“Our city’s on the pathway to being safer,” Mayor Eric Adams said during his State of the City address in January—a speech that followed the worst year of crime New York City has seen in 15 years. But the city is enduring more of the same. Year-to-date major crime, which includes the top felonies like murder, assault, burglary, and larceny, is higher than during the same period last year. Though murders in the city have declined, the felony assault rate is higher than any other year this century. Bronx district attorney Darcel Clark described the climate last year as “people thinking that they can get away with whatever they want.”

Despite the record crime surge, New York’s annual arrest numbers have remained remarkably low. From 2010 to the end of last year, arrests in the city dropped by 55 percent. Major crime, by comparison, rose 20 percent in the same timeframe. The city should investigate this arrest disparity and evaluate whether less policing is jeopardizing New York’s communities, as seems evident. The NYPD can start by boosting enforcement in offense categories that have seen the biggest drops in arrests.