Crime rates in New York City reached their lowest levels in recorded history last year, even as police continued to phase out the controversial stop-and-frisk policy . The decrease across all major felony categories followed nearly three decades of declines a trend that some pundits predicted would end once police scaled back the widespread practice of targeting people for warrantless searches.

There were a total of 290 killings across New York in 2017, according to preliminary figures from the New York City Police Department, down from 335 homicides in 2016 and a peak of 2,245 in 1990. Other crimes, including rape, assault, grand larceny and car thefts, also fell from the previous year.

The last time crime rates were this low was in the 1950s, NYPD Commissioner James ONeill said in December. They were the lowest since reliable records have been kept, according to The New York Times .

The steep declines suggest that defenders of New Yorks stop-and-frisk policing were wildly off-base with their apocalyptic predictions. Much of this hand-wringing began in the run-up to the 2013 mayoral election, when many of the Democratic candidates, including the eventual victor, Bill de Blasio, ran as outspoken opponents of the policy.