Are you crazy? The new new thing among the crime deniers is to say that subway crime is not the problem — the problem is your perception of subway crime.
The bad news is that Mayor Adams has joined this camp. Adams deployed this canard earlier this week. Hours before our ninth subway homicide of the year, and the fourth in 17 days, the mayor insisted that “we’re dealing with the perception of fear.” With “3.5 million people using our subway system” daily, he added, “those average of six crimes a day” are not evidence of a system “out of control.”
But “six crimes” is a dodge. The reason people are so fearful on the subway is that the mix of crimes has changed. From January through August, New York’s subway racked up 1,507 felony crimes, just under six per day, yes, and slightly less than the 1,554 felonies recorded in January through August of 2019, before the pandemic. But what are those crimes? In 2019, non-violent felonies, including 981 grand larcenies, comprised two-thirds of subway crimes.
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Nicole Gelinas is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor at City Journal. Follow her on Twitter here.
This piece originally appeared in New York Post