State Overview
New York State has a bifurcated homicide profile: New York City, which saw over 400 homicides annually at its early 1990s peak and has since declined dramatically to historically low levels, and upstate New York — including Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse — where homicide rates have remained elevated or climbed as the city's crime problem receded. The contrast between safe-Manhattan and crisis-upstate has become a defining tension in New York's criminal justice policy. The state's serial killer history includes the "Son of Sam" David Berkowitz, who terrorized New York City in the 1970s, and the Long Island Serial Killer who targeted women on the South Shore between 1999 and 2010. FBI UCR data powers The Murder Channel's New York state coverage.