New York Governor Kathy Hochul joined New York City Mayor Eric Adams this weekend in rolling out another plan to fight crime in the city’s subway system.
The move comes as Hochul, a Democrat, fights to stay ahead of Republican challenger and US Representative Lee Zeldin as mid-term elections approach.
Zeldin Erases 20-Point Gap, Raising Hopes for Win over Hochul in NY Governor’s Race
Zeldin is closing in on Hochul, narrowing the summer’s 20-point gap in the latest polls to a mere four to six percentage points.
On Saturday, Hochul and Adams, also a Democrat announced, “expanded initiatives to keep New York City subways safe and address transit crime.”
The initiatives include an investment from the State’s public emergency fund and a commitment to work with the city on a dedicated revenue source to support additional police presence in the subway system.
NYPD and MTA will surge officer presence on platforms by approximately 1,200 additional overtime officer shifts each day on the subway, equating to approximately 10,000 additional overtime patrol hours every day.
The state will also add two new dedicated 25-bed inpatient units at psychiatric centers to help provide those experiencing serious mental health illness with the assistance they need.
In addition, the New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) will expand crisis intervention training for MTA Police, the NYPD, and EMS/EMT, teaching them best practices for engaging individuals experiencing homelessness and ensuring they are “fully informed” of the statutory authority for the transport of individuals in need of a psychiatric evaluation.
Short-Term Solution to Long-Term Problem
The ‘Transition to Home’ inpatient units are aimed at providing patients with “recovery-oriented, person-centered care towards the goal of obtaining an enriched life in the community,” OMH Commissioner Dr. Ann Sullivan said.
A new ‘Community Residential Step-Down Program’ will also be made available to those who need “more structure and support in reintegrating to the community.”
The program, to consist of semi-independent, short-term housing, will include intensive recovery services designed to teach the life skills needed to successfully live in a more independent setting.
“These new programs will benefit from the Safe Options Support Teams which have already been actively engaging homeless individuals living with mental illness,” Sullivan said.
The programs sound great, but 50 beds in a short-term unit with short-term follow-up options are not going to do much to change the lives of the those with chronic mental illness, some of the violently so.
Anyone who has attempted to treat or otherwise deal with a seriously mentally ill person who prefers to live on the street rather than in a shelter, or who is otherwise unable to maintain himself in a standard housing environment, knows that a short-term solution does not work for a long-term problem.
The “Cops, Cameras and Care” program, essentially aimed at dealing with the impact of mentally ill New Yorkers on safety in the subways, is framed with short-term solutions.
“The bottom line is that riders will see more officers in the system, and so will those [who are] thinking of breaking the law,” Adams said in his remarks.
But what if the perps are not thinking about it at all, and simply are reacting to an inner world – like most people with serious mental illness?
Protection in the Subway System?
Will there be cops in every subway station, on every train? Nope. However, according to Hochul’s office, the MTA will place security guards (“Gate Guards”) at “certain subway stations” to increase the security presence, functioning as “eyes and ears” for law enforcement and “to deter fare evasion.”
Riders on the city’s subways are looking over their shoulders these days in fear of stabbers, muggers and sexual predators. Fare evasion hardly seems to scratch the surface.
MTA Police are also to be deployed in the subway system at the four largest commuter railroad hubs — Penn Station, Grand Central Station, Atlantic Terminal, and Sutphin-Archer (Jamaica) Station. This is expected to free up roughly 100 NYPD officers for deployments at other transit locations on trains and in stations, the governor said, adding that the MTA will continue to install cameras in each subway car to enhance security coverage and increase rider confidence.
Plus, a really big problem-solver: train conductors will now inform riders when they are entering a station with police officers present — so if you’re riding a subway and you’ve just been robbed or otherwise attacked, at least you will be able to tell someone about it – if you’re heading to right station, that is.
And that’s just one of the issues.
Here’s another: The program does not address the baseline issue of recidivism gone wild from the state’s cashless bail law — which turns New York’s courthouses into criminal turnstiles with judges forced to free the criminals.
New York State passed the so-called “bail reform” law in 2019, which bans cash bail for anything but the most serious misdemeanors and felonies.
Perceived danger to city residents, past records and more are ignored under the Bail Elimination Act of 2019, which requires authorities to use the “least restrictive” means to ensure that those who are charged actually return to court for trial — further demoralizing NYPD police officers.
“We will do whatever it takes to make our subways safer for riders,” Hochul said in announcing the initiative.
“Whatever it takes” seems to be taking an awful long time, however.
The Unpleasant Facts
The facts speak for themselves: crime on subways and buses was up in 2022 more than 41 percent from 2021. There were 1,768 incidents reported so far in 2022 – and 1,250 incidents reported in the same period last year – a 41.4 percent jump and averaging out to six or seven incidents PER DAY.
There have been nine homicides, a 33 percent increase in robberies and a 16.5 percent rise in felony assault in the subway system this year alone, 17 homicides in the past two years. It’s the highest annual level of subway system homicides in 25 years.
This past April, 28 New Yorkers were wounded in a massive subway shooting in Brooklyn.
Fighting the bad guys is a struggle: The NYPD told the New York Post that there are currently 2,500 officers assigned to the Transit Bureau, but the Police Benevolent Association (PBA – the patrol officers’ union) contends that as of last month, there were only 1,900 “rank and file police officers permanently assigned” to the system.
An NYPD spokesperson told the Post that the 2,500 uniformed members assigned to the Transit Bureau not only includes patrol officers, but also “executives, specialty officers such as K-9 handlers, front line supervisors and uniformed members primarily assigned to administrative functions.”
PBA President Pat Lynch told the news outlet that the ranks of officers who know the system best are “seriously depleted.” The NYPD is using forced overtime and pulling cops from topside precincts that are also understaffed, he said, in “a shell game with its dwindling staffing, and everyone is losing.”
John Jay College of Criminal Justice Professor Joseph Giacalone, a former NYPD sergeant, told the Post that “something is not working.” He pointed out there have been “four homicides in the last two weeks, a 47 percent jump in crime last week. . . [with] attacks by Green Goblins and a guy dressed as a ninja with a samurai sword. The NYPD needs to re-evaluate their deployment.”
Adams, himself a former Transit Police officer, nevertheless vowed that he “won’t rest until the subway is a safe place for all. People are saying over and over again, ‘We don’t feel safe.’ Visibility in the system plays a critical role,” he noted.
