It’s ‘racist’ that fare-beat nabs 92% nonwhite

THE OVERWHELMING majority of New Yorkers arrested for fare-beating by the NYPD in 2015 were people of color — a fact that an advocacy group on Thursday blasted as “blatantly racist.”

In all, 92% of those arrested for jumping turnstiles were people of color. Just 2,291 of those arrested on the charge of theft of services — primarily fare evasion — were white in 2015, compared with 26,678 who were black, Hispanic or Asian, according to statistics from the state Division of Criminal Justice Services analyzed by the Police Reform Organizing Project.

Project director Robert Gangi said the stats are a “concrete example of the stark racism associated with ‘broken windows’ policing.”

“If the police really wanted to stop fare-beating, they would have someone just standing at the turnstile,” Gangi added.

Gangig accused individual officers of being “interested in making their quotas.”

The NYPD said that in 2015, about 70% of people caught jumping turnstiles in the subway were given summonses, and 30% were arrested.

“Those who were arrested had underlying circumstances such as an active warrant or being designated as a ‘transit recidivist’ — a designation for repeat chronic offenders within the subway system,” said Deputy Chief Edward Mullen, a police spokesman. “Fare evasion enforcement is a key component in addressing crime in the subway.”

Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and criminologist George Kelling made a similar point in a recent City Journal article.

Monica Klein, a spokeswoman for Mayor de Blasio said the NYPD has “taken strong steps to keep our subways safe while reducing unnecessary arrests — which is why our subways are growing safer while transit arrests have decreased 6% in two years.”