The NYPD has won great praise for bringing crime down to historic lows. But lost amid the fanfare is a growing segment of New Yorkers like Rayside: Those waiting for justice in the murders of their loved ones. About 1,500 murders have gone unsolved over the last decade.

The number of homicides in 2013 dipped to 334 — the lowest tally since the NYPD started keeping track in the early 1960s. The number represents a 41% decline over the past decade. Given the decrease in murders, some argue that the NYPD should be using this opportunity to get more killers off the streets.

“There are thousands of murderers walking around who haven’t been brought to justice,” said Andy Rosenzweig, a former NYPD lieutenant and ex-chief investigator for the Manhattan district attorney’s office. “It’s horrifying.”

EXPERT: NYPD SHOULD EXAMINE ITS PRIORITIES SO NO KILLER IN THE CITY CAN EVADE JUSTICE

The News reviewed the status of last year’s homicides, detective staffing at each precinct and borough command over the past two decades. It also looked at trends in the city’s clearance rate — the number of arrests made in homicide cases during a 12-month period, as a percentage of homicides reported during that time.

The News found that as the homicide rate plummeted in the 1990s and activity on the cold case squad was at an all-time high, the clearance rate shot up to over 80% during the final years of the decade. But then the clearance rate started to drop again, and has since averaged around 70%.

Michael Palladino, head of the Detectives Endowment Association, said around 3,000 seasoned detectives retired in the two years following the World Trade Center terrorist attacks. Another 800 detectives were shifted to the newly created counterterrorism unit, and precinct-level detectives who used to focus only on major felonies found themselves investigating newly prevalent crimes like identity theft and lower-level offenses like petty larceny.