Article #1
EXCLUSIVE: Arrests for transit fare evasion surge in recent years, putting it among city's top offenses leading to jail: Daily News analysis
Fare-beating arrests have increased 69% — from 14,681 in 2008 to 24,747 in 2013 — and are on pace to be slightly higher this year. Nearly 37,500 people have gotten sentences for the $2.50 crime that involved incarceration, including time-served, and 1,802 of those people were minors, according to data obtained by the Daily News.
bryan smith for new york daily newsThe turnstile has become one of the city’s biggest pipelines to the jail cell.
Fare-beating busts have surged in recent years, and so has the number of people doing time for the $2.50 crime — making it one of the top charges that has led to incarcerations, a Daily News analysis has found.
The NYPD has said its “broken windows” strategy of targeting low-level crimes such as fare evasion helps prevent more serious crimes and gives cops the opportunity to check people for open warrants, weapons and drugs.
The News looked only at collars in the city’s subway system where fare-beating was the most serious charge, and found such arrests have increased 69% — from 14,681 in 2008 to 24,747 in 2013 — and are on pace to be slightly higher this year, according to data from the state Division of Criminal Justice Services.
Meanwhile, fare-beating summonses — which carry much less serious consequences — are down 28% on both subways and buses, from 123,432 in 2008 to 89,128 last year, according to the MTA’s Transit Adjudications Bureau. Summonses are on pace to be higher this year — with 58,370 already issued by last week.
MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz said fare evasion costs up to $100 million a year, and that the agency works in tandem with the NYPD to identify hot spots that can be targeted for enforcement.
“These numbers illustrate, once again, the failure of ‘broken windows’ policing,” said Justine Olderman, a managing director at Bronx Defenders, which has represented thousands of people in fare evasion cases.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/fare-evasion-arrests-surge-years-article-1.1906667
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Article #2
NYPD going after criminals who tamper with MetroCard machines and sell 'swipes
Through last week, officers had arrested 260 scammers on criminal tampering charges this year. Along with subway gropers and panhandlers, the swipers and broken MTA vending machines are among the subway system’s quality-of-life issues that police are hoping to improve.
James Monroe Adams IV for new york daily news An MTA employee services a MetroCard vending machine in Brooklyn. Cops are cracking down on scammers who jam the machines.Police are cracking down on subway scammers who jam MetroCard vending machines and then sell “swipes” through turnstiles — and cops will be turning the heat up even more, officials said.
Through last week, NYPD Transit Bureau officers had arrested 260 scammers on criminal tampering charges this year — a 45% increase over the same time period in 2013, a police spokesman said.
The MTA and police, meanwhile, are working on a plan that would force such vandals to pay restitution, covering costs associated with repairing disabled MetroCard machines that they knock out of service to drum up business for their illicit trade, police said.
“We are going to make a big dent in the problem of vandalism in the subway,” Police Commissioner Bill Bratton told the Daily News recently.
Illegal swipers and fare-beaters are a chronic plague that deprives the authority of tens of millions of dollars in revenue a year.
The swipers and disabled MetroCard vending machines also are among the quality-of-life issues that frustrate scores of subway riders — and make some feel uneasy, Bratton said.