According to department figures, murder dropped by 17 percent citywide between 1995 and 1996, and overall crime by 16 percent.

Have the number of murders dropped so dramatically or the cases of violence been so reduced?

Of all violent crimes in the state, the report found, murders dropped by the largest degree.

Most notably, murders dropped by 10.9 percent from last year, including a 22.9 percent drop in April.

Compared with the statistics for the first six months of 1997, murders this year have dropped 25 percent.

The year after CompStat was adopted, 1995, murders dropped to 1,181.

Within five years, murders had dropped 64.3 per cent to 770 and total crimes had fallen by almost half to 355,893.

Before the recent outbreak of violence, political murders - though still too frequent - had dropped to under 20 a month.

Another disturbing note was that while murders dropped in four boroughs, the number rose sharply in Queens, to 352 from 303, a 16.2 percent increase.

Since 1993, the mayor said, murders and felonies have dropped 63 percent.