At this writing on January 2, de Blasio is finally gone from office. Whether the new guy (Eric Adams) proves to be any better remains to be seen.

Before leaving the topic of de Blasio’s legacy to New York, I would be remiss not to include a post on the subject of crime.

The bottom line for crime, as for every other major issue of public policy, was that the progressive de Blasio ruined everything he touched. Outcomes worsened across the board, and the decline was the clear result of the progressive policies that de Blasio either implemented or advocated. Yes, he had help from an equally progressive state legislature, particularly in the area of bail “reform.” But the changes to bail law were things that de Blasio did not oppose or resist in any way, and would have implemented himself if they had been under his control.

Today, New York remains a far, far safer city than pretty much all the comparable deep-blue cities in the country. Nevertheless, de Blasio took the almost miraculous successes of his two predecessors over twenty years, and in short order was able to turn the everything around and end his term with rapid increases in crime in his last few years.

To understand how de Blasio has affected the situation, a review of the history of crime in New York since 1990 is in order. For this review, I will use the annual number of murders as a proxy for crime more generally. I adopt this convention because, relative to other potential measures of the level of crime, the number of murders is much less affected by subjective judgments and/or manipulations, which makes it particularly useful as the index to observe trends and to compare one jurisdiction to another.

In 1990, after years of escalating crime, there were 2,262 murders recorded in New York City. With a population of 7.3 million, that meant that New York had a murder rate of about 31 per 100,000 — right up there with some of the most dangerous jurisdictions in the country. The Mayor was Democrat David Dinkins. Over the remaining years of Dinkins’s term, the number of murders declined marginally, to 1,927 in 1993, or about 26 per hundred thousand. Many said that New York City was ungovernable.

1993 is the year that Rudy Giuliani was elected Mayor, as a Republican. Giuliani made it his first priority to get crime under control. In only eight years with Giuliani as Mayor, the number of murders went from the 1,927 all the way down to 649 in 2001. Meanwhile the decline in crime was accompanied by a surge in population to over 8 million, so that the murder rate per hundred thousand was all the way down to 8.

Giuliani was followed as Mayor by Mike Bloomberg, who then served three terms, through 2013. Bloomberg was also elected as a Republican, although he converted to Independent during his tenure. When Bloomberg took office, many doubted that there was much potential for further reduction in crime, but to his credit Bloomberg continued to work the issue, and particularly promoted assertive policing focused on the highest-crime neighborhoods. To the surprise of many (myself included), the number of murders continued to fall dramatically. In Bloomerg’s last year in office, 2013, the figure was 335. By then, the population was up to 8.3 million, so the murder rate was just over 4 per hundred thousand. New York was far and away the safest large city in the country.

Which brings us to de Blasio, who took office in 2014. Where his predecessors focused on crime control and public safety, de Blasio thought that he was going to solve poverty and income inequality. The police went on autopilot. The number of murders remained essentially stable for a few years, and even declined slightly, reaching the lowest level of 289 in 2018. And then the increases started, at first slowly, and then accelerating: 318 in 2019, 460 in 2020, and 479 as of December 26, 2021 — with five days to go, just short of 500. The increase is about 70% over just three years. With the population now at 8.8 million, the murder rate is back to about 5.5 per hundred thousand.

Granted, that figure still leaves New York at the safest end of the scale among the big progressive-governed cities in the U.S. Relatively safe Los Angeles, with 331 murders through November 30 and population of about 3.9 million, is on track for a 2021 murder rate of about 9 per hundred thousand. Chicago, with population well less than a third that of New York (2.7 million) has a tentative final murder number for 2021 of 842. That would be a rate per hundred thousand of more than 31, comparable to New York in its very worst days back in the early 90s. And then there are the true murder capitals: Detroit (murder rate of 51 per hundred thousand based on 2020 figures), Memphis (52), Baltimore (58), Birmingham (61), and St. Louis (an almost unimaginable 87). All of these places are governed by progressive Democrats, of course.

But our 70% increase in murders in just the past three years shows just how fast things can go wrong when the focus on crime control gets relaxed. The forces of chaos are always ready to spring into action. It is not at all obvious that the current trend can be turned around quickly before the number of murders soars still higher, perhaps much higher.

And let’s not lose track of the effects on minority communities. In all these progressive-governed cities, the majority of the murder victims are young black males. Two hundred additional annual murder victims per year in New York means well over a hundred young black males whose lives have been terminated.

And then there’s the effect of crime rates on incarceration rates. The dramatic decline in crime in New York City from the early 1990s through the 2010s led to comparable decreases in the jail population. In 1992, the average daily count of inmates in New York City jails was 21,449, with annual intake of 111,045. By 2019 (before the recent bail reform), the average census was down to 7,234. Bail reform has led to an immediate drop (to 4,471 in 2020), but if crime soars it is inevitable that incarceration will shortly go up accordingly.

I supposed the final verdict on de Blasio on the subject of crime might be “it could have been a lot worse.” On the other hand, it is almost incredible that the amazing achievements in crime control over the 20-year Giuliani/Bloomberg era could be so casually brushed aside, particularly with almost no consideration given to the detrimental effects on minority communities.