Inferno New York: +30% crimes in the subway in one year
Crime in the New York City subway increased 30% in 2022 compared to a year ago, surpassing the 22% increase in major crimes citywide over the same period, Bloomberg reports, citing police data released this week. .
The crime surge embarrasses New York Mayor Eric Adams (D), who has deployed thousands of additional police patrols in the transit system to reduce crime and put passengers at ease.
“Once the situation stabilizes, we will scale back,” Adams said at a briefing on Thursday, speaking of the need to reduce the police force once crime decreases. "You will see a normalization of the number of people present."
The New York Police Department is spending an extra $20 million a month on overtime above normal levels, which brought overtime spending to $272 million through November. That's more than 70 percent of the annual overtime budget for the fiscal year ending June 30, according to the office of New York Comptroller Brad Lander. -Bloomberg
The increased spending on police comes as Adams grapples with critics who say the city isn't doing enough to address crime within the transportation system. Passengers, meanwhile, are at 60% of 2019 levels, so the increase in crime comes even with a decline in passenger numbers. The perception of crimes has therefore even increased.
Some city council members, however, argue that the additional funds should go to other services, such as schools and libraries.
Even though @NYCMayor says we need to defund libraries and senior centers to stay afloat, he wants to ADD officers to the largest police force in the US.
It's a vicious cycle: cut social services, violence increases, respond with more police, cut social services to afford them. pic.twitter.com/FAi2Yop9D4
— Council Member Tiffany Cabán (D22) (@CabanD22) January 5, 2023
On Thursday, New York Police Chief Michael Kemper said the additional subway patrols led to a 4.6 percent reduction in serious crimes in the transit system between Oct. 31 and Dec. 31, compared with the same period of 2021.
“This plan is paying off,” said Kemper, who was likely told the plan had to pay off or else. “We have gone from a very worrying increase in crime in the first 10 months of the year to a sharp turnaround in the last nine weeks of the year”.
In October, Adams and New York Governor Kathy Hochul pledged 1,200 overtime NYPD shifts to support the nearly 2,600 subway cops.
According to the Police Benevolent Association, which represents more than 24,000 NYPD officers, the tightening pace is unsustainable and the city is "underpaying and overworking cops," but for now there doesn't appear to be a workaround.
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The article Inferno New York: +30% crimes in the subway in one year comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/inferno-new-york-30-crimini-nella-metropolitana-in-un-anno/ on Sun, 08 Jan 2023 09:44:50 +0000.