Pro-crime Democrats are propelling New York toward anarchy and financial ruin.
The seven candidates vying for the Democratic nomination for Gotham’s mayor unanimously oppose increasing penalties for farebeaters. That includes frontrunners Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani.
Their refusal to crack down on farebeaters – all by itself – disqualifies them for the city’s top job.
These pols do not regard law-abiding New Yorkers as their constituents. Instead, they’re siding with criminals and left-wing ideologues who excuse crime as a side effect of society’s imperfections.
Stopping farebeating keeps dangerous criminals out of the subway, explains Ray Kelly, the longest-serving New York Police Department commissioner. “In previous administrations, proactive fare evasion enforcement has been a powerful tool in reducing overall subway crime.”
Thieves and assailants don’t swipe a card to get to the trains before preying on riders. Their first lawless act is jumping the turnstile. And many have rap sheets.
Though arrests are infrequent, 45% of those arrested for farebeating in 2023 were already wanted for other crimes, and about 10% were carrying weapons. Clearly, more fare-beating enforcement would make the subways safer.
A crackdown is also needed to fill the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s empty coffers and eliminate the financial rationale for congestion pricing. Some 14% of subway riders and nearly half of bus riders beat the fare, adding up to an $800 million-per-year shortfall in MTA revenue.
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s congestion pricing is one way to offset the shortfall. But that’s a gut punch to people driving into Manhattan who obey the law and work for a living.
As President Donald Trump reminded Hochul when they met at the White House in February, “If you let the police do their job” against farebeaters, the congestion pricing revenue isn’t needed.
“The way it is now,” said the president, “you feel like a sucker if you pay the fare.”
New York state law makes farebeating a Class A misdemeanor, allowing police officers to issue a criminal summons or make an arrest. But arrests are rare, and district attorneys almost never prosecute.
In January, MTA head Janno Lieber called on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez, and Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark to change course and prosecute persistent farebeaters. Lieber calls fare evasion “the No.1 existential threat.”
In March, the government watchdog group Citizens Budget Commission also called for more prosecutions.
Good luck with that. Democrats have been moving in the opposite direction for years.
In 2017, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. announced he would stop prosecuting fare evasion. Other DAs followed. From 2019 to 2024, fare evasion roughly doubled, according to MTA data.
No surprise that violent subway felonies rose 14% during the same time period.
A year ago, Hochul eliminated the civil fine for first-time offenders from $100 to zero as part of her state budget proposal. What’s her thinking, that it’s OK to steal the first time?
Worse, a bill currently in the New York state legislature, sponsored by state Sen. Cordell Cleare from Harlem, would wipe the criminal penalty off the books entirely.
Decriminalizing farebeating is crazy. “Civil summonses have proven not to be a deterrent,” says Kelly.
As for the refusal of DAs to prosecute, Kelly says, “District attorney discretion was never meant to allow refusal to prosecute an entire category of crime such as fare evasion.”
Prosecuting fare evasion should be a litmus test for voters. New Yorkers live in many different areas, but the subway is everybody’s neighborhood.
The Democrats are failing the test.
Voters need to consider other candidates. Mayor Eric Adams, running as an independent, is for tougher enforcement.
“If we start saying it’s all right for you to jump the turnstile, we are creating an environment where any – and everything goes,” he warned in 2022. Since then, he’s lacked the political capital to get much done.
Curtis Sliwa, the Republican mayoral candidate, also calls for “aggressive enforcement.”
Richie Barsamian, a former cop running as a Republican and Conservative for the city council from Brooklyn, cautions that tolerating fare evasion “opens the window to normalizing crime.”
Normalizing crime is the Democrats’ agenda. They tolerate lawlessness and philosophize about the root causes of crime.
New Yorkers can’t wait until society fixes the root causes. They need safety now. When it comes to subway crime, that means electing leaders who will crack down on farebeaters.
Betsy McCaughey is a former Lt. Governor of New York State and founder of SAVENYC @SAVENYC.org. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey.
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Arresting and charging fare beaters is part of the broken windows policing instituted by Mayor Giuliani. It worked then, and would now. It just takes the will and some integrity from our politicians, which is not likely from left wing democrats.
Perhaps the majority of New York voters no longer read or comprehend the English language.
Democrats want to destroy civilized society so that they can replace it with a totalitarian state. It’s been their dream for at least 50 years. It’s why they’ve destroyed the education system and kill Americans and replace them with foreigners. There’s a war on an only one side is fighting.
I grew up right outside of NYC and can tell you that their best mayor in the last 50 years was Rudy Giuliani. He lowered crime, helped promote economic stability and was shepherd who got the citizens through 9/11. Bloomerberg was fair. He was a libertard but knew enough not to mess up the work Giuliani did. When the people voted in Bill de Blasio, it was the start of the city’s downfall. Andrew Cuomo has the IQ of a houseplant and is still riding his father Mario’s coattails and I will not set foot in the city if Zohran Mamdani is elected. If the people of New York City want to save their city, they need to stop voting democrat. It’s as simple as that. I don’t know who is running on the Republican ticket but they would be the best option. The second best is current Mayor Eric Adams. He started out like a loon but his police instincts are kicking back in and he is trying to do something positive.
New Yorkers vote these bozos who could care less about law and order into office. Seems to me that they deserve the results of their support for democraps.
And here NY voters go again. Another opportunity to FINALLY ELECT A CONSERVATIVE THAT WILL BRING ORDER AND COMMON SENSE BACK TO A CITY THAT HAS BECOME A CRIME-INFESTED CESS POOL OF CORRUPTION.
But odds are pretty good these brain-dead NY voters will continue to elect corrupt, Left-wing progressive Commies into office. They deserve to live with some of the highest crime, highest taxes, highest drug use, some of the highest illegal murdering, raping, human trafficking scum in the country.
Cuomo killed over 5,000 people during COVID, and thinks he did a good job. What do you think? If New York elects him, they get what they deserve, Rudy Giuliani did an outstanding job and the democrats railroaded and bankrupted him. New York belongs with California,Washington State and Oregon in a race to the bottom.
How can a fare beater be punished and by whom when those responsible for order and safety encourage breaking the law? Criminals in charge of crime running for public office .
Democrats are like the Mafia..think of themselves/do want they want/don’t care. Crime is the speciality..
Just dawned on me why Dems want less or no punishment for so-called minor crimes. It’s because they have been side-stepping, or outright ignoring laws themselves for years (politicians especially). I’d say RINOs as well.
Small crimes bring bigger crimes! From everything I read, the subways are not safe and stopping the farebeaters in their tracks is necessary. For the life of me, I cannot fathom what the Democrats are thinking when they threaten to take away a good crime from the LEO’ s. and think it does anything to make the people feel safer.
It really seems that way! The Democrats thrive on anything that goes against American values and law!
maifa princess polotsi and nephew gov newsom would seem to be the dons
Not only do the liberals embrace crime, they also commit crimes! Aiding and abetting criminals IS a crime.
If ever there was a collection of losers, this is it.
Every one of the Democrat candidates is one or more of the following: a Communist, a racist, an antisemite, an anti-American, a criminal, a liar, and on and on.
If any one of these miscreants should win the election, it will guarantee but one thing: the once great city of New York will continue its downward spiral into oblivion.
Stupid DemoKKKRAT voters in NYC and NY state deserve EVERY bit of misery they vote for. DJT has NO intent to bail them out with taxpayer funds from the Federal Treasury. Let them stew in their oun foul juices. ALL DemoKKKRATS want are votes from these lawbreakers. Weakness, in enforcing ANY law, is akin to cowardice
Can’t say much, just watch and wait, No matter Karma will balance book!