The New York City Police Department receives reports averaging 600 incidents of sexual harassment, assault and lewd behavior within its subway system every year. Now the NYPD has called upon the Special Victim’s Unit to investigate this specific set of sex crimes that have arguably not received enough attention.
Until January 1, 2016, officials say that sex crimes on the subway were investigated by the Transit Robbery Squad, a unit that looked into all crimes occurring in the subway short of homicide. The SVU appears to be more equipped to investigate attacks of a sexual nature and link together crimes by the same offender, as is evidenced by the arrest of a serial flasher last week.
“Only one rape was found to be committed in the city’s transit system in 2015, but the NYPD Transit Bureau logged a 33% increase in sex abuse cases on the rails — from 98 in 2014 to 130, according to documents obtained by the Daily News.”
