Claims of ‘lawlessness’ on New York City subways increase danger, critics say

A high-profile string of violent crimes on New York City’s subway in 2024 has been used “as a political tool” by pundits and politicians, transit advocates say, leading to a false perception of spiraling underground crime, which could create more danger in the future.

Crime in the subway system, one of the world’s most used rapid transit systems, declined in 2022 and decreased again in 2023, according to police. But subway crime is up so far in 2024, and it is the nature and violence of the incidents that has captured public attention.

Related: One person killed and five injured in shooting at New York subway station

In February, a man was shot and killed on a subway train in the Bronx, and a person was killed and five others injured on a Bronx subway platform in what police said was a gang-related shooting. The same month, a subway conductor was stabbed in the neck on a train in Brooklyn; in March, a man was shot with his own gun on a train in Brooklyn, after being disarmed by a fellow passenger.

The violence prompted Kathy Hochul, New York’s governor, to send 750 members of the national guard to check bags at entry points to the subway system in early March – an effort that was criticized by some on the political left, including Jumaane Williams, a New York City public advocate, who said the effort was failing to address “these issues at their root”.

The effort comes amid a flood of coverage of subway crime in rightwing media, as conservatives have sought to tie Democrats and perceived liberal cities to crime – an effort that is likely to continue as the November election approaches.

In America’s largest city, the New York Post – a rightwing, Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper – has spent years claiming the subway is in crisis, frequently blaming Democrats for the problem. This week, the Post reported credulously on a poll that suggested “half of all New Yorkers” – 4.2 million people – plan to leave the city within the next five years due to a decline in quality of life.

During the 2022 election for New York governor (the governor is notably in charge of the subway), the Republican candidate, Lee Zeldin, made crime, including on the subway, an issue, claiming: “People are walking these streets in a way like they’re in a combat zone.”

Fox News, the rightwing news channel which has long reveled in telling viewers that large, Democrat-run cities are unsafe, has eagerly reported on instances of crime on the subway, including in an article this week that suggested “‘lawlessness’ continues to plague NYC trains”.

But the fear-mongering makes the subway less safe, said Daniel Pearlstein, policy and communications director at Riders Alliance, a New York City organization that advocates for better public transit.

“When [some people] hear from the leadership or from people running for office or from people in the media over and over again that the subway is not safe, they take matters into their own hands,” Pearlstein said, “whether they become vigilantes, or arm themselves inexpertly, and the results can be catastrophic. There have been vigilante murders in the subway – in this case, the person was shot with his own gun, and it’s a catastrophe.”

Police say, following a spike in January, the number of crimes committed on the subway decreased by 15% in February compared to the same month in 2023, but Hochul acknowledged that perception is different from reality.

“Saying things are getting better doesn’t make you feel better,” Hochul said as she announced the deployment of the national guard.

“Especially when you’ve just heard about someone being stabbed in the throat or thrown onto the subway tracks. There’s a psychological impact.”

The potentially elevated level of fear among subway riders comes as the number of New Yorkers applying for gun licenses more than doubled in 2023. Gothamist reported that there were more than 20,000 applications for handgun, rifle or concealed carry licenses last year, up from 9,879 in 2022, although it is unclear how many licenses were granted.

Some of the increase is likely to be linked to the supreme court striking down portions of New York’s strict gun laws in June 2022. The court ruled that a law that had required New Yorkers applying for a concealed carry license to demonstrate that they have a special need to defend themselves was unconstitutional.

Since then, New York has passed a different law banning people from carrying guns in schools and parks, while officials can deny people gun licenses if they are deemed to be not of “good moral character”.

Any easing of gun access is unlikely to help decrease shootings both on the subway and above ground, although experts stress that while the amount of violent crime increased during the pandemic, the figures remain far below the highs of the 1980s and early 1990s.

In 1980, 250 felony crimes were committed on the subway every week. In 1982, the New York Daily News reported that subway ridership was at its lowest rate since 1917, due in large part to “to straphanger fears about transit crime”.

That’s a far cry from the current day. Felonies are still committed every day on the subway, but far fewer than in the 1980s – despite the fact that the annual subway ridership of more than 2 billion people in 2023 is double that of 41 years ago.

“There’s been some really high-profile incidents, as far as shootings go, as far as murders go. So I think those of us that ride it [the subway] worry about these things once in a while. We also know assaults are up, and that’s one of the more high-volume crimes. But I do think a lot of it is blown out of proportion,” said Christopher Herrmann, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

“You’re talking about millions of riders in the subway every day, and you’re talking about somewhere between five and 10 felony crimes reported. So I call these lottery-type numbers: you have a two or three in 1 million chance of getting victimized on the subway.”

As with the rest of New York, crime is not spread evenly across the subway network. This month, ABC7 News mapped out the areas with the highest subway crime, with stations in north-east Brooklyn, the south Bronx and Times Square, where the busiest subway station in New York City is located.“So much of this is localized,” Herrmann said.

“A lot of the violence, whether it’s above ground or below ground, is very concentrated in small areas. So if you live in a high-crime neighborhood in Brooklyn or the Bronx, you’re much more likely to be a victim of crime than if you’re riding the subway.”

The solutions to reducing subway incidents in higher-crime areas are the same as those above ground, Pearlstein said – better investment in social services.

“Every social problem is present everywhere in society, but it’s most visible in the subway,” he said.

“The police are the front-end response, but they can’t do the back end, they can’t provide people housing. They can’t provide people healthcare, they are not addiction counselors, they cannot provide treatment. We can’t ask that of them.

“We have to be invested in addressing these root causes. And if we’re not doing that, because we’re spending money, whether it’s police overtime, or the national guard or something else symbolic – then we’re not actually going to solve our problems.”