New York Crime Rate Trends
The city, by the numbers we publish each month: 59 neighborhoods, 10 incident categories, twelve months of trailing comparison. Browse the rankings, scan the multi-year trends, or open a neighborhood-level breakdown.
Sexual assault registered fresh spikes across three boroughs this month, with Bronx CD12 — Williamsbridge / Baychester posting the strongest single signal in the briefing. Brooklyn CD11 — Bensonhurst and Queens CD8 — Hillcrest / Fresh Meadows also appear in the top five with the same category. Three neighborhoods, one category, in one month — that concentration is the dominant pattern of March 2026.
Citywide volume is down 6.9% against the prior 12 months — 258,033 incidents against 277,228. The signal mix across 59 neighborhoods runs 59 sustained-shift signals and 50 below-trend signals alongside 19 spikes, meaning the broad directional decline holds even as localized increases emerge. Queens CD14 — Far Rockaway / Broad Channel and Brooklyn CD9 — South Crown Heights / Lefferts Gardens round out the top five with other-larceny and aggravated-assault spikes respectively.
The multi-category, multi-borough sexual assault pattern is new to the top rankings this briefing — lead run length is one month, with no prior recurring combo to displace. Whether this is a single-month cluster or the start of a sustained shift is not yet determinable from one month's data. The structural citywide decline remains in place; the sexual assault signals across three districts are the item to track in April's data.
New York Crime Frequently Asked Questions
Trailing 12 months vs the prior 12 months, computed from the same NIBRS-aligned categories used everywhere else on the page. Updated each March 2026 briefing.
Is crime in New York down?
Yes — citywide incident volume is 6.9% lower than the prior 12 months.
Across the trailing 12-month window we tracked 258,033 incidents in NIBRS-aligned categories, compared to 277,228 in the year before — down 19,195 incidents.
Is violent crime in New York down?
Yes — homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, and sexual assault are down 2.9% combined in the trailing 12 months.
That's 54,633 violent incidents in the past year against 56,280 in the prior year. See the by-category section below for the per-bucket breakdown.
Is property crime in New York down?
Yes — burglary, theft from vehicle, larceny, motor vehicle theft, and arson are down 7.2% combined in the trailing 12 months.
That's 169,090 property incidents in the past year against 182,268 in the prior year.
Which neighborhood in New York saw the biggest crime drop?
Queens CD4 — Elmhurst / Corona — 25.6% fewer incidents than the prior 12 months.
Queens CD4 — Elmhurst / Corona logged 4,893 incidents in the trailing 12 months against 6,579 the year before.
Which neighborhood in New York saw the biggest crime increase?
Brooklyn CD16 — Brownsville / Ocean Hill — 14.4% more incidents than the prior 12 months.
Brooklyn CD16 — Brownsville / Ocean Hill logged 4,236 incidents in the trailing 12 months against 3,703 the year before.
The denominators behind the numbers
Five-borough archipelago straddling the mouth of the Hudson — three of the boroughs (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island) sit on islands; only the Bronx is on the mainland. The 59 Community Districts are NYC's official sub-municipal unit, governed by Community Boards and used by the Department of City Planning for land-use review. We picked CDs over the finer-grained Neighborhood Tabulation Areas (195 NTAs) because CD-level density matches the platform's per-page target — comparable to Chicago's 77 community areas and SF's 41 analysis neighborhoods.
ACS 2023 5-year estimates. NYC spans 5 counties (Manhattan / New York County, Bronx, Brooklyn / Kings, Queens, and Staten Island / Richmond). Per-tract counts (population, households, housing units) sum across all 5 counties — but only the ~2,300 tracts whose centroid falls inside an NYC Community District in our crosswalk. Median figures (rent, home value, household income, age) on this profile reflect Manhattan / New York County only, so they lean wealthier and older than a true five-borough median; per-neighborhood medians on the neighborhood pages are tract-level and unaffected.
City-level only. We deliberately do not juxtapose these with neighborhood-level crime data — see the methodology for why.
Densest big city in the country; the subway and bus network shapes nearly every travel pattern in Manhattan, the western Bronx, northern Brooklyn, and northwest Queens. Outer-borough edges (eastern Queens, Staten Island, far-southern Brooklyn) are markedly more car-dependent and are mostly served by buses, the LIRR/Metro-North commuter rails, and the Staten Island Railway. The Brooklyn–Queens Expressway, the Cross Bronx, the Belt Parkway, and the FDR / Henry Hudson on Manhattan are the spine of the road network.
NYPD publishes incident-level complaint data on NYC Open Data with roughly a two-week reporting lag. The feed uses NYPD's own offense classifications, which our category mapper translates into the same UCR Part 1 buckets used elsewhere on the site so cross-city comparisons stay apples-to-apples. NYPD operates 77 patrol precincts plus housing and transit bureaus; precinct boundaries cut across community-district boundaries, so the analysis unit on this site is the Community District, not the precinct.
Every neighborhood, color-coded
Largest moves this month
| # | Neighborhood | Category | MoM | YoY 12mo | |z| | 90-day trend | Signal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Bronx CD12 — Williamsbridge / Baychester | Sexual Assault | +27% | +34% | 5.69 | SPIKE | |
| 02 | Brooklyn CD11 — Bensonhurst | Sexual Assault | -5% | +43% | 5.16 | SPIKE | |
| 03 | Queens CD8 — Hillcrest / Fresh Meadows | Sexual Assault | +213% | +29% | 5.13 | SPIKE | |
| 04 | Queens CD14 — Far Rockaway / Broad Channel | Other Larceny | +11% | +18% | 4.83 | SPIKE | |
| 05 | Brooklyn CD9 — South Crown Heights / Lefferts Gardens | Aggravated Assault | -8% | +36% | 4.36 | SPIKE | |
| 06 | Queens CD13 — Queens Village / Cambria Heights | Sexual Assault | -7% | +18% | 4.20 | SPIKE | |
| 07 | Queens CD7 — Flushing / Whitestone | Sexual Assault | 0% | +34% | 4.07 | SPIKE | |
| 08 | Queens CD6 — Forest Hills / Rego Park | Aggravated Assault | -9% | +21% | 3.77 | SPIKE | |
| 09 | Bronx CD7 — Kingsbridge Heights / Bedford | Aggravated Assault | +14% | +13% | 3.71 | SPIKE | |
| 10 | Manhattan CD1 — Financial District / Battery Park / Tribeca | Aggravated Assault | -20% | +26% | 3.32 | SPIKE | |
| 11 | Brooklyn CD12 — Borough Park | Motor Vehicle Theft | -50% | +18% | 2.93 | SPIKE | |
| 12 | Bronx CD8 — Riverdale / Fieldston | Sexual Assault | +29% | +32% | 2.91 | SPIKE |
The long arc — eight years of monthly counts
Four neighborhoods worth your time
Bronx CD12 — Williamsbridge / Baychester
The past 12 months saw 321 incidents — about 79% above the 179 average from prior years.
Read briefing →SPIKE · SEXUAL ASSAULTBrooklyn CD11 — Bensonhurst
The past 12 months saw 223 incidents — about 106% above the 108 average from prior years.
Read briefing →SPIKE · SEXUAL ASSAULTQueens CD8 — Hillcrest / Fresh Meadows
The past 12 months saw 155 incidents — about 58% above the 98 average from prior years.
Read briefing →SPIKE · OTHER LARCENYQueens CD14 — Far Rockaway / Broad Channel
The past 12 months saw 1,542 incidents — about 34% above the 1147 average from prior years.
Read briefing →Hour-of-day, day-of-week, and seasonality
Distribution of bucketed incidents citywide across the full analysis window. Useful for routine context — shopping-strip thefts vs. late-night assaults read very differently when you can see when each typically happens.
All 59 New York neighborhoods
Crime rate trends and March 2026 briefings for every tracked neighborhood. Alphabetical.
- Bronx CD1 — Mott Haven / Melrose crime rate
- Bronx CD10 — Throgs Neck / Co-op City crime rate
- Bronx CD11 — Pelham Parkway / Morris Park crime rate
- Bronx CD12 — Williamsbridge / Baychester crime rate
- Bronx CD2 — Hunts Point / Longwood crime rate
- Bronx CD3 — Morrisania / Crotona crime rate
- Bronx CD4 — Concourse / Highbridge crime rate
- Bronx CD5 — Fordham / University Heights crime rate
- Bronx CD6 — Belmont / East Tremont crime rate
- Bronx CD7 — Kingsbridge Heights / Bedford crime rate
- Bronx CD8 — Riverdale / Fieldston crime rate
- Bronx CD9 — Parkchester / Soundview crime rate
- Brooklyn CD1 — Williamsburg / Greenpoint crime rate
- Brooklyn CD10 — Bay Ridge / Dyker Heights crime rate
- Brooklyn CD11 — Bensonhurst crime rate
- Brooklyn CD12 — Borough Park crime rate
- Brooklyn CD13 — Coney Island / Brighton Beach crime rate
- Brooklyn CD14 — Flatbush / Midwood crime rate
- Brooklyn CD15 — Sheepshead Bay crime rate
- Brooklyn CD16 — Brownsville / Ocean Hill crime rate
- Brooklyn CD17 — East Flatbush crime rate
- Brooklyn CD18 — Canarsie / Flatlands crime rate
- Brooklyn CD2 — Brooklyn Heights / Fort Greene crime rate
- Brooklyn CD3 — Bedford-Stuyvesant crime rate
- Brooklyn CD4 — Bushwick crime rate
- Brooklyn CD5 — East New York / Starrett City crime rate
- Brooklyn CD6 — Park Slope / Carroll Gardens crime rate
- Brooklyn CD7 — Sunset Park crime rate
- Brooklyn CD8 — Crown Heights / Prospect Heights crime rate
- Brooklyn CD9 — South Crown Heights / Lefferts Gardens crime rate
- Manhattan CD1 — Financial District / Battery Park / Tribeca crime rate
- Manhattan CD10 — Central Harlem crime rate
- Manhattan CD11 — East Harlem crime rate
- Manhattan CD12 — Washington Heights / Inwood crime rate
- Manhattan CD2 — Greenwich Village / SoHo crime rate
- Manhattan CD3 — Lower East Side / Chinatown crime rate
- Manhattan CD4 — Chelsea / Hell's Kitchen crime rate
- Manhattan CD5 — Midtown crime rate
- Manhattan CD6 — Stuyvesant Town / Turtle Bay crime rate
- Manhattan CD7 — Upper West Side crime rate
- Manhattan CD8 — Upper East Side crime rate
- Manhattan CD9 — Morningside Heights / Hamilton Heights crime rate
- Queens CD1 — Astoria / Long Island City crime rate
- Queens CD10 — Howard Beach / Ozone Park crime rate
- Queens CD11 — Bayside / Little Neck crime rate
- Queens CD12 — Jamaica / Hollis crime rate
- Queens CD13 — Queens Village / Cambria Heights crime rate
- Queens CD14 — Far Rockaway / Broad Channel crime rate
- Queens CD2 — Sunnyside / Woodside crime rate
- Queens CD3 — Jackson Heights / East Elmhurst crime rate
- Queens CD4 — Elmhurst / Corona crime rate
- Queens CD5 — Ridgewood / Maspeth crime rate
- Queens CD6 — Forest Hills / Rego Park crime rate
- Queens CD7 — Flushing / Whitestone crime rate
- Queens CD8 — Hillcrest / Fresh Meadows crime rate
- Queens CD9 — Kew Gardens / Woodhaven crime rate
- Staten Island CD1 — North Shore crime rate
- Staten Island CD2 — Mid-Island crime rate
- Staten Island CD3 — South Shore crime rate
Every signal, every forecast, documented
Open about how we define spikes, what we exclude as noise, where the data comes from, and how often the model is wrong.