A large swath of New York City crimes plummeted three months into 2026, but police staffing shortages, subway scares and questions about Mayor s larger plans for law enforcement have kept public safety front and center of the Big Apples political spotlight.
“I think that right now there’s a wait and see attitude. Is Mayor Mamdani going to be supportive [of the police] or is it going to be like he’s still campaigning for a socialist position? We don’t know,” James Mulvaney, an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told .
The New York Police Department (NYPD) has pointed to an early-year crime snapshot that looks, on paper, like a success: January and February combined saw 83 shooting incidents and 97 shooting victims, along with 32 murders, record lows for the first two months of the year, according to the department.
But jumped 18.5% in February, largely driven by felony assaults and grand larcenies.
“You know, so many transit workers are being assaulted. Police officers have been bitten. We have a lot of homeless, emotionally disturbed individuals,” Passengers United Founding President Charlton D’Souza said during a late-night tour of the .
DSouza called for a more consistent NYPD presence underground, with a greater number of small police installations.Â
“The subways need constant security,” he said, detailing recent violent crimes at stations and expressing concern at the quantity of homeless people, many of whom he says are migrants sleeping in the system.
“The public knows that if theres an emergency⦠they can get police assistance in real time.”
The NYPD, for its part, has acknowledged the February spike and says it responded by deploying “approximately 140 additional cops a day into the transit system.”
The departments breakdown of Februarys transit crime paints a picture that aligns with recent rider complaints: Thefts of unattended items surged, thefts from sleeping passengers rose, and assaults drove a significant share of offenses.
Mulvaney stressed that despite some harrowing headlines, the city today is significantly safer than in decades past. Still, he noted how quickly a single high-profile crime incident can shift public mood, even if personal risk remains relatively low.
“It only takes one or two anecdotes for people to flip out,” he said. “Look at that. Why was he or she let go?”
DSouza also flagged a constraint that has voices across the political spectrum sounding the alarm.
“NYPD is so short-staffed,” he said. “They dont have enough police to cover this.”
Mulvaney said that are, in part, the result of nearby counties offering better salaries and a calmer environment.
He also suggested that police attrition may accelerate if officers continue to sense an “erosion of respect” in a department already stretched thin. Rebuilding trust, he said, must start “from the top.”
Heather Mac Donald, a Manhattan Institute fellow and author of The New York Times bestseller “The War on Cops,” took it a step further and claimed that many of these staffing issues are the result of longstanding animosity towards police. Mac Donald believes that rhetoric painting cops as “racist” has led to crumbling morale.
Mamdani’s predecessor, , proposed at the end of his term that the city hire 5,000 more police officers. However, upon entering office, Mamdani moved to signed by Adams following his Sept. 26, 2024, indictment on bribery and campaign finance offenses. This included the proposed NYPD personnel increase.
Additionally, the preliminary FY 2027 budget notes the importance of “significantly reducing current vacancies,” which could include for the NYPD based on unfilled positions. Mamdani’s budget proposes a $
