In New York, the number dropped by more than half from 1992 to 1996, to a total of 984. Philadelphia's homicide detectives have seen no major change in their workload. The 414 killings classified as murders last year represented a 4 percent drop from 1995. The city's murder rate has fluctuated in a narrow range for the last five years. In the first three months of this year, there were 117 murders.
Experts are uncertain why a few cities have seen sharp declines.
Some attribute it to new police tactics targeting petty criminals before they can go on to bigger crimes. It's been suggested that when petty crime statutes are enforced, neighborhoods have a stake in upholding standards of behavior and begin policing their environment. But many criminologists say the downswing is just one half of a pendulum's arc. They note that some of the cities that have seen the largest decreases are ones that saw the biggest increases in murders in the late 1980s, when the explosion of the crack cocaine trade helped push killings to a peak. Police Commissioner Richard Neal points out that Philadelphia is among the safest of large U.S. cities, judging from FBI data on major crimes, such as rape and robbery.