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After announcing the appointment of 500 more NYPD officers last week to tackle fare evasion, @NYCMayor's MTA Board now intends to release camera footage of people jumping the turnstile to publicly humiliate them.
Because abject cruelty is the way to address a crime of poverty.
Because abject cruelty is the way to address a crime of poverty.
In fact, they don't just intend to release the footage, they are going to invest in more cameras, because all of this makes good economic sense. No one is jumping the turnstile for the fun of it. They are jumping the turnstile because they can't afford the fare.
I promise you in all my years as a public defender, I have never represented someone who jumped the turnstile when they could pay.
The only exception to this is where all the metrocard machines were broken & people literally had no other way of buying a ticket - in which case according to the MTA you are supposed to walk to the next subway station and buy a metrocard.
Seriously.
Seriously.
Oh & those 500 additional cops hired because there is such a desperate need to police fare evasion? You know where there really is a major deficit of officers? The Special Victims Unit. There's a total of 67 detectives assigned to SVU to investigate rapes & other sex crimes.
But that is the cost of hiring 500 new cops & broken windows policing. Serious crimes like rape go un-investigated & remain unsolved. gothamist.com/2019/05/30/rep…
