The NYPD vs. crime: More quality-of-life policing is welcome, and more fare evasion enforcement is needed
The NYPD’s announcement of a new push to beat back a rise in shootings and thefts, paired with additional enforcement of quality-of-life crimes, has critics claiming that the Adams administration is returning to abusive policing that is sure to fill Rikers Island to the gills. That’s nonsense. Police are doing what they should be doing: responding to increasing public complaints about unlawful activity.
Calls to 311 or 911 about groups drinking in the streets have more than doubled since 2019, as have calls about loud parties in public spaces. Police have an obligation to do something about those and other illegal aggravations, whether or not they are precursors of more serious criminal activity, which the NYPD says they often are. That means giving warnings first, then following up with arrests if and when problems persist. No one is getting locked up for breaking such laws, but there must be consequences.
So too, cops should step up enforcement of fare evasion, which is rampant. It’s not just the lost MTA revenue that should bother all New Yorkers; it’s that those who evade the fare with impunity may well make other mischief underground.
Again, this doesn’t mean making it a criminal offense whenever someone is caught jumping the turnstile or sauntering through a held-open exit gate, nor does it mean using force unnecessarily. Cops now properly hand out a Transit Adjudication Bureau summons, a civil ticket, while running a name through a database to check for outstanding criminal warrants. What they don’t do currently and should do again — with cooperation from district attorneys, who should revisit their never-ever-prosecute-fare-evasion policies — is arrest, rather than simply issuing a criminal summons to, those with an established history of evading the fare or committing serious crimes in the transit system.
If New Yorkers don’t feel safe on the trains, ridership won’t return. If ridership doesn’t return, the city’s recovery will stall. Statistics show crime in the system up sharply this year. Last week alone, a group of teenagers in the subway system pummeled a teenager and recorded it for social media. Straphangers were menaced by a madman with a hatchet and a metal rod. Memories of lethal subway pushes remain painful. Paralysis is not an answer.
