Subway crime has plummeted about 5% so far this year compared to last - with arrests and summonses on the rails soaring by more than 50% during the same period, the latest NYPD statistics show.
The figures, released at the MTA's monthly board meeting Monday, mark decreases in four of the six major crime categories - except from murders, which remained even, and burglaries, which rose by six - in the subway system between January and August.
Five murders were reported in transit during the eight-month period in both 2022 and 2023, according to the data.
Half as many rapes were reported so far this year - down to four from eight in 2022, the figures show.
Robberies saw about an 11% downturn, from 396 to 353, in the first eight months of the year, compared to the same period in 2022.
Grand larcenies have declined about 4%, from 730 to 700, and felony assaults were just about even, with a slight dip this year - from 374 to 372, according to the data.
But burglaries - which are typically one of the less common crimes in transit - have jumped from four to 10, a 150% increase, the data shows.
All categories of hate crimes have significantly plummeted in the subway system so far this year, with 43 reported as of Sept. 3, compared to 65 at that point last year, according to the stats.
"We're very encouraged," NYPD Transit Chief Michael Kemper told reporters during an unrelated press conference earlier this month. "We're having a very, very good year, and it didn't just happen. A lot of hard work, a lot of great work."
Meanwhile, the NYPD has made 8,999 arrests in the subway system between January and August - about a 58% jump from that period in 2022.
Officers have issued a whopping 115,908 summonses to straphangers since January, up about 56% from the 75,152 doled out during those same months last year.
Kemper said those "dramatic increases" account for the downturn in crime.
"How we accomplished this was increased presence and increased enforcement," Kemper said. "And it's because of that focus and that attention that we're having this success. All credit goes to the men and women in the NYPD, our cops."
The plunge in crime came amid an increase in subway ridership - from 83.1 million in August of 2022 to 94.1 million last month, the MTA's data shows.
Still, ridership has not come close to pre-pandemic numbers - when there were 137.1 million subway commuters in August of 2019.
Earlier this year, Kemper also said much of the recent progress in 2023 was built on the increased presence of police rolled out under Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul in October. Before that, crime in the transit system was up more than 40% for the year.
Despite the dip in crime and an increase in enforcement, the transit system has recently seen its share of heinous crimes.
Earlier this month, an unhinged 43-year-old man, Norton Blake, allegedly struck a 60-year-old woman dozens of times with her own cane during a heinous caught-on-video attack inside the West 116 Street and Lenox Avenue station, cops said.
Unsuspecting straphangers have been recently shoved onto the subway tracks at the 68th Street-Hunter College station on the Upper East Side, the Chambers Street station in Lower Manhattan and the 90th Street station in Queens.
Last month, panhandler David Trotman - who has a lengthy rap sheet - allegedly stabbed 76-year-old Iqbal Ahmed on subway steps at the 34th Street-Herald Square station, cops said.
MTA and NYPD officials last week also condemned an “outrageous” act of vandalism in the subway system, where a total of 97 windows on 45 trains were broken during a roughly 29-hour time frame.
themes: Subway
