Councilman Rory Lancman criticized the NYPD on Thursday for not releasing detailed arrest data for fare evasion, broken down by subway station and demographics, adding that he’s considering filing a lawsuit to force the statistics’ release.
Lancman, chairman of the City Council’s Committee on the Justice System, said the NYPD is required to release the data to the public as part of Local Law 47, passed in December.
“If the NYPD does not comply in short order, we . . . are contemplating filing a lawsuit to compel the NYPD to comply with the law. That’s how you get people to obey the law, you file a lawsuit,” Lancman said. “They will not be allowed to ignore the law, so help me God.”
The law requires the NYPD to report the number of arrests and summonses each quarter, broken down by station, race, sex, and age group. Lancman said the first report was due on Jan. 30, but it never came.
An NYPD spokeswoman responded Thursday, saying, “The New York City Police Department provided extensive information two months ago, and has been in conversations to work together to make this information available publicly, while also balancing important safety issues. It’s unfortunate those good-faith discussions are now apparently over. The Department will of course post the data required by the local law, as was always the plan.”
Citywide, a total of 11,265 people were arrested for jumping turnstiles from Jan. 1 to April 8 — a nearly 34 percent decrease from 17,046 in the same period last year, according to the NYPD’s data. Another 2,687 were issued a summons, a 55.8 percent decrease from 6,073 last year.
A report last year by the Community Service Society of New York found that across Brooklyn’s 157 subway stations, 66 percent of those arrested for turnstile jumping in 2016 were black and 87 percent were men.
