The Legal Aid Society on Friday took Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s NYPD to task, charging that it has maintained the same “aggressive enforcement” of fare evasion carried out by the previous mayoral administration of Eric Adams.
Phil Desgranges, attorney-in-charge of criminal law reform at Legal Aid. contended that the NYPD’s continued enforcement of the low-level infraction disproportionately impacts people of color.
“This data makes clear that Mayor Mamdani is continuing the same aggressive enforcement approach as the Adams administration over a $3 subway fare, one that continues to disproportionately target New Yorkers of color,” Desgranges said in a statement.
During the first quarter of this year, the NYPD made 3,188 fare evasion-related arrests, according to newly released NYPD data highlighted by the legal defense group. The number of fare evasion arrests exceeded any of the previous three quarters, when Adams was still in office.
Additionally, the data showed that the NYPD handed out 26,267 fare evasion-related summonses during this year’s first quarter, a jump of 6,433 from the previous quarter.
New Yorkers of color account for 94% of fare evasion arrests and 81% of summonses for the infraction, the data further revealed.
A spokesperson for Mamdani, who campaigned on moving away from aggressive enforcement of low-level offenses, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
NYPD argues more to fare evasion data than meets the eye
FILE – Police officers stationed at a subway turnstile to combat fare evasion.Marc A. Hermann / MTA
However, NYPD spokesperson Bradley Weekes pushed back on Legal Aid’s assessment of the data. He pointed out that the department measures fluctuations in crime stats by comparing the same time spans between different years, rather than different time spans within the same 12-month period.
Looking at the data that way, Weekes said, fare evasion enforcement actually declined by 15% during the first quarter of 2026 when compared to the first three months of 2025.
Additionally, he stated that since January, the NYPD has “strategically shifted and focused officers onto trains and platforms where the vast majority of transit crimes occur.”
“Excluding the pandemic years, last year was the safest year in New York City’s subway system since 2009,” he said. “Building on that progress, as of June 21st, major crime is down compared to last year.”
Desgranges, however, argued that the administration should be moving away from enforcement that Legal Aid believes unnecessarily brings New Yorkers of color and immigrants into the criminal legal system, which can place the latter at greater risk of deportation.
“Arresting and jailing New Yorkers for low-level fare evasion does nothing to improve public safety — it funnels people into the criminal legal system and, for many immigrants, can lead to ICE detention and deportation,” he said. “City Hall should be ending unnecessary arrests for fare evasion…not doubling down on a failed strategy that imposes potentially catastrophic consequences for minor offenses.”
Meanwhile, MTA leadership has for many years placed great focus on combating fare evasion, as it loses hundreds of millions of dollars annually to the activity. To accomplish this, the agency has spent heavily on retrofitting turnstiles to make them harder to hop over, replacing them with modern fare gates that are more difficult to get past, and equipping bus fare agents with technology to verify riders’ payments.
Transit advocates, including the group Riders Alliance, took the opportunity to push for expanding the Fair Fares reduced-fare program as an alternative to aggressive fare evasion enforcement.
The City Council has proposed making subway, bus, and paratransit trips free for those living at or below 150% of the federal poverty level, meaning everyone currently eligible for half-priced trips under the program, through increasing funding for it in next year’s city budget.
But Mamdani has so far been mum on whether , and by how much, Fair Fares should be expanded — with the June 30 budget deadline just days away.
“Riders voted for lower costs and without free buses on the horizon this year, Mayor Mamdani must expand Fair Fares in his budget next week,” said Riders Alliance Director of Policy and Communications Danny Pearlstein, in a statement.
“The NYPD won’t just lay off the subway turnstiles so the mayor must provide free or reduced fares for many more New Yorkers,” he added. “All New Yorkers have a right to travel in our own city and access basic needs and opportunities regardless of ability to pay. Our mayor must seize this moment and transform Fair Fares so it works for millions of struggling New Yorkers now.”