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AGENCY TESTIMONY
Transit safety plan and subway crime reduction
0:16:54
ยท
3 min
Commissioner Tisch outlines the NYPD's three-part transit safety plan aimed at reducing crime and improving safety in the subway system.
- Optimization of resources with 200+ transit officers assigned to high-crime stations
- Reassignment of officers from desk jobs to transit patrol, including two uniformed officers on every overnight train
- Renewed focus on enforcing transit system rules and addressing quality-of-life issues
- Early data shows major crime in transit down 27% from 2024 and 44% below pre-pandemic levels
Jessica Tisch
0:16:54
Every day millions of people rely on the New York City subways to get them where they need to go.
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And we know that the system will always be a bellwether for public safety in our city.
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Riders must be safe and they must feel safe too.
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That is why among my first major initiatives as police commissioner, I announced a three part transit safety plan.
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Part one began with optimizing our resources to ensure that our deployments were as effective and efficient as possible.
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As a result of our analysis, more than 200 transit officers are assigned to daily dedicated subway patrols in the highest crime stations in the system.
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And within those stations, our officers are posted away from the entrances and mezzanines and onto the actual trains and platforms where we know that 78% of transit crime actually occurs.
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Part two is the reassignment of hundreds of officers from desk jobs and administrative work to transit patrol which enables us to put two uniformed officers on every overnight train in the city.
0:17:50
These cops are highly visible and move from one car to the next addressing conditions as they encounter them.
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Part three is about the transit system's rules themselves and it is a meaningful systemic shift in how we approach policing in transit.
0:18:04
Over the past ten years prohibitions against taking up multiple seats, laying outstretched, smoking, drinking alcohol have not been consistently enforced.
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This increased the perception of an unsafe system and it needed to change.
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So we piloted that change in Transit District 20 in Queens.
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We have added Transit District 34 in Brooklyn and we are looking to expand this program in the coming months.
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Our cops will not simply walk by someone who is violating the law and disrupting other passengers.
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We will correct the condition.
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And this is not just about enforcement.
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If a person is arrested and they are unhoused, they are offered placement in a shelter.
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And if they accept the offer, the Department of Homeless Services will see that they are given a bed.
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We will also arrange for their transportation if needed.
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This is not a dragnet.
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This is not harassment.
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And this also is not about one person taking up two seats on a half empty train.
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This is about restoring a sense of safety and order in the system.
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It is also a response to New Yorkers telling us that unchecked disorder makes them feel less safe on the train.
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And the truth is this approach also allows the NYPD to address the random acts of violence that we have seen in the subways.
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Since this re focused enforcement began, about thirty two percent of the encounters have resulted in an arrest mostly because of open active warrants.
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Of those people arrested, thirty one percent were convicted felons and all combined they had nearly 3,600 prior arrests which is an average of 20 per person.
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The early data from this transit plan is promising.
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So far this year, major crime in transit is down another 27% from 2024 and it is 44% below pre pandemic levels.
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And with focused deployments and consistent enforcement, we expect that these crime numbers will continue falling.
0:19:55
Our work in the transit system on top of reducing crime and disorder is also cognizant of the mental health crisis we are facing here and in communities across our country.