NEW YORK — More than 3 in 4 New Yorkers said they were concerned about becoming a victim of violent crime in a citywide survey released Tuesday, a sky-high figure showing the five boroughs on edge five months into Mayor Eric Adams’ administration.
In the Spectrum News/Siena College poll, conducted by phone during the last two weeks of May, 70% of New York City residents said they felt less safe than they did before the 26-month-old pandemic, and 25% described little change in their sense of security.
Adams, a former police captain who has made crime-fighting the central focus of his mayoralty, scored mixed reviews. Twenty-nine percent of New Yorkers said the mayor has done a good job as mayor, and 64% said he is doing a fair or poor job, according to the poll.
Seventy-four percent of New Yorkers polled said Adams’ administration is doing a fair or poor job fighting crime, though 53% said they approved of his style.
“New Yorkers are saying to him, ‘We’d like you to do a better job. Make me feel safer,’” said Don Levy, director of the Siena College Research Institute. “It is a challenging time to be a resident, and clearly it’s a challenging time to be the mayor.”
New York City Mayor Eric Adams speaking during a press conference in Lower Manhattan, New York on Jan. 6, 2022. (Theodore Parisienne/for New York Daily News)
New York has seen year-to-date rises in a range of violent crimes — from already elevated pandemic levels — according to the latest data from the Police Department; reported burglaries are up 32%, reported robberies have climbed 39% and reported hate crimes have ticked up 13%.
But shooting incidents are down 10% so far this year, according to the police figures, and murders have dropped 9%. The figures could be a welcome signal for Adams, who has deployed controversial new anti-gun units.
“The focus on guns has been exactly the right thing to do” said Richard Aborn, president of the nonprofit Citizens Crime Commission. “Adams said he was going to be all over the gun issue, and he’s been true to that word. And they need to continue to do that.”
But Aborn added, “Robberies tend to be a random crime, and that’s scaring people.”
Adams said Monday that the city has taken 3,000 guns off the street during his administration. “The charts are not lying,” the mayor said at a news conference, later adding: “We see a steady decline in shooting, so hopefully we start to get a handle on this.”
But crime rates can rise and fall in unpredictable ways, and the new poll offered a clear picture of the anxiety gripping many New Yorkers ahead of the summer months, when street violence tends to surge.
In the survey, 38% of New Yorkers said they were somewhat worried about being victimized by violent crime, while another 38% said they were very concerned.
New Yorkers also displayed anxiety about targeted mass shootings in the wake of the racist Buffalo supermarket massacre that left 10 Black victims dead on May 14, and the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24 that ended the lives of 19 children.
In the poll, almost 70% of New Yorkers said they were anxious that a gunman might target people in their neighborhood on the basis of their religion, racial identity or ethnicity. Just 9% said they were not concerned at all.
Last week, lawmakers in Albany rushed to toughen the state’s already muscular guns laws, passing legislation to raise the minimum age for semiautomatic rifle purchases and expand the net of people who can flag potentially dangerous New Yorkers under the state’s so-called red flag laws.
Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the bills into law on Monday. She said at a news conference on Tuesday that “no governor has done as much as we have, in as fast a time, to address the specter of crime and gun violence in our streets.”
The governor fared slightly better than the mayor in the Siena poll: 35% of respondents said she was doing a good job, and 54% said she was doing a fair or poor job.
Hochul said Tuesday that she understands the fears New Yorkers have about crime and that “there is more to do.”
“We’re not finished,” said Hochul, who was joined by Adams at the news conference. “I’ll be able to continue to show New Yorkers the depth of my commitment to my number one job, which is protecting their safety.”
———
