THE GHETTO'S OF NEW YORK ARE STARVING WHICH LEADS TO A JUMP IN THE CRIME WAVE!

Murders are up sharply in the city this year, with startling increases in gunplay across the five boroughs, a Daily News study of NYPD statistics shows.

The citywide murder rate has increased 22.8% in the first 11 weeks of the year over the same period in 2009, from 79 homicides to 97 as of Sunday, the most recent day for which statistics are available.

Shootings in general are also up citywide, with 293 people hit by bullets this year, a 16.3% change from the total of 252 recorded by March 21 last year.

Coming after a year in which New York saw the fewest number of homicides on record, the spike in crime rattled residents trying to go about their lives.

"There's always new problems," said Shirley Mercedes, 15, who lives in the South Bronx's gang-riddled 40th precinct, where the crime rise has been steepest.

Seventeen people have been shot in the precinct this year, compared with five over the same period last year.

"[It] is getting worse," Shirley said. "I shouldn't be used to it, but it's where I live."

There were 466 slayings in New York in 2009, the lowest year-end total since the NYPD started its tracking method in 1963.

"The NYPD is fighting its own success," said Paul Browne, the Police Department's top spokesman.

Browne pointed out that this year's murder rate is still 14% lower than 2008 and 39% lower than the murder rate in 2001.

The dramatic 2009 drop came despite harder economic times and a smaller police force stretched thin by counter-terrorism operations.

That big success is losing some ground, the statistics show.

Murders in Manhattan have risen from 9 to 16, a 77.8% increase, and they are up 28.6% in Queens, from 14 to 18.

Brooklyn and the Bronx have also suffered an increase in the murder rate - both at about 15%. Only Staten Island has seen another decrease in the homicide rate.

The overall city crime rate, comprised of seven major felonies, dropped 2% in the first three months of the year. And even among the increases, the raw numbers are still very low.

Some neighborhoods feel under siege.

"It's like war [and] it's getting worse every day," said Joel Araujo, 19, who works at a clothing store in Port Morris, Bronx.

In tree-lined Queens Village, murders have gone from 1 to 5 through Sunday - and the medical examiner confirmed a sixth yesterday - while shootings in the neighborhood have increased from 2 to 9, a 450% jump.

The 88th Precinct in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, has already had six shootings this year, after having none in the first months of 2009.

Police officials have long credited the dramatic recent drop in crime to Operation Impact, which floods felony-prone areas with uniformed rookies.

Proposed budget cuts could further imperil its effectiveness by reducing NYPD manpower, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has warned.

Browne partially attributed the increase in murders to a rise in arson deaths, from zero to six, and in homicides among family members, from 12 to 14.