Queens Leads NYC In Crime Drop

Back row (l. to r.): City Councilmember Leroy Comrie, Councilmember David Weprin, Assemblymember Jimmy Meng, Councilmember Mark Weprin, Councilmember James Gennaro, Assemblymember Michael Gianaris, Councilmember John Liu, and state Senator Ada Smith. Front row (l. to r.): State Senator Frank Padavan, Councilmember Peter Vallone Jr., state Senator Serphin Maltese, Assemblymember Margaret Markey, District Attorney Richard A. Brown, Assemblymember Tony Seminerio, Assemblymember Nettie Mayersohn, Borough President Helen Marshall, Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, Councilmember Dennis Gallagher, Councilmember Tony Avella and Councilmember Tom White. Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown briefed city, state and federal elected officials, including New York City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and from Queens, Borough President Helen M. Marshall, at the District Attorney's annual legislative breakfast, held at his Kew Gardens offices.

The District Attorney announced that Queens County in 2005 led New York City for the third consecutive year in reducing violent crime. Homicides, which were at a high of 361 in 1991, were down to just 94 last year—the second lowest number of homicides in 35 years and an 18 percent decrease from 2004. The decrease was 9.77 percent in Patrol Borough Queens North and 3.81 percent in Patrol Borough Queens South.

Queens also had a 13.9 percent decrease last year in shootings, the largest decrease in the city; and the largest decrease in the city in index crimes—6.8 percent. Those numbers include violent crime and burglaries, grand larcenies and auto theft.

The District Attorney said, “In the area of auto theft, if we keep going at the rate that we are going, we will soon reach negative numbers. In 1991, when I first took office, there were some 52,000 cars stolen in Queens County. Last year, we were just over 5,400--that's a decrease of almost 90 percent."

Brown said, “2005 was a year in which we again saw significant progress in our efforts to continue to lower the level of violence in the county and improve the quality of life of those who live and work here.”

The District Attorney urged lawmakers to support his efforts to fully restore budget cuts imposed over the last four years of almost 20 percent, noting that the budget cuts had forced him to substantially reduce costs by reducing staff through attrition, a hiring freeze and by increasing the caseloads of assistant district attorneys assigned to the Supreme and Criminal Courts. “This year, as the city and state’s fiscal outlook has improved and revenue has begun to increase, it is time to restore those funds,” he said, “so that we may fulfill our constitutional and statutory responsibilities and develop new initiatives to enhance public safety and improve the quality of life of the residents of Queens County.”

One such initiative, the District Attorney said, is a dedicated child abuse protection unit staffed by specially trained assistants and support personnel committed to the investigation and prosecution of cases involving the physical and sexual abuse of children. “Combating child abuse is a battle to be fought on multiple fronts,” District Attorney Brown said. “Changing our laws and increasing penalties are part of the solution. We are also working with our colleagues in the State District Attorneys Association and our legislators to comprehensively review child abuse laws regarding homicide, assault and endangering.”

Brown added, “While the legislative focus so far has only been on cases involving child deaths, in many cases we, as prosecutors, have an opportunity to intervene when a child first suffers relatively minor injuries or maltreatment. Our current laws, however, do not provide us with the tools to protect children before they suffer serious abuse. We need, for example, a felony child endangerment statute. Had the criminal justice system discovered Nixzmary Brown’s situation when she was first abused, we could have charged her caregivers only with a misdemeanor because she had not suffered ‘serious physical injury’ as that term is defined under existing law. That is unacceptable. Those who abuse animals are subject under existing law to felony sanctions. Don't you think we need a felony child endangerment statute as well?”

District Attorney Brown noted that last year there were approximately 11,000 cases of child abuse, maltreatment and neglect reported to the State Central Registry in Albany from Queens County, of which 2,264 were referred to his office to investigate for possible criminality. “Prosecutors, who are also charged with the critically important responsibility of detecting patterns of abuse in thousands of child abuse reports that we receive each year have an equally urgent need for additional resources to fulfill their mandate to protect our children,” he said.

Brown also urged the legislators to help him obtain additional funds for such anti-crime initiatives as establishment of an Identity Theft and Financial Crimes Unit, aggressive enforcement against financial exploitation of the elderly, expansion of ongoing programs targeting youth violence and gang activity and continuing to protect battered women and aggressively prosecute their abusers.

The District Attorney additionally noted that his office’s felony conviction rate remains the best citywide and that its dismissal rate of felony complaints and indictments was the lowest. “Despite the budget cuts, our prosecutors are continuing to make major cases against drug traffickers, organized crime mobsters and criminals involved in auto theft, auto insurance fraud, crime at our airports, gun trafficking, credit card fraud, identity theft, money laundering and all sorts of other types of criminal activity, including illegal conversion of buildings here in Queens County.”

District Attorney Brown concluded by stating, “It is important that we increase our outreach to community residents so that they are aware of the services that the criminal justice system can provide if they are victims of crime and provide resources in immigrant and other underserved communities to let residents know that there is help for them if they have been victimized.”