NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Mayor Eric Adams is following through on his plan to cut back on low-level crime in the city with recent reports showing a 25% increase in misdemeanor arrests during the first six months of his term, according to data analyzed by Bloomberg.
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The surge in arrests for so-called quality of life crimes is the first increase in nearly a decade. Many of the arrests were for crimes like fare evasion, petty theft and offenses committed with children present. Turnstile-hopping arrests alone increased more than 100% from the previous year.
Bloomberg analyzed data from the New York Division of Criminal Justice Services and Police Reform Organizing project and also found that low-level assault, theft and drug possession made up more than half of the misdemeanors and about 90% of those arrested were people of color.
Felony arrests increased as well, according to the data analyzed by the outlet, up 23% in the first six months of the year following a trend of more felony arrests in 2021.
“I will both support our police officers who will help make our city safe again and hold zero tolerance for those who violate that sacred obligation, because both public safety and justice are the prerequisites to prosperity,” Adams said in a statement to Bloomberg. “That’s why we are working every day to dam the many rivers that feed the sea of violence.”
Back in March, the NYPD issued a statement outlining how the department would enforce low-level crimes, zeroing in on offenses like public drinking, public urination, dice games and other offenses that police deem worthy of leading to larger-scale disputes.
For some criminal justice reform advocates, the memo was an unwelcome mirror of the controversial “broken windows” policy which was a decades-long strategy by the NYPD to target misdemeanor crimes in an effort to prevent more serious disorder, often by utilizing “stop-and-frisk.”
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