, we’re going to look at how crime in 2024 compares to 2019 and, on a more granular level, 2020. (I’ll look at more recent trends another day.)

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📈 Index crime statewide was up between 2019 and 2024

For an overall, statewide look at index crime data, it’s better to start in 2019 because that was one year before the Legislature enacted a series of criminal justice changes that Republicans argue have driven crime up.

Either way, the number of index crimes reported by the state was higher in 2024 than it was in 2019 or 2020.

The count of index crimes in 2019 was 337,131. But in 2024, it was 424,312. The numbers for each individual crime were higher in 2024 than in 2019 except for rape, which dropped.

Here’s something interesting, though: While overall index crime was up between 2020 and 2024, certain crimes saw significant drops.

There were 214 fewer murders reported, and the number of rapes and burglaries dropped as well. All of the other crimes went up.

So to recap: Index crime in New York was higher in 2024 than it was in 2019 of 2020, according to the data.

📉 Local data shows index crime down in most counties between 2020 and 2024

You may be wondering why I chose to compare 2024 with 2020 at the local level.

That’s because Republicans in the Legislature have argued that the changes that began that year — to cash bail, criminal discovery and speedy trial laws — have been responsible for the uptick in index crime.

I’m not here to answer that question. But I can tell you that the changes took effect statewide in 2020 and that, for most counties, index crime has actually dropped since then — by a hair.