NYPD data shows subway crime in NYC is decreasing, even as the city was hit hard by a handful of violent, high-profile incidents so far this month.
According to the latest NYPD statistics, transit crime dropped nearly 3% year to date compared to the same period last year. During a press conference on Wednesday at Grand Central Terminal in Midtown, Gov. Kathy Hochul and MTA officials underscored the decrease, reassuring strapangers that the state is taking action to keep the trains safe.
“We leaned in, found solutions and began to turn things around,” Hochul said after describing higher transit crime rates before 2022. “We surged NYPD officers into the subway, transit police were here as well.”
Hochul said she would continue the six-month overnight police patrol that she announced in January. However, it is not yet clear how long the overnight patrol will continue.
“I’m going to continue supporting this,” she said. “I’m saying a number of months because I’ve got a new budget I have to work on as well, and I have to go back to the legislature, but with the resources we allocated last year, we’re going to continue that through this year.”
The surge of NYPD officers was part of a $77 million investment aimed at keeping transit safe.
Delving deeper into recent crime statistics, this summer has been especially safe, with MTA officials saying the 2025 season had the safest July and August in history.
Overall transit crime was down 22.8% this August compared to 2024, and felony assaults were down 40.4% compared to last year. Robberies were down 34% in the subway system in August compared to 2024, according to the MTA.
“Surging ridership and falling crime is very good news for MTA riders, who consistently rank subway safety as their number one concern,” MTA Chief Security Officer Michael Kemper said. “We remain focused and will continue working with the NYPD and our law enforcement partners to ensure this downward trend continues.”
Subway crime: Vibes vs. statistics?
The data provides good news but little consolation to millions of New Yorkers who use the city’s transit system. Straphangers told amNewYork they have seen the headlines, especially recent ones, including a Sept. 5 incident on a 4 train in Union Square in which a woman was hit with a baseball bat.
“No, I definitely don’t feel safe,” Grand Central Terminal commuter, Natalia, said. “If you’re from New York, you know.”
Joseph, who commutes on many trains in NYC, said, “Safety is an issue.”
Just a day before the baseball bat attack, on Sept. 4, News 12 reported that police were searching for a man who allegedly slashed a fellow straphanger on an A train at the Hoyt-Schermerhorn station in Brooklyn after the pair had an argument.
Repeat offenders are cycled back into the system
Over the past few months, the NYPD has brought down crime on the subways and made them safer. However, a small population of reoffenders continues to cycle back.
Since May, the NYPD has arrested a stunning 63 subway offenders, each with at least 50 transit arrests.
Combined, this group has accrued 5,229 subway arrests, but only five of these criminals are currently in custody.
A few violent criminals haunt the system, where nearly a fifth of the 337 transit felony assaults this year were unprovoked.
These are chronic aggressors, police said, with just 147 arrestees racking up a cumulative 3,507 past arrests.
Among the recidivists, police said, include:
Kenney Mitchell, who was arrested in June on three open warrants, while stretching out on a crowded C train platform at Franklin Avenue, his pockets allegedly full of crack vials. Later that day, at the Schermerhorn station, he was arrested for breaking MetroCard machines. Mitchell, in fact, has had 90 transit arrests, including 18 just since May – plus a new August summons. But he’s still loose on the trains, according to law enforcement sources.
Carlos Baez Caban has 48 arrests, including one for allegedly biting at least one rider while stealing her phone, and has five rearrests for larcenies and stolen property just since he was sentenced to probation two months ago. With three open cases, he’s also free, police said.
Shaquille Clarke, 32, has multiple arrests for transit forcible touching, robbery, and assault. Besides punching riders for their phones, he’s stripped off his shirt on a 1 train to whip a woman’s face. He’s rubbed his groin against ladies’ rears on the 7 train and, in April, on a downtown 6. Clarke is out on probation.
Matthew Leon, 25, has 13 sex-related arrests – like when he leapt out of an L train at Halsey, groped a woman’s breasts and buttocks, and then hopped back on the departing train. He was finally remanded this spring for reaching inside a stranger’s pants and top.
Troublingly, this year’s seen 92 subway attacks on NYPD members, 32 on MTA workers, and a heartbreaking 12% spike in elderly assaults because recidivists do not fear authority, law enforcement sources have said.
Meanwhile, the NYPD has embraced intelligent and innovative practices. NYPD transit districts communicate in real time over a new digital platform, sharing alerts when a wanted recidivist pops up.
Officers now receive instant communication of incidents that come over the MTA’s system.
NYPD’s Encounter program responds to the full range of subway disorders like smoking in trains or lying outstretched over rows of seats – something remarkably correlated to violent subway recidivists. Overall, the NYPD made 15% more felony arrests and 87% more misdemeanor arrests in 2024 compared to 2023.
Transit robberies year to date ending July 31 are at their lowest level in at least 18 years, down 9% compared to 2024.
Perps being caught and prosecuted: Bragg
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said stranger assaults and forceable touching are among the subway crimes his office most commonly prosecutes. Even as recently as Sept. 10, a defendant was arraigned in Supreme Court for second-degree attempted murder, robbery and assault charges.
Brandon Balfour, 18, was arraigned in New York Criminal Court last month and remanded after he stabbed a woman and robbed her on a 3 train in Lower Manhattan on Aug. 6. Surveillance camera footage showed that Balfour was wearing a yellow surgical mask at the time of the attack.
The victim suffered stab wounds to her back and left arm and was brought to an area hospital in stable condition. Balfour was arrested at a Queens shelter two days later.
“Transit crime is going down, but we want to remain vigilant,” Bragg said, adding that Balfour is looking at a sentence of 5 to 25 years.
Bragg said his office has taken an active role in combating transit crime.
“We work with law enforcement partners in the NYPD and MTA as well. We are litigating these cases. We’re prosecuting people who do harm on the subways.”
Bragg added that recent changes to the 2019 discovery law will further help his office crack down on subway crime, including repeat offenders.
“We see and we track the recidivism,” Bragg said. “We anticipate that the steps we took with the Legislature and the governor earlier this year, with the discovery bill changes, will help. It should help with the recidivism.”
