There’s lies, damn lies and statistics.

That’s what New York City is using to say that major crime statistics are trending down.

The NYPD said last week that there was a 0.4% reduction in “index” crimes (murder, rape, robbery, burglary, felony assault, grand larceny, and car theft) for the year to date 2023 vs the same period in 2022.

That’s great perhaps, but there is a 47.5% rise in these same index crimes since the same period in 2019, before the criminal-justice reform, no bail reform was put in place.

As Mayor Eric Adams gave notice yesterday on the election loss of Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot citing rising crime levels, he noted the decrease in NYC’s crime.

The 0.4% is nothing to hang your hat on, but that’s what Democrats do. They manipulate the numbers to the best of their ability to make it seem they are doing a good job.

Now the city wants to show “progress” in the fight against crime by using the elevated crime levels of 2022 as a baseline, rather than the much lower crime levels before the 2019 “reforms.

Using the 2022 numbers as the new baseline will allow ultra progressive politicians in Albany to say that the bail reform measures are working. We must demand that the baseline should be 2019 numbers before the Democrats release more than 2,000 career criminals with their “woke” criminal justice measures.