What’s up with subway crime in New York?

One simple, encouraging and correct answer is that it’s down so far this year, with 7.4% fewer major felonies reported to the New York City Police Department’s transit bureau through the end of May than during the same period in 2022.

That’s just this year, though. Since the arrival of COVID-19 more than three years ago, crime in New York’s subways has been the subject of intense local and even national attention, with the media often depicting it as out of control, but the numbers don’t exactly back that up. A closer look explains the disconnect: While subway riders are not significantly more likely to be victims of crime than before the pandemic, they’re much more likely to be victims of senseless violence.

There are six major felonies the police department tracks underground (there are seven aboveground, with grand larceny auto the difference). Major subway crime is on track to be 13.4% lower this year than in 2019 and lower than in all but a few years during the past quarter century.

Then again, subway ridership is still down about a third from 2019 levels. Adjust for that, as one should, and the picture changes.

Measured this way, subway crime rose 86% in the first year of the pandemic. It has fallen since but is still running much higher this year than from 2006 through 2019. It’s not exactly what you’d call out of control, though, just settling back toward normal after a once-in-a-century shock.

Burglary is uncommon on the subway for obvious reasons (MTA information booths, storage areas and train operator and conductor cabs, along with subway station retailers, would seem to be the main places one could burgle) and I wouldn’t make too much of its jumpy trajectory. The two most common major crimes underground have long been grand larceny (theft of items worth $1,000 or more) and robbery (taking property by force or threat of force). Incidents of both plummeted in the 1990s and early 2000s and have stayed relatively low, with the robbery rate jumping in 2020 but falling back since then and the grand larceny rate lower now than before the pandemic. Petit larceny (theft of items worth less than $1,000) is up slightly since 2019 if you adjust for ridership, but overall the signature subway crime of having your pocket picked just doesn’t seem to be a significant worry these days.

What subway riders do have to worry about more is being attacked. Felony assault (assault that causes physical injury), rape and murder are way, way up since 2019. Even with this year’s declines, assault and murder rates remain higher than at any time over the past quarter century before the pandemic. With murder and rape, the numbers involved are so small that it’s a little hard to know how much significance to attach to the increases, but the rise in felony assaults involves much larger numbers and started before the pandemic, with the per-ride rate rising 89% from 2013 to 2019, then jumping an additional 150% from 2019 to 2022.

Another view of what’s been happening comes from the MTA statistics on "major incidents” in the subway that delay 50 or more trains. Incidents caused by mechanical issues are now less common than in 2019, but those involving people are occurring more frequently.

My less-than-scientific take is that there are more troubled people on New York’s subways than before the pandemic — and less-crowded stations and cars have made it easier for them to make trouble. For-profit subway crime hasn’t risen; senseless acting-out has. Last year’s big increase in police presence on the subway has been followed by a modest decline in violent incidents, and that’s encouraging, but it does seem as if such acts are harder to deter through law enforcement than, say, pickpocketing.

Subway riders thus have more reason to be wary than before the pandemic and subway avoiders have more reason to stay away. But I can’t conclude a column on this topic without noting that New York’s subways are still much safer than the roads in most of the U.S. The problem in New York since 2020 is that it’s not as safe as it used to be.

Justin Fox is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business. He is author of "The Myth of the Rational Market.”