Mayor Bloomberg and the Department of Education have been very on-message about whether schools are getting safer under their watch (yes), but there is one kind of crime that hasn’t been dropping over the years: grand larceny, or the theft of objects valued at over $1,000.
The New York Post noted a jump in 2007, and now, we see this tucked into a newsletter that went out to teachers union leaders last Friday:
Grand larceny thefts (over $1,000) have increased 173 percent over last year, and the theft of laptops is up 191 percent. Forty-one percent of the property stolen belonged to UFT members.
The easy math says that means 59% of stolen property was owned by students and schools. Stolen laptop computers may be driving this trend.
I still have to hear from NYPD to see if their figures jive.
A DOE spokeswoman, Marge Feinberg, said she could not confirm the figures. But she said, “Crime in general is down in schools.”