{"id":217167,"date":"2026-05-01T22:20:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T22:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/217167\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T22:20:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T22:20:16","slug":"nypd-arrests-for-lying-down-on-the-subway-are-problematic-and-cruel-lawmakers-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/217167\/","title":{"rendered":"NYPD arrests for lying down on the subway are ‘problematic’ and ‘cruel,’ lawmakers say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Local lawmakers and the mayor\u2019s office need to \u201cassess and address\u201d a surge in people being arrested and taken to court for lying down or spreading out<\/a> in New York City\u2019s public transit system, the leader of the City Council committee that oversees homeless services said in response to a Gothamist data analysis this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels problematic to me to know there\u2019s a significant spike in people who are being charged for lying down or sleeping on the train,\u201d said Councilmember Crystal Hudson, chair of the Committee on General Welfare. \u201cI would say that if they had a safe, stable bed to sleep in, then they wouldn’t be sleeping on the train.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rather than criminally charge people, she said, \u201cI think we need to be thinking about what types of resources we can actually offer.\u201d<\/p>\n

The number of court cases in which the most serious charge someone faced was for lying down or taking up more than one seat in public transit climbed more than 3,000% \u2014 from 19 to 591 \u2014 between 2024 and 2025, Gothamist found. Cases for the first three months of this year outpaced the number during the same period last year, according to a review of state court data. In nearly all of these cases, the person was taken into custody rather than given a ticket.<\/p>\n

The swell of court cases has coincided with the NYPD\u2019s increased focus on transit safety and quality-of-life<\/a> concerns.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the NYPD has said officers are expected to enforce transit rules and regulations, and that subway safety is a priority for the department. Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who campaigned on a pledge to prioritize outreach over enforcement to address homelessness in the subway system, has not responded to repeated requests for comment.<\/p>\n

In response to Gothamist\u2019s reporting, MTA Chair Janno Lieber said he fully supports NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch\u2019s approach to transit safety and noted that crime in the system has decreased under her leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe love what the NYPD has been doing,\u201d he said at an MTA board meeting this week. \u201cWe have a really close relationship with them. We also support their quality-of-life focus and work with them just to pass on information about what our passengers are telling us.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the MTA does not get involved in how the police department manages quality-of-life conditions.<\/p>\n

But Councilmember Tiffany Cab\u00e1n, a former public defender, said the city \u201cabsolutely\u201d needs to change the way it addresses homelessness in the public transit system. Cab\u00e1n has proposed legislation<\/a> that would require government employees who do homeless outreach to receive training in how to interact with vulnerable people. It would also prohibit police or sanitation officials from participating in this work.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy is somebody finding themselves exhausted on a train, or precariously housed, or unhoused sleeping on a train?\u201d she said. \u201cRather than focusing on the failed systems that need to be changed to fix that big problem, we focus on individuals as people to be managed or corrected or disappeared or cast aside or disciplined for conditions that really are put upon them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cab\u00e1n, a Mamdani supporter, has urged him to hold his police commissioner accountable<\/a> and ensure she abandons policies that target homeless people.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter who\u2019s the mayor, I will say it very loudly and clearly: This is a cruel policy,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is not a policy that is rooted in public safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nick Encalada-Malinowski, civil rights campaign director at the advocacy group VOCAL-NY, called for more investment in services that could help to end street homelessness, including safe havens and stabilization beds, expanded access to bathrooms, and transit ambassadors.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one wants New Yorkers left homeless and sleeping on trains,\u201d he said in a press release. \u201cBut we need to use actual, proven solutions to achieve that, not arresting people who have nowhere to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hudson said outreach teams<\/a> that work with homeless people<\/a> in the transit system need more staffing to offer assistance and connect people with shelter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have resources for those folks,\u201d she said. \u201cI think we should be assessing why they are taking up the space on the train, why they\u2019re sleeping on the train, and trying to meet them with the resources they might need.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Local lawmakers and the mayor\u2019s office need to \u201cassess and address\u201d a surge in people being arrested and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-217167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}