NY AG Candidate calls for stricter enforcement of subway assaults

It's important to understand that a small group of repeat offenders are actually responsible for much of the crime in New York. In fact, 63 repeat offenders have more than 5,000 of the subway arrests among them. 63 repeat offenders responsible for 5,000 subway arrests. That tells you, if we actually enforce the laws and identify the individuals who are repeat offenders, we can drastically reduce the chaos in the subways and we can increase subway safety. So it is important to actually make sure we identify those people. How do we do that? Well, first of all, a number of individuals who go in and commit crimes on the subway, the people who are pushing others on the tracks, robbing, stealing, assaulting, sexual assault, a number of those people are not getting the fare. We do have to make sure we enforce the fare in New York. It is not about criminalizing minor offenses. It is not about criminalizing poverty. There are programs to make sure the people who can't pay the fare get assistance from the government. This is about preventing violent crime. And the reality is when you enforce the fare, you stop people, you make sure they pay, you also find that a number of those people are carrying firearms illegally or have warrants out for their arrest. And that's how you stop criminals from coming through the gates in the first place and creating chaos in the subways.