Equally, subway crime was not an issue for New York Governor Kathy Hochul till lately. In any case, New York’s media and political elites don’t journey the subways, and so they have personal safety once they journey.
Nonetheless, crime turned an issue for Governor Hochul after a prepare conductor was the sufferer of a knife-slashing assault in Brooklyn. NYC transit staff stopped work quickly after the slashing to file security complaints, “inflicting extreme disruptions in subway service.”
All of a sudden, it’s time to deploy the Nationwide Guard within the New York Metropolis subways.
You may suppose New Yorkers would applaud Governor Hochul’s resolution to supply extra safety for subway riders, however not everybody accredited. Because the New York Occasions reported, “transit consultants” expressed concern that “further vigilance within the subways” may “make riders extra fearful somewhat than reassured.”
For instance, Danny Pearlstein, a spokesman for a transit advocacy group, deplored Governor Hochul’s motion. “Deploying troops to the subway will sadly improve the notion of crime,” Pearlman mentioned.
A number of days in the past, Ginia Bellafante, a New York Occasions columnist, wrote a column suggesting that violence on the subways is a psychological well being downside, not against the law downside. She discovered a North Carolina psychiatrist who opined that placing troops within the subway may make a mentally in poor health individual extra harmful to the general public somewhat than much less. Bellafante additionally cited an anthropologist who mentioned that New York Metropolis ought to present “extra homelessness providers and extra psychological well being providers” somewhat than ship the Nationwide Guard to patrol the transit system.
I applaud Governor Hochul’s resolute resolution to position Nationwide Guard troops within the NYC subways. Critics don’t supply any useful options to city crime by framing the issue as a psychological well being subject. Because the Governor acknowledged, individuals wish to really feel protected once they journey the subway. And most of the people really feel safer once they see a cop or a soldier on the subway station, not a psychiatrist, anthropologist, or social employee.
 |
| Picture credit score: New York Every day Information |
