CRIME IN CITY CONTINUES DECLINE, POLICE SAY

While the nationwide decrease in serious crime has stalled, crime in
New York City has continued to decline over the last year, police
officials say, crediting an expensive overtime program that they say
has led to more than 84,000 arrests.

But few of the arrests made through the aggressive program, Operation
Condor, which has put additional police officers and detectives on the
streets since last January at a cost of more than $66 million in
overtime, were for serious crimes. In fact, almost two-thirds of the
Operation Condor arrests were summonses issued for quality-of-life
violations, which do not rise to the level of crimes, officials said.

Police Department statistics for the week that ended Dec. 24 show that
overall serious crime -- including murder, rape, robbery, assault,
larceny, burglary and car theft -- is likely to be down 5 percent to 6
percent for the year, continuing a trend that began in 1992 and
reached record levels after Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani took office in
1994.

Steep declines in figures for robbery, once considered the bellwether
crime, as well as for burglary and car theft, drove the overall
decline, accounting for more than half of the decrease in reported
crimes -- to 181,287 from 191,802 in 1999. But beginning in the
mid-1980's, the murder rate, driven by drug crime, rose to record
levels, largely replacing robbery as a safety barometer.

As of yesterday, with 666 killings so far this year, the murder rate
was up less than 1 percent compared with the same period last year,
making it likely that the city will end 2000 with an increase for the
second straight year. But the number of murders in the city remains at
a low unmatched since the 1960's, down from its peak of more than
2,000 in 1990.

A 38.9 percent increase in killings in the Bronx -- even as overall
crime in the borough declined slightly -- is pushing the citywide
numbers up, and police officials said most of the increase came in the
first quarter of the year. But Bernard B. Kerik, the police
commissioner, said a recent shake-up in management in the borough and
his use of Operation Condor overtime to focus detectives on violent
felons had helped bring crime down there, as it has recently in
Brooklyn. He also cited the continuing focus on quality-of-life
offenses, which in the Bronx has resulted in a 34.4 percent increase
in summonses for violations like public drinking and public urination.

"I think people have to look at the big picture with regard to crime
in the city: crime is down substantially," Mr. Kerik said. "We've
achieved now over the seven-year period a 57 percent reduction. We've
dropped 6 percent from last year, when the rest of the nation, New
York State and everybody else under the sun has basically stopped
reducing crime."

Nationwide, serious crime declined just three-tenths of a percent in
the first six months of 2000 compared with the same period in 1999,
the smallest decrease since the nation's crime rate began falling in
1992, according to F.B.I. statistics.

The mayor and Mr. Kerik have credited quality-of-life enforcement with
helping to reduce crime. Citywide, the number of such summonses was up
16.2 percent, to 414,316, from 356,496, according to the Dec. 24
figures. The increase included 57,410 summonses issued by police
officers on Operation Condor overtime.

Officers working overtime for Operation Condor also made 5,567 arrests
for felonies and 18,135 for misdemeanors as of Dec. 20, according to a
report on the program.

Sheldon S. Leffler, a Democrat who heads the City Council's Public
Safety Committee, asked in an interview why crime could not be reduced
without the expensive overtime program, but Mr. Kerik was adamant.

"Did it cost us $100 million in overtime?" he asked, using the figure
that the department expects to spend for fiscal 2001. "Yeah, it did.
But you know, the mayor has said this for years, and he's absolutely
right. There is good overtime spent and there is bad. Good overtime
spent is when you spend $100 million and it brings in $250 million in
tourism, new business and new residents coming into the city."

The statistics for the last year showed noteworthy drops in burglaries in
the 17th Precinct, between 29th and 59th Streets on Manhattan's East Side,
where they dropped to 283 from 454, and in the 6th Precinct, in Greenwich
Village, where there were 269 reports, down from 336. There was also a
decline in auto theft in the 109th Precinct, which covers the College Point,
Whitestone and Flushing sections of Queens: reports of thefts dropped to
1,249 from 1,621. In the 104th Precinct in Queens, covering the Ridgewood,
Middle Village and Maspeth sections, the number of robbery reports declined
to 404 from 507.

At the same time, murder increased substantially in the 47th Precinct, in
the Wakefield section of the Bronx: 29 murders have been reported so far
this year, up from 9 in 1999. There was also a rise in the 75th Precinct,
which covers Brooklyn's East New York section. The precinct led the city
with 39 murders, up from 31 last year.