By Gina Martinez
City Councilman Rory Lancman (D-Hillcrest) has sponsored legislation requiring the NYPD to provide periodic data on fare evasion arrests.
Lancman, who also serves as chairman of the Committee on Courts & Legal Services, sponsored the bill in response to new data from the state’s Division of Criminal Justice Services that showed that of the 8,625 individuals arrested for theft of transit services so far in 2017, 89 percent were either black or Latino.
Lancman said the new data confirms that the city’s prosecution of fare evasion as a crime disproportionately affects immigrants and people of color.
“The data from 2017 is strikingly similar to recent years, as 89 percent of the thousands of people arrested for jumping a turnstile are black or Latino,” he said. “New York City is unnecessarily running people through the criminal justice system and putting immigrants at risk of deportation. This is a grave injustice that falls squarely at the feet of Mayor de Blasio for using arrests and criminal prosecution rather than issuing civil summonses for violating MTA rules against fare evasion.”
According to Lancman, the data from the state also highlights the need for his bill requiring the NYPD to periodically publish data on fare evasion stops, including both arrests and civil summonses, by station and precinct, as well as demographic information on those stopped.
Reach Gina Martinez by e-mail at gmart
