Violent Crime Rises 23 Percent in City Parks: Study

NEW YORK, NY — Crime is on the rise in city parks, according to a study done by a park advocacy group.

NYC Parks Advocates crunched the numbers from July 1, 2015 to March 31, 2016 and found the seven major crimes are up 23 percent in over 1,100 city parks from the same period 2014 to 2015. The data does not include Central Park, which has its own police precinct. The seven major crimes — murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny and auto theft — are down 1 percent city-wide year-to-date from 2015 to 2016.

The NYPD began releasing statistics for park crimes in 2014, meaning this is the entire 18 months of data available.

According to the NYPD statistics, the total number of major crimes in parks was 417 from July 1, 2015 to March 31, 2016. The same period a year prior saw 340 crimes. And all of the major violent crimes were up. The number of rapes rose from 10 to 14, robberies rose from 221 to 254 and felony assaults went from 107 to 143. There were two murders in the 2014-15 period and six in the 2015-16 time period.

"The De Blasio administration has repeatedly sought to downplay crime in parks," Geoffrey Croft of NYC Park Advocates writes. "For years, park safety advocates have called on the city to dramatically increase the number of park police, but they have refused."

According to Croft, the parks with the highest number of violent crimes from April 1, 2015 to March 31, 2016 were:

1. Crotona Park, Bronx — 23
2. Claremont Park, Bronx — 21
3. Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens — 17
4. Prospect Park, Brooklyn — 16
5. Williamsbridge Oval, Bronx — 15
6. Riverside Park, Manhattan — 14
7. St. Nicholas Park, Manhattan — 13
8. Marcus Garvey Park, Manhattan — 11
9. Mullaly Park, Bronx — 11
10. Highbridge Park, Manhattan — 10

Crime in Central Park is down 40.7 percent year-to-date and down 25.6 percent over the past two years, according to CompStat numbers.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons