New York City’s subway system has become more violent over the past few years, and it is still on a lethal pace in 2024.

The system has seen a 53% increase in reported felony assaults from 2019 to last year despite ridership being down 30%. According to the New York Post, felony assaults made up 25% of major crimes reported in 2023, a substantial increase from the 15% share in 2019. Fewer people are riding the subway, but more people are being violently assaulted.

As it turns out, villainizing police officers and then refusing to seriously prosecute violent, repeat criminals makes things such as public transportation worse. Who knew?

Worse, though, is the trend of murders on the subway system. In 2019, there were three for the entire year. In 2022, there were 10 murders, with another five last year. The trend is taking that number back up, with three murders in just the first three months of this year.

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New York’s unserious justice system has made this all possible. While the city’s mayor and the state’s governor have busied themselves with deploying the National Guard for bag checks on the subway system, the violent career criminals that are committing these crimes have been allowed to roam free thanks to a lack of bail laws along with weak prosecutors. A New York Police Department officer was shot and killed during a traffic stop on Monday by one such criminal, a man with 21 prior arrests who was a passenger in the car with a driver with 14 prior arrests.

New York has made residents less safe by going soft on violent criminals. This has caused decay in basic quality of life throughout the city, including the infamous subway system. It is sad, inexcusable, and worst of all, predictable, and yet practically no one in city or state government has found the spine to start bringing the hammer down on these criminals even as the city becomes less safe.