New York City crime statistics remained elevated in November relative to last year amid a nationwide uptick in crime, NYPD statistics released Wednesday show. 

In November, index crimes, a metric that includes murder, rape, felony assault and four categories of theft, were 21.3% higher than the same period last year. Overall, those index crimes are up 4% year-to-date over 2020, according to CompStat.

Murders declined 17.2% in November 2021 compared to November 2020 (from 29 to 24), and burglaries were down 5.7%, but all other index crimes, including rape and robbery, increased.

Hate crimes are up by 93.1% year-to-date compared with last year, and sex crimes besides rape are up 29.1%. 

The only crime statistics tracked by CompStat that are down year-to-date over last year are burglaries, down 19.5%, and transit crimes, down 2.8%. Transit crimes, however, more than doubled in Nov. 2021 compared to Nov. 2020. 

Police Commissioner Dermot Shea added that 10% of the NYPD’s arrests currently are of children illegally possessing guns, a figure he said was at 1.8% last year. 

Meanwhile, Shea and Mayor Bill de Blasio chose to highlight  an overall drop in major crimes during the mayor’s eight-year tenure at a news conference Wednesday.

De Blasio said that, compared with the beginning of his mayoralty in 2014, index crimes overall were down 11%. 

Despite the November increases, de Blasio and Shea painted a picture of a city successfully emerging from a pandemic-era spike in crime thanks to intensive policing efforts by the NYPD. 

“I do think the overall is clear: The NYPD has stabilized the situation even while we were still in the pandemic, and started to turn it very markedly,” de Blasio said. “We’re gonna turn the corner.”

“There is no one better than the men and women in this department at keeping New Yorkers safe,” Shea said. 

Shea said the next mayor will have to "make inroads" on a problem of recidivism, saying that of the people the NYPD has arrested for shootings recently, 30% have an open felony case.

The police commissioner tied the issue of repeat offenders to bail reform, which he has repeatedly blamed for crime increases, saying that laws that release nonviolent offenders have led to more crime in general. Yet an analysis by the New York Post of arrest data in 2020 showed that just a fraction of people released under bail changes were subsequently arrested in relation to a shooting.

In October, Shea testified before state Assembly members that the proportion of people recently charged with a crime who were then arrested again represented “small numbers,” and the percentage of offenders rearrested for a shooting crime was “not dramatic.” 

When asked about Shea’s legacy, de Blasio said that Shea had “a lot to be proud of.”

“I honestly wouldn't change a thing,” Shea said, speaking about the NYPD’s conduct in the pandemic era and the department’s efforts to expand neighborhood policing models. “Obviously people make mistakes, and things. But the last two years I will look back on — this may sound strange — with nothing but good memories.”

“It was a two-year period that I'll treasure forever,” he added.

De Blasio said that the latest public safety briefing would be his last as mayor.