SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
New York City police are taking a growing number of people to criminal court for sleeping or spreading out in the public transit system. That spike comes as police and transit officials focus on strategies to make the subway safer and make riders feel safe. Samantha Max of member station WNYC reports.
SAMANTHA MAX, BYLINE: Around 3:30 a.m. on February 22, Chris Madigan was sleeping on the subway when police body camera footage shows NYPD officers waking him up, arresting him and escorting him out of the station. That night, the city was preparing for a blizzard. It was not snowing yet, but the temperature was starting to drop. Madigan had no shoes on, only socks.
CHRIS MADIGAN: It was cold. I remember my feet were really cold. Like, my feet really hurt.
MAX: In the hallway of a Manhattan courthouse, Madigan tells me he spent the last several years sleeping on friends' couches and benches around the city while struggling to overcome a drug addiction. He says the night police arrested him, he had dozed off on the train while under the influence.
MADIGAN: It's not like anybody's doing anything wrong. It's just - it's trying to find a place to be warm.
MAX: In New York, it's against the rules to occupy more than one seat on public transit or lie on the floor of a station. In 2024, there were 19 court cases where sprawling out in the transit system was the most serious charge. Last year, there were about 600. The numbers are likely an undercount because they do not include cases when the person was ultimately charged with a more serious crime.
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JESSICA TISCH: The subways will always be a bellwether for public safety in New York City.
MAX: That's Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch speaking in January 2025. She announced a surge of NYPD officers into the transit system at night. She also launched a new division dedicated to policing quality of life issues, like aggressive panhandling.
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TISCH: For too long, we asked our cops to correct these conditions without sufficient direction. No more.
MAX: State court data show cases for sprawling out in public transit started to rise right around when Tisch made her public commitment to subway and quality of life enforcement. Jillian Snider is a former NYPD officer who now teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She says this type of policing aims to deter more serious crimes in the transit system and to boost ridership.
JILLIAN SNIDER: Regular citizens, when they see homeless people encamped on a sidewalk or laying in a subway car, they immediately feel less safe. And that is not that these are dangerous individuals by any means, but it puts forth this perception of incivility.
MAX: This is not just an issue in New York City. Jacob Wasserman with the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies says agencies across the country are grappling with how to address homelessness in public transit, especially since the pandemic.
JACOB WASSERMAN: Transit agencies are not designed to address homelessness, and that's no knock on them. That's just not what their purpose is. But they have to.
MAX: Wasserman says cities like Boston and Los Angeles have non-police ambassadors that do homeless outreach, respond to overdoses and help commuters who need directions. Philadelphia offers coffee, showers, medical care and case management in one of its major transit hubs. Wasserman says research has found enforcing transit violations tends to push homeless people elsewhere. But he says it does not solve the problems that lead them to public transit in the first place.
WASSERMAN: They're just going to take shelter right outside the entrance to the subway unless you're connecting them to services. So it's, you know, kicking the can down the road.
MAX: The NYPD said in a statement that subway safety is a priority, and officers are expected to enforce transit rules. NYPD data show most major crimes in transit have been going down in recent years. For NPR News, I'm Samantha Max in New York. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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