Coronavirus: Crime remains rife on New York subways despite statewide lockdown, report says

Robberies on transport up by 29% from last year, NYPD statistics show

Subway crime in New York has maintained abundant over the last month despite a huge drop in use due to coronavirus lockdown measures, according to a report.

Use of the transport has plummeted due to the pandemic, with weekday subway ridership in the city at just under 10 per cent of pre-crisis levels, according to NYPD statistics obtained by The New York Daily News.

Despite this, crime on the network remains prevalent with 173 major felonies reported in the subway throughout March, the report said.

The number is only a slight decrease from the 179 the department reported during the same month last year.

The newspaper said that data shows the trend has continued this month, as subway ridership continued to fall even further.

Last month the public transport recorded a historically low 530,000 daily trips. In April the number was said to have fallen even further to around 420,000, the report claimed.

The data also noted that subway robberies had seen a sharp increase, up 29 per cent from last year in the four week period after Mayor Bill De Blasio announced a statewide lockdown of all non-essential businesses and schools.

Burglaries showed the same trajectory the report said, from just one recorded in 2019 to five this year.

The shortage of police staff due to the virus may have had a knock-on effect on the amount of crime on the public transport system. As of Sunday 14 per cent of the department’s uniformed workforce were on sick report, according to the article.

There were reportedly far fewer arrests for subway crime between 16 March and 12 April in correlation with the drop in active staff, down 86% from the number of subway arrests during the same time period in 2019.

Outside of the subway, officials have reported a decrease in the number of serious crimes reported to the NYPD, with commissioner Dermot F Shea stating that there had been a 25 per-cent decline across the city.

Other sex crimes were reportedly down by almost a half in what was described as a “dramatic” decrease.

“I can’t imagine that the crimes aren’t happening. I’m sure that there’s many crimes happening,” Ms Shea previously said at a news briefing when asked how the new restrictions on businesses had affected public safety.

“The NYPD is committed to protecting our communities and will continue to address crime conditions as they arise during the Covid-19 pandemic,” NYPD spokeswoman Denise Moroney said.