The NYPD Spent $150 Million to Catch Farebeaters Who Cost the MTA $104,000
The NYPD Spent $150 Million to Catch Farebeaters Who Cost the MTA $104,000
The massive increase coincided with just a two percent decrease in serious crime.
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Catching crimals is almost never profitable... but it's still important and has positive externalities for discouraging future crime.
In this case though we've really got to ask how much we care about this. Some people are going to ride transit for free, we generally want those people to get a free ride rather than not having access to public transit.
It's not about profitability. It's about the extraordinary expense to discourage at best a minor misdemeanor that costs relatively very little in comparison. You could probably achieve the same effect paying one cop to monitor random stations and fine people as the do it. There are much more important things that cops could be doing that's actually worth spending $150 million. Or you could just divert a fraction of that money to subsidize public transit.
That's the point. Opportunity costs.
How many criminals, real criminals, could have been arrested and tried for that much money?
Or how many low income families could have gotten free/subsidized tickets?
How many cars could've been removed from the streets by simply letting everybody ride transit for free? That's the biggest opportunity cost of them all.
Or even is it worth charging at all?
Well said. They could offer cheaper tickets and invest less in law enforcement involved in this. Less people will be criminalized that way.
I agree, but it feels weird to say:
Less people will be criminalized that way.
It's the act that's a crime, not the people.
Depends on the perspective. Imo it's structural issues that can be solved if you rework the structure. Most people who don't pay for their tickets don't have the money, but would pay if it would be affordable.
In Germany you could see this happen when they pushed the 9€ ticket where you could travel all of Germany for the month.. for 9€.
It was a huge success and I'm sure many people who didn't buy tickets before did buy them then, simply because it was affordable, accessible and more chill.
Yes, but I don't see what that has to do with my point
I misunderstood you, my bad
No worries lol it happens
Catching crimals is almost never profitable… but it’s still important and has positive externalities for discouraging future crime.
The "crime" of transit fare evasion has bigger positive externalities than discouraging it does.
This is why people are campaigning to remove the user-fees from Transit. That's the proper way to do that.
Have you ever driven through a small town and seen a police car sitting right where the speed limit drops? Those tickets and the kangaroo mayor’s courts are the only reason some of those towns are still alive.
Yup! My grandmother actually lived right next to a town with a 20 mph speed limit on their center road that jumped up to 60 as soon as you left the town in either direction. It made the town an immense amount of money and was ridiculously predatory.