Subway crime was down 4% in 2025 compared to the previous year, but felonies on the rails rose slightly in December, according to NYPD subway crime data.
Across the six major subway crime categories, there were 91 fewer reported incidents over the 12 months of 2025, a drop from 2,251 to 2,160. The numbers were included in NYPD data posted online ahead of the MTA’s January board meeting on Wednesday. The major subway crime categories include murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, and grand larceny.
The NYPD and Gov. Kathy Hochul announced late last year that 2025 marked the safest 12 months on the subways in 16 years, excluding coronavirus pandemic years.
At the time, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch declared, “New Yorkers are safer on our subways now than they have been in years.”
The overall drop was driven mostly by large dips in robberies and grand larcenies.
There were 57 fewer robberies on the rails in 2025, compared to 2024, a decrease from 455 to 398 (13%). Grand larcenies in the system fell by 41 from 1,183 to 1,142 — a close to 4% decline.
Murders were also down for the year by 60% — a dip from 10 in 2024 to 4 last year. That marked the lowest number of murders on the subways in five years, the NYPD announced earlier this month.
There were three more rapes in the system last year compared to 2024 — a rise from 6 to 9, which translated into a 50% increase. Felony assaults also rose slightly by 9 — from 584 to 593 — between the two years.
However, the same data indicates that the last month of 2025 saw a small increase in major crime over the same period in the previous year.
The six major categories were up 3% overall in December compared to the same stretch in 2024, rising from 201 to 207. The increase mostly came from upticks in grand larcenies and felony assaults.
There were 17 more grand larcenies last month than in the same timeframe in 2024 — rising from 100 to 117 (17%). Furthermore, this past December saw four more felony assaults than the previous one, climbing 7%.
In December, Hochul insisted the improved conditions on the subways show her administration’s efforts to make the system safer are working.
Those include boosted funding for increased overnight subway patrols. The governor has again proposed spending $77 million in her executive budget this year for the stepped-up deployments.
Hochul also credited the installation of platform edge barriers, designed to reduce the risk of straphangers being pushed onto the tracks, at 115 stations. She proposed adding the guardrails at 85 more stations in her latest executive budget, released last week.
