Mayor Eric L. Adams Op-Ed: Nine Straight Months of Crime Reduction

Our mission as an administration has always been clear: making New York City affordable and keeping it the safest big city in America. We have been able to achieve this by being tough and smart on crime, both 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 for the third quarter, and is down 2.0 percent year to date.

Homicides, burglary, grand larceny, and grand larceny auto are all down year to date. And in September, we also saw decreases in homicides, robberies, burglaries, grand larcenies, and grand larceny autos.

Additionally, transit crime is also down year to date. It was down 8.7 percent in September, down 4.8 percent for this quarter, and is down 5.1 percent year to date.

We have achieved nine straight months of crime reduction through hard work and perseverance. We have taken several important 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 more than 1,200 illegal smoke shops. And we have put more police on the streets and on our subways. 

We are also tackling the root causes of crime by investing in upstream solutions, like education, affordable housing, after-school and holiday school programing, and early intervention.

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 made contact with over 1,500 unhoused New Yorkers and delivered services to over 500 people. That is over 500 New Yorkers who received vital resources, like shelter, clothes, food, or medical attention because of our intensive efforts. 

This is the compassionate thing to do, and we will be expanding the program in the months to come so we can reach even more New Yorkers in need. 

To be clear: we are in no way saying 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 doing this work in a compassionate way.

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 also supplement our ongoing nightly End-Of-Line efforts and our entire 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 illustrates why it is so important to continue our work and make sure we are able to proactively offer help to those who need it.

Being mayor of New York City means looking after the needs of all New Yorkers. And our entire team works tirelessly each day to achieve that vision and deliver results — keeping New York City the Safest Big City in America.