Youth crime within the Large Apple has greater than doubled because the state’s controversial “Elevate the Age Regulation” kicked in — regardless of general dips in crime, Mayor Eric Adams’ newest annual report revealed.
The newly launched Mayor’s Administration Report exhibits drops in six of the seven main crimes throughout the 5 boroughs over the previous yr — but additionally exhibits that there have been 5,623 felony youth arrests in fiscal yr 2025, up from 2,200 in fiscal 2018 when the lax regulation kicked in, and a couple of,807 in 2021.
Children are additionally paying the worth, with crimes in opposition to youths at 5,177 throughout this fiscal yr in comparison with simply 2,259 within the 2021 fiscal yr, the 554-page report exhibits.
“Mayor Adams has been clear that the ‘Elevate the Age’ laws handed by the previous governor has contributed considerably to each perpetrators and victims of violent crimes being youthful,” Metropolis Corridor spokesperson Kayla Mamelak stated in a press release Wednesday.
“That’s the reason we proceed to press state legislators to reform legal guidelines like these and make sure the public is secure and persons are held accountable,” she stated.
“It’s unlucky that this laws has contributed to larger rearrests charges amongst youth probationers and youth arrests for felonies, however the Adams administration is dedicated to educating and interesting youth earlier than they ever make contact with the justice system.”
General, the statistics paint a optimistic image of Gotham crime traits within the 2025 fiscal yr— that includes a 6% drop in murders; 17% lower in robberies; 9% drop in felonious assaults; and a 5% dip in burglaries, whereas grand larceny and grand larceny auto each fell 10%.
The report additionally exhibits a 14% dip in capturing incidents, from 932 to 804 yr over yr, in comparison with the identical time-frame final yr — and noticed the fewest August shootings within the COMPStat period since these numbers have been first reported in 1993.
Between final yr and this yr, transit arrests jumped to 25,833 in comparison with 14,545, whereas police issued 196,102 high quality of life summonses this fiscal yr, up from 179,673 final yr and greater than triple the fiscal 2021 57,876 citations — largely the results of a citywide quality-of-life effort launched by NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch earlier this yr.
However the youth crime stats inform a special story.
Elevate the Age, signed by then -Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2017 and later backed by Gov. Kathy Hochul, was a part of a sequence of legal justice reforms handed by state lawmakers.
The statute raised the age of legal accountability from 16 to 18, and allowed suspects as previous as 21 to be housed in juvenile detention services slightly than in grownup jails.
By fiscal yr 2020, youth felony arrests jumped to 4,252 from 2,754 in 2019, the mayor’s report exhibits.
“Juvenile arrests for main felonies elevated 54 % as a result of phased nature of the implementation of the Elevate the Age Regulation,” the 2020 report by then-Mayor Invoice de Blasio famous.
“The fiscal 2019 reporting interval solely accounted for 9 months of the inclusion of 16-year-old arrestees, whereas the fiscal 2020 included a whole yr of all 16-year-old arrestees, and 9 months of 17-year-old arrestees,” the sooner report stated.
The numbers dipped to 2,807 in fiscal 2021, partly as a result of COVID-19 shutdown — however in subsequent years jumped from 4,037 in fiscal 2022 to the 2025 variety of 5,623, the brand new report stated.
In keeping with the NYPD, juvenile homicide arrests almost quadrupled from eight in 2017 to 30 in 2024.
The mayor’s report stated the NYPD is launching new efforts to give attention to faculty and scholar security.
“We’ll do evaluation, I feel, communicate with the police commissioners to do the correlation between that invoice and what has been occurring since that invoice,” Adams informed The Publish Wednesday when requested concerning the impression of the Elevate the Age regulation on youth crime.
“Good intentions can prove unhealthy outcomes,” he stated. “And, you already know, we’ve got poured cash into after faculty applications, we’ve got poured cash into summer time youth employment and internships, so we don’t consider incarceration is the reply.”
Further reporting by Amanda Woods
