The New York City subways have seen a slight dip in crime since the police started to patrol the trains at night earlier this year, according to data.
The crime in the system fell by 7% between January 20 – when the night patrols started – and March 16, compared to the same time frame last year, according to NYPD statistics.
Mayor Eric Adams praised the overall reduction of Subway Mayhem since the beginning of the year, so that his hat was tilted for the new police effort to ride the trend.
“In collaboration with the Governor, the NYPD police officers started placing during the night hours, seven days a week since January, and thanks to those efforts, the metro crime has fallen by 28%,” Adams told reporters on Thursday, with data with a large decline between January and February between January and February.
“We are talking about record lows in the metro crime that follows two consecutive years of index crime in the system. Two consecutive years,” he said at a press conference that emphasizes that mental health initiatives underground.
NYPD statistics show that crime on the subways fell slightly less than 22% from January 1 to Monday, compared to last year. It fell almost 13% from 2023.
Police commissioner Jessica Tisch has used the extra agents to run on the trains with the support of GOV. Kathy Hochul, who offered the city extra funds to flood the transits system every night from 9 p.m. to 5 hours.
Straphangers said the post that they noticed the increase in officers on the metro – but were not sure how productive the strategy was with nowhere near enough agents to cover the hundreds of train wagons.
“You see them patrolling the cars at night, and I think there is some security to know that they are there,” said the 23-year-old Damerae Beckford.
“But the problem is that it is usually just a few police officers and the trains have eight cars, and most S – T you see happens so fast that if the police are not there in that second, it is too late. But the city cannot afford to assign a cop to any car because that would take up the entire police.
“It’s good that they allocate who they can save,” he continued and added, “I just don’t know if it is that effective.”
Joey Cruz, an Astoria -owner who lives in Manhattan and drives through the metro in the midnight, said he was relieved to see agents on the trains.
“I feel better when I see the police, especially when I’m on the train at midnight,” said Cruz, 61, at the post of the Port Authority.
“When I see their presence, whether it’s on the train or on the platform, I feel safer,” he added. “But I still look around because you can never be too careful.
“They make a difference by just being there, I can see that.”
Another rider, Jayden Pugh, 26, said he only saw the patrols ‘sporadically’.
“I see the police for a few nights, I don’t see them other nights,” he said.
“I am sure they are down there if that is what they have assigned to, but there are just so many more metro cars than the police,” Pugh said. “You can cut a man in the face and be in use and a cop you will never catch unless he happens to be there.
“They have to find out how they can get these bad people off the trains to get in the beginning. The allocation of more agents is just a patch on the problem.”
– Additional reporting by Georgett Roberts
