Watchdog Group: Prospect Park among 5 most crime-ridden parks in NYC

Park-goers Want More Police Protection

August 9, 2016 By John Alexander Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Prospect Park may be pretty, but it’s listed among the top five New York City parks with the most overall crime between April 2015 and April 2016. Eagle file photo by Samantha Samel

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Brooklyn’s Prospect Park is listed among the top five New York City parks with the most overall crime between April 1, 2015 and March 31, 2016, according to the New York Post. The Post reports that “violent crime has spiked in green spaces across the five boroughs, and park-goers said they would like to see a greater police presence.”

NYC Park Advocates, the watchdog group that provided these figures, listed Prospect Park at No. 4 out of the five with 30 crimes reported during the survey period. The group found that felonies including rape, murder, robbery and assault have risen 23 percent during this time frame. That figure, for all NYC parks, includes six murders, 14 rapes, 254 robberies and 143 victims of felony assaults.

The other top crime-ridden parks listed in the survey include Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, Riverside Park in Manhattan, Crotona Park in the Bronx and Claremont Park, also in the Bronx.

The crime stats do not include Central Park, which has its own police precinct, and where records show the crime rate is down 38.8 percent. The Post reports that total crime in the city is down by 1.4 percent, according to year-to-date NYPD data.