Crime and the number of shootings have both decreased 31% since Mr. Bloomberg took office and appointed Raymond Kelly to head the New York Police Department. The reduction came about even as the NYPD lost thousands officers over Mr. Bloomberg's years in office and as the department confronted the heightened threat of terror.

Bloomberg Reshaped the City - WSJ.com

CRIME

City Streets More Secure As Stop-and-Frisk Rankles

As befits a mayor captivated by measurable data, statistics—some widely lauded and others the subject of fierce debate—define the Bloomberg era when it comes to fighting crime.

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg, as seen in July, is days away from leaving office after 12 years. Keith Bedford for the Wall Street Journal

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With homicides this year standing at 329 through Monday, the city is on a pace to record the fewest killings since the 1950s. Crime and the number of shootings have both decreased 31% since Mr. Bloomberg took office and appointed Raymond Kelly to head the New York Police Department. The reduction came about even as the NYPD lost thousands officers over Mr. Bloomberg's years in office and as the department confronted the heightened threat of terror.

"It's a remarkably strong legacy," said Richard Aborn, president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City. "They have driven crime to rates no one thought was possible. Every time it went lower people said it can't go down any further but it has, particularly murders."

But other numbers also will shape Mr. Bloomberg's legacy: the more than 5 million stop-and-frisk reports filled out by police, more than 80% of them involving black and Hispanic men, of whom about 90% weren't charged.

Critics see it as a black mark on the Bloomberg years. "One of the areas in which the administration crashed and burned particularly in the last half of his third term is on the issue of stop and frisk," said Vince Warren, executive director for the Center for Constitutional Rights. "What will be remembered about his administration is that it fought tooth and nail to continue a failed police policy with respect to crime reduction that hurt far more New Yorkers than it helped."

In August, a federal judge ruled the policy, as carried out by the NYPD, was racially biased and unconstitutional. The judge also ordered an outside monitor to be installed at the NYPD. The city is appealing, but Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio has vowed to drop the appeal once in office.

Under Mr. Bloomberg, the city has also made a record number of misdemeanor arrests—an annual average of 220,000 between 2002 and 2012—including for possession of small amounts of marijuana.

Critics, such as John Jay College of Criminal Justice sociology professor Andrew Karmen, say these relatively minor charges, many of which were the result of stop and frisk, can have lifelong effects on education and job opportunities for the primarily black and Hispanic men arrested.

Nonetheless, Mr. Aborn said, he suspected that "in the long view of history the reduction of crime will be dominate."

—Sean Gardiner

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From crime to cigarettes, Bloomberg leaves his mark on New York | Reuters