Bill To Force Reports On Fare-Beating Arrests Passes Council

NEW YORK, NY — The NYPD may have to track turnstile-jumping arrests more closely under a bill the City Council passed Monday.

The legislation would require the Police Department to issue quarterly reports containing the number of arrests and civil summonses issued for fare evasion, the specific subway stations where they occurred and the race, sex and age of those slapped with violations.

Supporters of the bill argue those reports would help spell out how hard the NYPD cracks down on turnstile jumpers and how those arrests impact disadvantaged groups. Police have so far released scant data on a law-enforcement strategy that hits poor people of color the hardest, supporters say.

"What we know is that the Mayor’s insistence on using arrests and criminal prosecution for fare evasion, all while a civil alternative is readily available, has disproportionately impacted brown and black New Yorkers," Councilman Rory Lancman (D-Queens), who sponsored the bill, said in a statement. "However, what we do not know is how the NYPD is focusing its fare evasion enforcement and which precincts are spending most time and resources chasing after fare beaters."

When officers in the NYPD's Transit Bureau stop turnstile jumpers, they can either issue a civil summons for breaking MTA rules or arrest them for theft of services, a misdemeanor under state criminal law. Cops arrested 8,625 of the nearly 30,000 people they stopped for fare-beating in the first six months of this year, Lancman's office said.

The NYPD has, at the MTA Board's request, reported the number of arrests and the age, sex and race of the offenders. But police officials have rebuffed requests to release a breakdown of the subway stations where the arrests took place because the task is time-consuming, DNAinfo reported in May.

In Brooklyn, fare evasion arrests were most common at subway stations in poor, predominantly black neighborhoods, according to an October report from the Community Service Society. Two thirds of the roughly 4,600 people arrested for theft of services in 2016 were black, the report says.

Advocates also reportedly worry turnstile-jumping arrests could trigger deportation for undocumented immigrants by giving them a criminal record.

Lancman's bill now goes to Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has broadly supported the NYPD during his first term. De Blasio's administration "worked closely with the council" to negotiate the bill, mayoral spokesman Austin Finan said.

"The NYPD has taken real and meaningful steps to increase transparency through new tools and technology like CompStat 2.0," Finan said in a statement. "We look forward to reviewing the final version of the bill."

(Lead image: NYPD officers watch a turnstile in the Times Square subway station July 21, 2005. Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)