NYPD arrests for lying down on the subway are 'problematic' and 'cruel,' lawmakers say

Local lawmakers and the mayor’s office need to “assess and address” a surge in people being arrested and taken to court for lying down or spreading out in New York City’s public transit system, the leader of the City Council committee that oversees homeless services said in response to a Gothamist data analysis this week.

“It feels problematic to me to know there’s a significant spike in people who are being charged for lying down or sleeping on the train,” said Councilmember Crystal Hudson, chair of the Committee on General Welfare. “I would say that if they had a safe, stable bed to sleep in, then they wouldn't be sleeping on the train.”

Rather than criminally charge people, she said, “I think we need to be thinking about what types of resources we can actually offer.”

The number of court cases in which the most serious charge someone faced was for lying down or taking up more than one seat in public transit climbed more than 3,000% — from 19 to 591 — between 2024 and 2025, Gothamist found. Cases for the first three months of this year outpaced the number during the same period last year, according to a review of state court data. In nearly all of these cases, the person was taken into custody rather than given a ticket.

The swell of court cases has coincided with the NYPD’s increased focus on transit safety and quality-of-life concerns.

A spokesperson for the NYPD has said officers are expected to enforce transit rules and regulations, and that subway safety is a priority for the department. Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who campaigned on a pledge to prioritize outreach over enforcement to address homelessness in the subway system, has not responded to repeated requests for comment.

In response to Gothamist’s reporting, MTA Chair Janno Lieber said he fully supports NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch’s approach to transit safety and noted that crime in the system has decreased under her leadership.

“We love what the NYPD has been doing,” he said at an MTA board meeting this week. “We have a really close relationship with them. We also support their quality-of-life focus and work with them just to pass on information about what our passengers are telling us.”

He said the MTA does not get involved in how the police department manages quality-of-life conditions.

But Councilmember Tiffany Cabán, a former public defender, said the city “absolutely” needs to change the way it addresses homelessness in the public transit system. Cabán has proposed legislation that would require government employees who do homeless outreach to receive training in how to interact with vulnerable people. It would also prohibit police or sanitation officials from participating in this work.

“Why is somebody finding themselves exhausted on a train, or precariously housed, or unhoused sleeping on a train?” she said. “Rather than focusing on the failed systems that need to be changed to fix that big problem, we focus on individuals as people to be managed or corrected or disappeared or cast aside or disciplined for conditions that really are put upon them.”

Cabán, a Mamdani supporter, has urged him to hold his police commissioner accountable and ensure she abandons policies that target homeless people.

“No matter who’s the mayor, I will say it very loudly and clearly: This is a cruel policy,” she said. “It is not a policy that is rooted in public safety.”

Nick Encalada-Malinowski, civil rights campaign director at the advocacy group VOCAL-NY, called for more investment in services that could help to end street homelessness, including safe havens and stabilization beds, expanded access to bathrooms, and transit ambassadors.

“No one wants New Yorkers left homeless and sleeping on trains,” he said in a press release. “But we need to use actual, proven solutions to achieve that, not arresting people who have nowhere to go.”

Hudson said outreach teams that work with homeless people in the transit system need more staffing to offer assistance and connect people with shelter.

“We have resources for those folks,” she said. “I think we should be assessing why they are taking up the space on the train, why they’re sleeping on the train, and trying to meet them with the resources they might need.”