New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced on Wednesday that an additional 250 members of the New York State National Guard will patrol the subway system. They are joining the 750 Guard troops already deployed in addition to state and local authorities since March of this year, in response to three murders that occurred in the transit system over the first three months of 2024.
Crime on the subway remains a politically fraught issue, with broad disagreements over what constitutes a surge in crime, and what the appropriate response should be. The rate of crime on the subway spiked in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic (like crime more broadly), although the trend has largely reversed despite a few high-profile examples and lingering areas of concern, particularly that of violence against transit workers. Burglaries and robberies are both down from last year, while murder is 80% higher. The murders that led to the deployment in March and since are a source of concern, but the raw numbers are so low (in the single digits) that a single instance changes the statistic significantly. Even when she made her announcement in March, Hochul pre-emptively waved away any potential criticisms based on the figures, saying she was “not here today to talk to you about numbers and tell you stats and statistics about what’s going up and what’s going down.”
Hochul explained then that the National Guard troops deployed at that time would mostly be stationed at turnstiles and conducting random bag searches, not on platforms or trains, where most crimes have occurred. The move attracted criticism from groups like the New York Civil Liberties Union and Riders Alliance, who saw it as a return to stop-and-frisk style policing that has generated racially disproportionate enforcement in the past. Hochul defended her decision at the time by saying that these searches would act as a deterrent, having a “psychological effect on would-be wrongdoers.”
The governor’s announcement yesterday qualified her previous move as a success that she wished to build on further. “Lots of people didn’t think it would make a difference,” Hochul said. “And I’m incredibly proud of these individuals in uniform here with me today to tell them ‘no.’ In fact, it made an extraordinary difference.” The NYCLU rejected Hochul’s move in the face of persistently falling transit crime stats, calling it “public security theater.”
The governor also announced that all subway cars will now be equipped with video surveillance.
