Rape cases in New York have jumped 11% this year, with incidents more than doubling in some parts of the city.
According to New York Police Department statistics, there were 880 reported rapes in the city between Jan. 1 and July 14, up from 796 during the same period last year.
“This should be a wake-up call,” said Jane Manning, executive director of the Women’s Equal Justice Association. “The NYPD needs to allocate more investigators to its understaffed Special Victims Unit to ensure that every case is properly investigated and dangerous criminals are arrested.”
The areas with the steepest increases are:
- Manhattan’s 10th Precinct (which covers Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen South, and Hudson Yards) is projected to have eight cases so far this year, up from two so far in 2023, a 300% increase.
- In the Midtown South neighborhood of Times Square, rape cases doubled from 9 to 19, an increase of 111 percent.
- In the 101st Precinct on Queens’ Rockaway Peninsula, rape cases increased 100%, from 7 to 14.
- In the 105th Precinct in eastern Queens, rape cases have increased 70%, from 10 last year to 17 so far this year.
According to the New York Police Department, most rapists know their victims, but several recent cases of “stranger rape” have shocked the city.
In the Bronx, on May 21, a psychopathic assailant was caught on video putting a belt around a woman’s neck, dragging her between two cars and raping her at the intersection of East 152nd Street and Third Avenue.
Christian Inga, a Venezuelan immigrant living in Corona, was arrested on suspicion of raping a 13-year-old girl at knifepoint in a Queens park on June 13 after police released a sketch and surveillance camera photos of the suspect.
The father, whose identity The Post is not disclosing to protect the victim, said the family has been in despair since the brutal attack.
“We’ve been through hell,” the devastated father told The Washington Post. “My world has been turned upside down, and the process of healing has not even begun. He previously told The Washington Post that President Biden’s disastrous open border policies are to blame for allowing repeat criminals to easily enter the US.
According to police, on June 24, a 21-year-old woman was sunbathing in a “secluded” area of Central Park when she was lying down in a bikini when a man stripped naked and jumped on her.
The suspect, Jermaine Longmire, 43, was arrested after an intense manhunt.
Longmire, who was charged with attempted rape and sexual assault, had been arrested at least eight times in the city.
Statistics show that there have been two rape cases in the park so far this year, but none in 2023.
Experts suggested several factors could be behind the increase, including NYPD staffing cuts, a surge in the immigrant population and failed bail reform policies.
“It’s no secret that the NYPD is undergoing a massive downsizing. Because they’re shrinking, if they decide to prioritize something, like subway crime, it means they’re going to have more officers underground, which makes them a little more vulnerable at the top,” said Rafael Mangual, a criminal justice policy expert and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Mangal said the risk of crimes like rape is also increased by controversial policies such as discovery reforms that require prosecutors to turn over evidence to defense attorneys early in the legal process, New York state’s Raise the Age Act, which raised the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 18 in 2018, and soft-on-crime prosecutors, including Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
“The rate at which lawsuits are dismissed is on the rise. [and] Bragg’s progressive prosecutorial approach resulted in an increased percentage of cases not pursued. [Brooklyn DA] With Eric Gonzalez [Bronx DA] “Darcel Clark,” he said.
Mangal said migrant shelters could be partly to blame for the rise in rapes in certain areas, but without information about the addresses where the attacks took place it was impossible to say for sure.
The NYPD did not immediately release that data to The Washington Post.
“You’re talking about potentially vulnerable people in an environment that’s not easy for police to police,” Mangal said. “It’s a very densely populated building … it’s closed doors. I think there’s a lot of fear going around.”
Rape is also on the rise in areas where open-air prostitution is prevalent.
The 115th Precinct in Queens, which covers East Elmhurst and Jackson Heights, has seen 21 incidents so far this year, up from 14 so far in 2023, a 50% increase.
And in the 110th Precinct in Queens, which is home to the notorious “Sweethearts Market” on Roosevelt Avenue, rapes have increased 38 percent, with 22 reported so far this year, up from 16 during the same period last year.
The New York Police Department said it takes all rape cases seriously.
“The NYPD thoroughly investigates each rape allegation and will continue to work to bring justice to victims of these heinous crimes,” a department spokesperson said.
