NYPD Completes Neighborhood Policing Rollout to All 12 Transit Districts

June 27, 2019

Flagship Crime-Fighting Strategy Now Complete Across Patrol, Housing and Transit

The NYPD announced today that Neighborhood Policing – the department’s core crime-fighting strategy, which emphasizes crime reduction, collaborative problem solving and building trust, has expanded to Transit District 11 in the Bronx, Transit District 23 in Queens, and Transit District 34 in Brooklyn. This expansion marks the completion of the Neighborhood Policing Rollout to all 76 precincts, 12 Transit Districts, and nine Police Service Areas (PSAs) citywide. The NYPD began implementing Neighborhood Policing in 2015 and in April of 2018, the NYPD expanded Neighborhood Policing to the transit system.

“Our Neighborhood Policing philosophy means we are forging deeper connections with all the people we serve, in every community, by building trust and strengthening relationships and now that extends across all of transit in addition to patrol and housing,” said Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill. “Public safety is a shared responsibility and the completion of Neighborhood Policing in transit will help us reduce crime past already record lows.”

“A local, community- and customer-focused approach is the hallmark of both our Group Station Manager Program and the NYPD’s NCO program, and the two work hand in hand to improve safety and conditions in subway stations – this is an evolved approach to providing a safe and comfortable station environment and we’re grateful to the NYPD for their partnership,” said New York City Transit Authority President Andy Byford.

In 2018 there were approximately 2,500 crimes in the subway system. The subway system sees upwards of six million riders per day. With a year-to-date average of approximately six crimes per day, this equates to approximately one crime for every million riders. For context, in 1990 when the subway system saw far less ridership, there were nearly 17,500 transit crimes, with an average of 48 crimes per day. On April 12, 2018, the NYPD launched Neighborhood Policing in the transit system and the program continues to keep subway crime at historic lows while building on collaboration and trust. Transit Neighborhood Coordination Officers (NCOs) serve as crime fighters, problem solvers and liaisons to subway riders.

Additionally, year-to-date, the NYPD Transit Bureau has apprehended 41, 473 people for evading the fare in the subway system, the vast majority of these encounters resulted in the issuance of civil Transit Adjudication Bureau summonses with minimal impact to a respondent’s criminal history; the small remaining percentage of encounters resulted in arrests or criminal court summonses. Compared to the same period in 2018 when there were 24,710 fare evasion encounters, this equals an increase of 68%, or 16,763 more fare evaders contacted with corrective action taken this year. As announced earlier this month, the NYPD Transit Bureau will spearhead the deployment of 200 additional police officers in addition to its current headcount to address crime and conditions within the NYC subway system. The goal of the increases in personnel deployments remains to keep the nearly six million riders – our community of commuters, safe as they travel throughout the city.

Coinciding with the expansion of Neighborhood Policing to the first Transit Districts in 2018, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) implemented the Group Station Managers (GSM) program to work hand in hand with our NCOs. Mirroring the Department’s Neighborhood Policing model where officers have designated areas of assignment, the MTA has designated GSMs to specific groups of stations within the subway system. This fosters a sense of familiarity and a pride in ownership while providing NCOs a liaison from the MTA with whom they can work directly. The completed expansion of Neighborhood Policing to Transit Districts 11, 23 and 34 will only serve to enhance the collaboration and information exchange between the NYPD and our partners in the MTA.

Transit District 11 covers Bronx stations along the B, D, 2, 4, and 5 lines. Transit District 23 covers Queens stations along the A line. Transit District 34 covers Brooklyn stations along the B, D, F, N, Q, and R lines. Subway riders can get to know their NCOs or GSMs by referencing posters and digital signage at stations throughout the subway system. Riders can also look up the NCO for a particular station by visiting www.nyc.gov/nypd/transit, where they can choose from specific Boroughs, Subway Lines, and Stations on easy-to-use drop down search menus.

To find your Transit District and to get to know your Neighborhood Coordination Officers, visit www.nyc.gov/nypd/transit.

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