New Yorkers Deserve Stronger Laws to Halt Recidivism and Enhance Public Safety

This week, Mayor Eric Adams and I take pride in announcing that major crime in New York City saw a decrease in 2024, with 3,662 fewer reported incidents this year compared to last year.

The number of murders in our city has reached its lowest point in five years.

Shooting incidents and the number of shooting victims have decreased for the third consecutive year, including the lowest shooting incidents in Brooklyn since the early 1990s.

Public housing has also seen a drop in major crime, as has our transit system for the second year in a row. In fact, taking the pandemic years out of the equation, 2024 has been the safest year for major crime in our subways in 14 years.

It’s important to recognize that these reductions in crime have been made possible by the dedication and determination of New York’s Finest. However, we understand that many New Yorkers still do not feel safe.

Their perception of public safety has become their reality—and we understand the reasons behind it: rising rates of recidivism.

When we compare 2024 to 2018, we find an alarming increase in the number of individuals arrested three or more times for the same crime within the same year.

Specifically, there has been a 61.3% increase for burglary, 71.2% for grand larceny, 64.2% for shoplifting, and a staggering 118.6% increase for auto theft.

When we focus on felony assault, the increase is an alarming 146.5%.

The scales have been tipped against our police officers due to a shocking lack of accountability for crime.

If we do not take corrective action, we are unlikely to see the low crime rates that New York City experienced prior to January 2020, when changes to criminal justice laws made it increasingly difficult to keep recidivists incarcerated.

The subway system will always serve as a barometer for public safety perception in our city.

And to all New Yorkers: the crime in subways is not merely a figment of your imagination.

While it is true that major crime in transit has decreased, random acts of violence are on the rise. Often, these frightening incidents are perpetrated by recidivists who should not be roaming our streets or utilizing our subways given their history of violence.

Take, for example, Jamar Banks.

With 40 prior convictions, Banks has a history of violent crime that spans at least 36 years.

In 2022, he was arrested for stabbing a man on a subway train, and in 2023, he was arrested with a knife while shoplifting.

This New Year’s Day, he stabbed a man in the back following an argument on a train in Manhattan, and less than a day later, he stabbed an off-duty MTA employee on a train in the Bronx.

Banks was arrested on January 5; when will our criminal justice system ensure he’s not back on our subways?

This troubling pattern is also evident above ground.

Just last month, career criminal Gary Worthy committed armed robbery at a deli in Queens, subsequently shooting and injuring an NYPD officer who responded, as well as injuring an innocent bystander.

Worthy had 17 previous arrests, with seven occurring while he was out on lifetime parole—including arrests for robbery, burglary, and menacing within the past year.

This is a seriously dangerous individual who should not have been allowed on the streets, yet these stories are on repeat—and New Yorkers have had enough.

The situation worsens when examining misdemeanor crimes.

In comparison to 2018, misdemeanor offenses in New York City increased in 2024.

Simultaneously, rates for not prosecuting these crimes have gone up by 31%, and 54% more pre-trial defendants were released on their own recognizance.

It’s disheartening for our officers to repeatedly arrest the same individuals for the same crimes in the same neighborhoods.

And it’s frightening for New Yorkers to encounter the very person who victimized them just days prior walking free in their community.

The era of temporary fixes and half-hearted solutions must come to an end, as the revolving door of the criminal justice system disregards the rights and needs of victims.

New Yorkers demand—and absolutely deserve—better.

Jessica Tisch is the police commissioner of New York City.