New York City is bringing the neighborhood policing prevalent on its streets down into the subway.
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Thursday that the NYPD will be implementing its intimate community policing tactics into train cars and subway stations as a way to keep New Yorkers safe as they travel around the city.
In subway stations across the city, signs will show the station manager and the officers assigned to that area, along with their contact information.
For people who spend a lot of time on the subway, de Blasio said at a press conference at Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center station, this initiative is about “the notion that you’re going to know the name of the officers on your line, that if you have concerns or something you’re worried about or a question you want answered, you can literally walk up to them, because you know their names, or email them, and they’re going to respond to you personally.”
“By expanding #NeighborhoodPolicing into transit, we’re going to continue to reduce crime, solve problems specific to these areas, and build better relationships with the nearly 6 million riders who use the system each week day.” –@NYPDONeill on the NCO transit rollout in subways pic.twitter.com/2cJLHor1sm
— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) April 12, 2018
The city spends about half a billion dollars protecting straphangers through NYPD efforts each year, and this initiative will allow the city “to do even more with the money we invest,” the mayor said.
The initiative kicks off immediately in Transit District 12 in the Bronx and Transit District 30 in Brooklyn. Two officers will be assigned to each sector within those transit districts, the NYPD said, to help create relationships between the NYPD and their MTA counterparts as well as with riders along those transit lines.
Neighborhood policing within the subway will expand throughout the city, de Blasio said, and by early next year will be in place in every transit district.
“Six million people ride the subway every day. It is the essence for [the lives of] so many New Yorkers,” de Blasio said. “That trip they take on the subway is core to everything else and we want that ride to be safe and we want to keep making it safer.”
