New York City

=== Public safety ===
{{main|New York City Police Department|New York City Fire Department|Crime in New York City|Law enforcement in New York City|}}
[[File:My_picture_of_NYPD_officers.jpg|thumb|[[New York City Police Department|New York Police Department]] (NYPD) police officers in Brooklyn]]
[[File:FDNY_Tower_Ladder_1_(897367891).jpg|alt=|thumb|The [[New York City Fire Department|Fire Department of New York]] (FDNY), the largest municipal fire department in the United States]]
The [[New York City Police Department|New York Police Department]] (NYPD) is the largest police force in the United States, with more than 36,000 sworn officers, more than triple the size of the [[Chicago Police Department]].<ref>Kershner, Ellen. [https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-largest-police-departments-in-the-us.html "The Largest Police Departments In The US"], WorldAtlas, August 3, 2020. Accessed January 17, 2024. "Established in 1845, The New York City Police Department (NYPD) is one of the most well-known law enforcement agencies in the world. As the largest in the US, it currently has about 36,008 full-time active officers and 19,000 civilian employees.  This is almost three times as many as the country's second-largest police department in Chicago."</ref> Members of the NYPD are frequently referred to by politicians, the media, and their own police cars by the nickname, ''New York's Finest''.<ref>Williams, Keith. [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/nyregion/origins-of-new-yorks-finest.html "We Know They're New York's Finest. But Why?"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', May 4, 2017. Accessed January 17, 2024. "The Police Department's slogan also came from a phrase with military origins: “the finest police force on the planet,” an adaptation of Gen. Joseph Hooker's 1863 claim that the Union forces were 'the finest army on the planet.' A similar phrase referring to police officers appeared in The Times in 1865. The police chief George Washington Matsell promoted the nickname in the early 1870s, Mr. Popik wrote; the 1882 play 'One of the Finest' cemented the label, which was condensed to 'New York's Finest' by 1889."</ref>

The city saw a spike in crime in the 1970s through 1990s.<ref name="Prager">{{cite magazine |first = Arthur |last = Prager |date = February–March 2006 |title = Worst-Case Scenario |url = http://www.americanheritage.com/content/worst-case-scenario |magazine = [[American Heritage (magazine)|American Heritage]] |volume = 57 |issue = 1 |access-date = July 23, 2019 }}</ref> Crime overall has trended downward in New York City since the 1990s;<ref>{{cite web |url = http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/crime_statistics/cs-en-us-city.pdf |title = Compstat |publisher = [[City of New York Police Department]] |access-date = July 6, 2017 }}</ref> violent crime decreased more than 75% from 1993 to 2005, and continued decreasing during periods when the nation as a whole saw increases.<ref name="Law">{{cite journal |title = Don't Tell New York, But Crime Is Going Up |url = http://www.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/len/2002/12.31/page5.html |volume = 28 |issue = 589, 590 |date = December 15–31, 2013 |access-date = August 20, 2011 |website = Lib.jjay.cuny.edu |publisher = [[City University of New York]] |archive-date = October 23, 2021 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20211023100612/https://www.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/len/2002/12.31/page5.html |url-status = dead }}</ref> The [[Stop-and-frisk in New York City|NYPD's stop-and-frisk]] program was declared unconstitutional in 2013 as a "policy of indirect [[racial profiling]]" of Black and Hispanic residents,<ref>Goldstein, Joseph. [https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/nyregion/stop-and-frisk-practice-violated-rights-judge-rules.html 'Judge Rejects New York's Stop-and-Frisk Policy"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', August 12, 2013. Accessed January 17, 2024. "But the judge, Shira A. Scheindlin, found that the Police Department resorted to a 'policy of indirect racial profiling' as it increased the number of stops in minority communities. That has led to officers' routinely stopping 'blacks and Hispanics who would not have been stopped if they were white.'"</ref> although claims of disparate impact continued in subsequent years.<ref>Katersky, Aaron; Grant, Teddy. [https://abcnews.go.com/US/nypd-safety-team-making-high-number-unlawful-stops/story?id=99850699 "NYPD safety team making high number of unlawful stops, mostly people of color: Report"], ''[[ABC News]]'', June 5, 2023. January 17, 2024. "A decade after the New York Police Department's stop-and-frisk tactic was deemed unconstitutional, the police are still unlawfully stopping and searching many people, particularly men of color, according to a new report issued Monday by a court-appointed monitor. The monitor, Mylan Denerstein, faulted certain units of the NYPD's Neighborhood Safety Teams (NST), which are meant to combat gun violence in high-crime areas.... Shortly after a U.S. District Court judge ruled in 2013 the policy violated the Constitution, then-NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in an op-ed in the Washington Post, pushed back against claims that stop-and-frisk promoted racial profiling."</ref> The stop-and-frisk program had been widely credited as being behind the decline in crime, though rates continued dropping in the years after the program ended.<ref>Ehrenfreund, Max. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/22/donald-trump-claims-new-yorks-stop-and-frisk-policy-reduced-crime-the-data-disagree/ "Donald Trump claims New York's stop-and-frisk policy reduced crime. The data disagree."], ''[[The Washington Post]]'', September 22, 2016. Accessed January 17, 2024. "In 1990, there were nearly 31 homicides in the city for every 100,000 people — more than the average for other major American cities even in a year of frequent violence across the country. A decade later, that figure had declined by nearly 75 percent, to 8.4 homicides per 100,000 people. As New York police abruptly moved away from the practice of stop-and-frisk toward the end of Kelly's tenure in 2013, the rate of homicide continued to decline as it had previously."</ref><ref>Badger, Emily. [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/02/upshot/stop-and-frisk-bloomberg.html "The Lasting Effects of Stop-and-Frisk in Bloomberg's New York"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', March 2, 2020, updated November 30, 2020. Accessed January 17, 2024. "In the years since Michael Bloomberg left the mayor's office in New York, the legacy of stop-and-frisk policing widely used during his administration has become clearer. Crime in the city continued to decline, suggesting that the aggressive use of police stops wasn't so essential to New York's safety after all."</ref>

The city set a record of 2,245 murders in 1990 and hit a near-70-year record low of 289 in 2018.<ref>Kanno-Youngs, Zolan. [https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-citys-murder-rate-hit-new-low-in-2018-11546559793 "New York City's Murder Rate Hit New Low in 2018"], ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'', January 3, 2019. Accessed January 15, 2024. "The New York Police Department recorded 289 murders in 2018, three fewer than the 292 recorded in 2017. Mayor Bill de Blasio said it was the fewest number of homicides in nearly 70 years. Overall, major crime in the city fell by 1.3% from 97,089 to 95,844, police said. There were 2,245 people murdered in New York City in 1990."</ref> The number of murders and the rate of 3.3 per 100,000 residents in 2017 was the lowest since 1951.<ref>[https://a860-gpp.nyc.gov/concern/nyc_government_publications/05741v36b "Fewest Annual Murders and Shooting Incidents Ever Recorded in the Modern Era; Lowest per-capita murder rate since 1951"], [[New York City Police Department]], press release dated January 5, 2018. Accessed January 15, 2024. "With the close of 2017, New York City marks three new crime reduction benchmarks: the first time the total number of index crimes has fallen below 100,000; the first time the number of shooting incidents has fallen below 800; and the first time the total number of murders has fallen below 300. This reduction in murders has resulted in the lowest per-capita murder rate in nearly 70 years."</ref> New York City recorded 386 murders in 2023, a decline of 12% from the previous year.<ref>Cramer, Maria; Meko, Hurubie; and Marcius, Chelsia Rose. [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/03/nyregion/nyc-crime-2023.html "Homicides and Shootings Fell in New York City as Felony Assaults Rose"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', January 3, 2024. Accessed January 15, 2024. "There were 386 homicides in 2023, a 12 percent drop from 2022."</ref><ref>[https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/p00098/nypd-december-2023-end-of-year-citywide-crime-statistics "NYPD Announces December 2023, End-of-Year Citywide Crime Statistics"], [[New York City Police Department]], press release dated January 4, 2024. Accessed January 15, 2024. "Murders – which rose for four consecutive years before the current administration was installed – fell by 11.9% (386 vs. 438) in 2023 compared to 2022, and by 33.3% (24 vs. 36) in December 2023, compared to the same month a year prior."</ref> New York City had [[List of cities by homicide rate|one of the lowest homicide rates among the ten largest U.S. cities]] at 5.5 per 100,000 residents in 2021, behind [[San Jose, California]], at 3.1 per 100,000.<ref>[https://www.vitalcitynyc.org/vital_signs/gun-violence-in-new-york-city-the-data "Gun Violence in New York City; The Data"], Vital City. Accessed January 17, 2024.</ref>

New York City has stricter [[Gun laws in New York|gun laws]] than most [[Gun law in the United States|other cities in the U.S.]]—a license to own any firearm is required in New York City, and the [[NY SAFE Act]] of 2013 [[Assault weapons legislation in the United States|banned assault weapons]]—and New York State had the fifth-lowest gun death rate of the states in 2020.<ref>{{cite news |title=States with the most gun violence share one trait |url=https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/26/politics/gun-violence-data-what-matters/index.html |access-date=May 13, 2023 |agency=CNN}}</ref>

[[Organized crime]] has long been associated with New York City, beginning with the [[Forty Thieves (New York gang)|Forty Thieves]] and the [[Roach Guards]] in the [[Five Points, Manhattan|Five Points]] neighborhood in the 1820s, followed by the [[Tong (organization)|Tongs]] in the same neighborhood, which ultimately evolved into Chinatown, Manhattan. The 20th century saw a rise in the [[American Mafia|Mafia]], dominated by the [[Five Families]], as well as in [[gang]]s, including the [[Black Spades]].<ref>{{cite web |first = Mark |last = Berkey-Gerard |url = http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/issueoftheweek/20010305/200/161 |title = Youth Gangs |work = [[Gotham Gazette]] |date = March 5, 2001 |access-date = December 2, 2021 }}</ref> The Mafia and gang presence has declined in the city in the 21st century.<ref>{{cite news |first1 = Sean |last1 = Gardiner |first2 = Pervaiz |last2 = Shallwani |date = February 18, 2014 |title = NY Crime: Mafia Is Down—but Not Out – Crime Families Adapt to Survive, Lowering Profile and Using Need-to-Know Tactics |newspaper = [[The Wall Street Journal]] |url = https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304626804579363363092833756 |access-date = July 8, 2015 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first = Seth |last = Ferranti |date = August 18, 2015 |access-date = December 2, 2021 |title = How New York Gang Culture Is Changing |url = https://www.vice.com/read/how-new-york-citys-gang-culture-is-changing-818 |magazine = [[Vice (magazine)|Vice]] }}</ref>

The [[New York City Fire Department|Fire Department of New York]] (FDNY) provides [[fire protection]], technical rescue, primary response to biological, chemical, and radioactive hazards, and [[emergency medical services]]. FDNY faces multifaceted firefighting challenges in many ways unique to New York. In addition to responding to [[List of building types|building types]] that range from wood-frame single family homes to [[High-rise|high-rise structures]], the FDNY responds to fires that occur in the [[New York City Subway]].<ref>{{cite report |title = Special Investigation Report: New York City Transit Authority Subway System Fires |url = https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=730260 |publisher = [[National Transportation Safety Board]] |date = October 23, 1985 |access-date = July 30, 2022 }}</ref> Secluded bridges and tunnels, as well as large parks and wooded areas that can give rise to brush fires, also present challenges. The FDNY is headquartered at [[9 MetroTech Center]] in [[Downtown Brooklyn]],<ref>{{cite web |title = 9 Metrotech Center – FDNY Headquarters |url = http://www.fmmcorp.com/p_gov5.html |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120118054305/http://www.fmmcorp.com/p_gov5.html |archive-date = January 18, 2012 |access-date = November 5, 2009 |publisher = Fresh Meadow Mechanical Corp }}</ref> and the FDNY Fire Academy is on [[Randalls and Wards Islands|Randalls Island]].<ref>{{cite web |title = FDNY Fire Academy |url = http://nyc.gov/html/fdny/html/units/fire_academy/fa_index.shtml |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20141014104143/http://www.nyc.gov/html/fdny/html/units/fire_academy/fa_index.shtml |archive-date = October 14, 2014 |access-date = October 8, 2014 |work = [[New York City Fire Department]] |publisher = [[Government of New York City|The City of New York]] }}</ref>