New York Metropolis would require law enforcement officials to conduct extra frequent and common sweeps of the subway system and work with homeless outreach groups to reassure present riders and lure again extra commuters to a transit system that wants them, Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul mentioned in a joint announcement on Thursday.
Mr. Adams, a former transit police officer, mentioned that he and police leaders would direct town’s street-level patrol officers to make common “visible inspections” of subway stations. Transit officers, he mentioned, can be advised to journey and stroll by means of subway trains and test on passengers.
“Omnipresence is the important thing,” Mr. Adams mentioned. “Folks really feel the system isn’t secure as a result of they don’t see officers. We’re going to convey a visible presence to our programs.”
Ms. Hochul introduced that the state would additionally develop groups of eight to 10 social staff and medical professionals who may present companies to hundreds of individuals dwelling on the streets and the subway.
The plan mirrors one which Mr. Adams promoted repeatedly throughout his mayoral marketing campaign: the redeployment of some officers throughout the transit system and a partnership with educated well being professionals who can higher tackle the wants of unhoused and mentally in poor health individuals.
It additionally displays Mr. Adams and Ms. Hochul’s dedication to work collectively as a workforce and keep away from the fights that characterised the connection of their predecessors, former Mayor Invoice de Blasio and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
As transit officers have tried to lure again riders who fled the system at the beginning of the pandemic and have but to totally return, they’ve been contending for greater than a 12 months with a persistent notion that the subway system is unsafe.
For months, officers have emphasised that critical crimes within the system are at their lowest numbers in many years. By means of November, main felonies — homicide, rape, theft, assault, housebreaking and grand larceny — had been at their lowest mixed whole in 25 years.
Nonetheless, the general drop in crime could have been anticipated given the precipitous drop in ridership, which through the pandemic pushed the per rider crime charge increased than it has been in recent times and has added to a notion of higher hazard.
A lot of the decline by means of November stemmed from an enormous lower in grand larcenies, a determine that police and subway officers have linked to a decrease variety of potential victims on trains.
And the variety of assaults reported to the police by means of the top of November rose by about 100 from 2019, earlier than the pandemic. A lot of these incidents had been high-profile assaults, like slashings on trains or individuals shoved onto the tracks, which generated a flurry of headlines about subway violence.
Six murders had been reported within the subway system as of the top of November, the whole for all of 2020 and double the three murders reported in 2019.
Final 12 months, Mr. de Blasio deployed further officers within the system after a spate of high-profile crimes. In February, after two deadly stabbings and several other different assaults, he added 500 officers to the roughly 2,500 who had been already patrolling the system.
In Might, simply because the subway was set to revive 24-hour service, which had been suspended through the pandemic, plenty of slashings led metropolis officers to deploy one other 250 officers into the system.
However transit officers have argued previously that the security downside is one in every of notion, partly blaming media protection. The vacancy of some subway stations — significantly in Manhattan, the place ridership has typically been slower to recuperate — has additionally diminished the sense of security that used to return from having individuals to witness and cease potential crimes.
Incoming N.Y.C. Mayor Eric Adams’s New Administration
In a bid to consolation riders, Janno Lieber, the appearing chairman and chief government of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the subway, referred to as on police officers to raised deploy officers to locations on the trains and to platforms the place individuals could really feel weak.
Based on a buyer survey carried out by the transportation authority within the fall, 90 % of subway riders who had not but returned to the trains mentioned that their concern about crime and harassment was a significant component in when and if they’d return.
Of those that had returned to utilizing the subway in some type, 64 %, or practically two-thirds, mentioned they felt safer seeing uniformed law enforcement officials on platforms or trains.
However subway policing has not been with out controversy in New York, significantly amid yearslong conversations about racial bias in regulation enforcement. A plan by Mr. Cuomo to deploy tons of of further officers in 2019 to sort out fare evasion prompted a debate over aggressive policing, with criminal-justice reform activists arguing that Mr. Cuomo was unfairly concentrating on poor New Yorkers.
In January 2020, the state’s legal professional basic, Letitia James, mentioned that she was investigating whether or not the police had been discriminating towards individuals of colour in implementing fare evasion on subways and buses. The investigation stays ongoing, a spokesman mentioned on Thursday.
Mr. Adams’s plan doesn’t contain hiring further officers. He and town’s police commissioner, Keechant Sewell, mentioned that they’d redeploy some officers presently on desk jobs to patrol the subway system.
The 2 additionally made it clear that officers can be specializing in critical crime and would refer points with homeless individuals who sleep on subways and in stations to outreach consultants.
Officers, Mr. Adams mentioned, wouldn’t have “pointless engagement” with homeless individuals, nor would they be concerned in “petty points that can trigger destructive encounters” with riders.
Troy Closson, Ashley Southall and Jonah E. Bromwich contributed reporting.