New York City sets 10-day murder record

The city has gone 10 days without a murder as of Thursday morning, a record

(Getty Images)

New York City has set a record for murders in the past 10 days, just not the record you might expect.

The New York Police Department said that in the 10 days that ended 12 am Thursday, the city didn’t have a single murder, the longest streak recorded since NYPD began recording days between murders in 2003, according to The Guardian. This streak broke the previous record of nine days, set in 2013, also recorded in the throes of winter.

New York often gets credited for being safe for a city of its size, but criminologists warn not to take too much from these numbers. Crime is cyclical and murder rates decline in the winter, they say.

According to NYPD statistics, seven murders were recorded in the week before the streak began and 39 murders were committed between 1 January and 1 February 2015, up from 33 over the same period in 2014.

While murders remain a problem in New York, they have fallen precipitously since 1990, NYPD data shows. In 1990, 2,262 murders were committed, 85.3 per cent higher than the 333 murders recorded in 2014.

For comparison, London had 94 murders in 2014, according to stats from the Metropolitan Police.

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