Nearly 350 serious crime incidents were reported in New York City (NYC) schools last year, with 95 in the last four months alone, according to new City Council data released Friday.
These 2022 figures are close to those registered during 2019, a year before the COVID-19 pandemic, when there were 444 incidents of serious crime in NYC schools, according to the Mayor’s Preliminary Management Report.
In 2022 alone, there were 346 incidents linked to serious crime, reflecting a significant increase from the previous year. During 2021, 85 were registered during the height of the pandemic when schools were mostly closed.
Last year’s startling statistic was also well above the 288 incidents in 2020, for which the COVID-19 pandemic overlapped by three months. Between October and January, the number of felony incidents in public schools increased from 72 to 95 over the same period in 2022, reported the New York Post.
“I am not going to attribute this epidemic to the COVID pandemic and lockdown,” said Mona Davids, a high school parent, founder of the NYC Parents Union and director of the NYC School Safety Coalition.
crimes committed
The New York Police Department (NYPD) classifies the seven felonies as murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand theft of a motor vehicle. Unlike the rest of the United States, New York City has been experiencing a rebound in the numbers of crimes committed since the beginning of the pandemic, which has accelerated in late 2022 and early 2023.
In addition, the NYPD reported in the report that since the return to face-to-face in schools, assaults and sexual crimes increased and the recoveries of weapons in schools increased by 80%.
Only in the last two months there have been four cases of violence involving minors. On February 2, a 16-year-old boy was seriously stabbed in the stomach near a school in the Bronx in an apparent dispute with another young man over a girl.
Added to that, a similar case was registered during the weekend of January 28: three teenagers aged just 13, 14 and 15 have been accused in the stabbing death of Nyheem Wright during an apparent fight over a girl after school in Brooklyn on January 20.