The city’s subway system has seen increases in four major crimes so far this year, including murder and rape — as cops say they feel “handcuffed” from cracking down.
...
One high-ranking police source pinned part of the blame on Mayor Bill de Blasio for pushing a hands-off approach that de-emphasizes busts for low-level infractions such as fare-beating, even though they can uncover or discourage more serious crimes.
“The mayor has handcuffed the police in enforcing the quality-of-life crimes that we should enforce, and these guys know it now,” said the source.
“And all the fare-paying customers commuting to work have to suffer. There are people down there picking pockets and sexually assaulting them.”
*
Here is an NYT story from this year.
Crime on the NYC subway has been rising.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/04/nyregion/nyc-subway-crime...
New York Tackled Subway Crime. But Is It Starting to Come Back?
In January, a sleeping rider was stabbed in the head with a screwdriver on New York City’s subway. A month before that, a police officer fended off five homeless men who attacked him on a train platform. And on Sunday afternoon, a man was fatally shot at a subway station in Queens, the first recorded murder on the system in six months.
The subway has come a long way since the dark days of the 1980s and 1990s when violence was rampant and riders felt constant dread. The system has become very safe, with just one murder on the subway last year compared with 26 in 1990.
But lately, riders are starting to feel less safe on the subway, a belief that is often reinforced by a flood of complaints about the transit system, doled out in real time on social media.
...
But data shows crime is heading in the wrong direction: Transit crimes were up 3.8 percent last year, according to the police, part of a slight rise since 2014. Still, there were only about 2,500 major crimes — including murders, rapes and robberies — in the system last year, or about seven per day, compared with nearly 17,500 transit crimes in 1990.
