The action plan also includes improved treatment offerings for people with severe mental illness and additional cameras in the subway trains.
Although New York is generally considered relatively safe, the East Coast metropolis has been experiencing an increase in public transit crime for some time now. According to the American television station CNN, the crime rate increased by more than 40% compared to last year. Most crimes are not violent in nature, for example theft, but that does not alter the fact that there is a growing concern among the population. Among other things, the murder of a 48-year-old man during a train ride from Brooklyn to Manhattan made headlines.
Critics, however, fear that the new action plan will still contribute to discrimination against population groups that are already disadvantaged. In places where many people are confronted with racism, distrust of the police is also particularly high. A Queens councilor, Robert F. Holden, therefore called for a fundamental reform of the criminal justice system. “Without a change in the law, the extra officers will just arrest the same people again,” he said in an interview with the New York Times.