A top concern for subway riders was once having a purse or wallet snatched. Now, they may be more worried about a sudden attack.
The nature of crime in the subway has become far more unpredictable, even as the number of violent incidents remains low, according to a report released on Friday.
In 2023, for the first time in nearly two decades, the number of felony assaults in the subway system was greater than the number of robberies, according to an analysis of crime statistics by Vital City, an urban policy think tank. The change signals a rise in impulsive violence and a move away from crimes motivated by monetary gain, the report found.
It also reflected a trend in overall crime across the city, which saw a spike in the number of felony assaults in 2024, even as most other major crimes saw a decrease.
Last year in the transit system, there were 561 felony assaults, a major crime category defined as an attack in which a deadly weapon is used or a serious injury results. That number was more than triple what it was in 2009, when 150 felony assaults were reported.
In 2006, robberies and assaults occurred at nearly the same rate, said Elizabeth Glazer, the founder of Vital City and a former criminal justice adviser under Mayor Bill de Blasio. But in recent years, and particularly since the pandemic, violence in the subway has increasingly been driven by animus, frayed nerves and erratic behavior, she said.
“That flip is everything,” Ms. Glazer said, and it can only partly be explained by the growing homelessness and mental health crises in the city, she said.
The rise reflects a national trend, said Jens Ludwig, the director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab. “This is something we’re seeing all over the place, after the pandemic,” he said. “You used to not see tons of videos of people getting into fist fights on planes.”
The analysis points to greater challenges ahead for city and state officials who have already dedicated tens of millions of dollars to quell the perception of disorder in the subway, where just 4 percent of violent crime in the city occurs. The report makes several recommendations for how to contend with riders’ safety concerns, including better coordination between different agencies and improved allocation of the police throughout the system.
Despite a low rate of incidents overall, violent crime has been sharply rising underground. From 2014 to 2024, the number of violent crimes in the subway, including misdemeanor assaults, has nearly doubled, to 2,745 from 1,445, and is up 15 percent since 2019, according to Paul Reeping, the director of research at Vital City. Still, a rider is highly unlikely to be a victim: the risk is about one per one million riders during rush hour, according to a Vital City analysis.
All the same, passengers have also been shaken by recent gruesome crimes, including the killing of Debrina Kawam, a 57-year-old woman who was set on fire as she slept on a train in December. There were 10 murders in the subway in 2024, up from three in 2019.
“I have horrible subway anxiety,” Kayla Hansel, 23, a nanny, said this week while waiting for a train at Union Square. News of the Ms. Kawam’s death has put her more on edge, to the point where she’ll sometimes leave her train early and walk the rest of the way home.
Chris Guzman, 37, a teacher who lives in Brooklyn, said she recently saw a man on a subway platform approach a woman he didn’t know and slap her. The experience shocked her, she said, and it still plays in her mind when she rides the train.
Riders once had a perception that violent crime was mostly perpetrated by young people, but data now suggests otherwise. The average age of a person charged with a violent crime in the subway is now 32, up from 24 nearly two decades ago, said Aaron Chalfin, a professor of criminology who analyzed data for Vital City.
“You worried about groups of kids robbing you, not necessarily older adults preying on you for no reason,” he said. “It really is a sea change.”
The drop in robberies predates the pandemic, Dr. Chalfin said, in part because of effective policing. But it remains unclear what mix of factors is spurring the rise of violent attacks in recent years.
As the perception that the subways are dangerous lingers, the police said that crime in the system is falling so far this year, while weekday ridership is up to roughly 75 percent of prepandemic levels. Crime on the subway is down 27 percent through March 9, compared with the same time last year, according to department statistics. That number has fallen as the number of felony assaults in the city also decreased 14 percent during the same time period, the police said.
Last year, following a spike in crime and an overnight slashing attack on an A train that injured a conductor, Gov. Kathy Hochul ordered 1,000 members of the National Guard to begin patrolling the subways. About 1,250 Guard members, officers from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and state police officers now patrol the system, according to the governor’s office.
In addition, hundreds more police officers are working in the subway: more than 200 whom Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch assigned to patrol subway cars and platforms, and hundreds more reassigned from desk and administrative jobs to transit patrols, allowing the department to place two officers on every overnight train, Ms. Tisch said at a City Council budget hearing on Tuesday.
The department has also started pilot programs in transit districts in Queens and Brooklyn, where officers in stations are instructed to keep people from stretching out on subway seats or smoking and drinking on the trains, she said.
The efforts, she said, “were about restoring a sense of safety and order.”
“This approach also allows us to address the random acts of violence that we have seen on the subways,” Ms. Tisch said.
But she said the problems on the trains underscore the need for a more holistic approach to the city’s mental health crisis.
The authors of the Vital City report say assigning a large police force in the subway has its limits, both because of the cost and the tangle of mental health and homelessness issues that are often involved in police interactions. Nearly two-thirds of people with multiple arrests in the subway had a history of homelessness or mental illness between 2022 and 2023, according to John Hall, a retired police official and adviser to Vital City.
Allocating resources is also a challenge. Among the 472 subway stations, about half of violent crimes occur in the 30 busiest stops, or on trains approaching them, according to Vital City. But depending on the time of day, less crowded stations can be riskier.
Sarah Feinberg, the former interim president of the New York City Transit Authority, said officials need to create a unified system between police and other agencies, and make clear that the subway is to be used only for transportation, and not as a shelter or hangout.
“If you’re not using the system for transit, you should be asked to exit the system” she said.
Janno Leiber, the chief executive and chair of the M.T.A., said in an interview that he largely agrees with the recommendations of Vital City’s report, and that he wants to see more police officers committed to subway patrols long term. He has also said that curbing fare evasion is vital to upholding order in the subway.
But one of the biggest challenges, he said, is the release of repeat offenders who commit crimes on the subway.
“You can’t have someone haul off and punch somebody, and have it be treated the same way as if it were their first time,” he said, adding that many violent offenses are considered misdemeanors, even though they can still be very serious attacks.
“The criminal justice system has to take action,” he said.
Nate Schweber contributed reporting.