New York City Mayor Eric Adams makes a subway safety- and social services-related announcement at the Times Square 42nd Street Subway Station. | Photo by Benny Polatseck/Mayoral Photography Office
Our mission as an administration has always been clear: to make New York City affordable and keep it the safest big city in America. We have achieved this by being tough and smart about crime on our streets and in the subways.
Thanks to our efforts, New York City has seen nine straight months of crime reduction, and crime continues to trend downward in New York City. Overall, index crime was down 3.1 percent in September, 3.3 percent in the third quarter, and 2.0 percent in the year.
Homicides, burglaries, grand larceny, and grand larceny autos are all down year to date. In September, we also saw decreases in homicides, robberies, burglaries, grand larcenies, and grand larceny autos.
Additionally, transit crime has also been down for the past year. It was down 8.7 percent in September, 4.8 percent for this quarter, and 5.1 percent year to date.
We have achieved nine straight months of crime reduction through hard work and perseverance. We have taken several necessary steps, like removing more than 18,500 illegal guns from our neighborhoods, arresting violent criminals, and taking more than 70,000 illegal mopeds and ghost cars off our streets since the start of our administration.
We’ve closed over 1,200 illegal smoke shops and deployed more police on the streets and subways.
We are also tackling the root causes of crime by investing in upstream solutions, such as education, affordable housing, after-school and holiday school programming, and early intervention.
“Being mayor of New York City means looking after the needs of all New Yorkers. Our entire team works tirelessly each day to achieve that vision and deliver results—keeping New York City the Safest Big City in America.”
One of our signature interventions is the “Partnership Assistance for Transit Homelessness,” or PATH, program. This initiative brings together teams of trained nurses and outreach staff from the Department of Homeless Services and NYC Health + Hospitals, along with the NYPD transit police, who conduct co-response outreach overnight at subway stations across Manhattan.
Since PATH began on August 29th, less than two months ago, the teams have contacted over 1,500 unhoused New Yorkers and delivered services to over 500 people. Because of our intensive efforts, over 500 New Yorkers received vital resources, like shelter, clothes, food, or medical attention.
It is compassionate, and we will expand the program in the coming months to reach even more New Yorkers in need.
To be clear, we are in no way saying that those who are unhoused and in need of support are the primary source of crime on the subways or that they deserve to be in jail—because they don’t. But they don’t deserve to be ignored either. That is why our administration has been focused on connecting unhoused New Yorkers to services for their safety and compassionately doing this work.
The PATH program will supplement, not replace SCOUT, a successful co-response initiative we operate with the MTA to support people struggling with serious mental illness. It will supplement our ongoing nightly End-Of-Line efforts and our Subway Safety Plan.
Just this past week, an MTA worker was violently assaulted at an end-of-line stop in Brooklyn. Fortunately, our officers were right there to apprehend the suspect. This action illustrates why it is vital to continue our work and ensure we can proactively offer help to those who need it.
Being mayor of New York City means looking after the needs of all New Yorkers. Our entire team works tirelessly each day to achieve that vision and deliver results—keeping New York City the Safest Big City in America.
