As Murder Rate Falls, Suicides Outnumber Homicides

In 2012, for the first time in nearly 50 years, more people apparently killed themselves in New York City than were murdered, a byproduct in part of the city’s plunging murder rate.

And while men died in disproportionate numbers from both causes, the victims of homicide and suicide come from very different universes.

Typically, most murder victims are young and black. Most suicides are older and non-Hispanic white.

“There’s no explanations that I think are fully satisfying and explain what accounts for the contrast,” said Dr. Sandro Galea, an epidemiologist at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

“What you’re seeing is a reflection of the context in which homicides and violence are endemic,” he said. “The myth of the unexpected homicide occurring to a wealthy person in a wealthy neighborhood is vanishingly rare.”

“The vast majority of suicides are known to have had some psychopathology, and although the literature is muddy, depression is more common in majority groups,” Dr. Galea continued. “The second reason may well be that there are different coping mechanisms among minorities that are more externalism than internalizing. But there’s an interesting paradox: If we know that adverse living circumstances are associated with greater risk of depression why aren’t minorities more prone to suicide?”

According to preliminary figures from the Police Department, 418 murders were recorded in 2012.

Among the victims, 84 percent were men, 60 percent were black, 27 percent were Hispanic, and 9 percent were non-Hispanic white. (Among the known assailants, 93 percent were men; 53 percent were black and 35 percent were Hispanic). More than two-thirds of the victims were 40 or younger.

In 2011, the city’s health department recorded 509 suicides. Though the rate for 2012 is not yet available, city officials believe that, based on recent trends, suicides outnumbered murders last year.

While the homicide rate has been declining, the suicide rate has remained fairly steady in the last decade.

Homicide was the leading cause of death among New Yorkers 15 to 34, suicide was third among 15- to 24-year-olds and fourth among 25- to 34-year-olds.

Among people under 65, suicide was the third leading cause of death among Asians, fifth among non-Hispanic whites and non-Puerto Rican Hispanic people. It was not among the top 10 causes of death among blacks. Non-Hispanic whites recorded the highest death rates from suicide, blacks the lowest.

Louis B. Schlesinger, a professor of forensic psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the shifting ratio of murders to suicides reflect two other factors: “A lot of suicides go unreported,” he said, “and because of the increased sophistication of emergency medical technology, people who 10 years ago would be dead from murder are now living.”