New York City saw another drop in major crimes in the month of August, the NYPD said Tuesday.

Newly released statistics from the NYPD show that overall index crime decreased by 6.7% in August 2025 compared to August 2024. Overall crime has dropped for seven consecutive quarters, according to the NYPD.

What You Need To Know

  • New data from the NYPD shows that overall index crime decreased by 6.7% in August 2025 compared to August 2024

  • The department’s recruitment has also accelerated, officials noted. Nearly 1,100 recruits joined the NYPD in August, the largest class since 2016

  • There were some year-over-year increases, however

The drops spanned multiple categories, according to NYPD statistics. Burglary was down nearly 19% from August 2024 and hit a record low overall for the month of August; retail theft fell 22%; robbery decreased by 8.2%; felony assault dropped by 6.6%; and grand larceny was down by 4.2%. Subway crime was also down by more than 22%, according to the NYPD.

Police officials credited targeted strategies, including a Summer Violence Reduction Plan that placed more than 2,000 officers on nightly foot posts across 72 zones.

The department’s recruitment has also accelerated, officials noted. Nearly 1,100 recruits joined the NYPD in August, the largest class since 2016.

There were some year-over-year increases, however. Murders rose 33% in August compared to August 2024, though they remain down nearly 20% year-to-date, NYPD data shows. Rape reports climbed 24%, a shift that police partly attributed to changes in state law last year that expanded the definition of rape to include additional forms of sexual assault.

Shooting numbers were also up slightly in August compared to the previous year – there were 77 in August 2025 compared to 74 in August 2024 – but the NYPD says the city overall saw the fewest recorded shootings in its history through the first eight months of 2025. The city tallied 489 shooting incidents and 611 victims between January and August, coming in below previous record lows set in 2018.

“In the first eight months of the year, the NYPD drove down shooting incidents and shooting victims to the lowest levels in our city’s history,” Tisch said. “Below ground on our subways, we have cut crime down to record-lows, excluding the pandemic years. Our focus has been on taking illegal guns off the streets, arresting violent gang members, and deploying our most valuable resource — the men and women of the NYPD — on foot posts where they are most needed, and the results are clear: Our strategy is working, and our cops are driving down crime.”

Mayor Eric Adams praised the declines but cautioned against overlooking the crimes that were still committed.

“As August closed, we continued to break more records: shooting incidents and shooting victims for the first eight months of the year were at their lowest levels in recorded history, and crime in our subways in August was at the lowest in recorded history,” Adams said. “But even with the tremendous steps we’ve taken in making our city safer, we know that one crime is still one crime too many, and a number of heartbreaking incidents remain at the forefront of people’s minds.”