Police Commissioner Bill Bratton is on a mission to eliminate subway dancing. Earlier, Business Insider reported that subway panhandler and performer arrests have risen by 271% since he took office. Now, the AP reports that more than 240 people have been arrested on misdemeanors related to subway dancing in 2014; only 40 were arrested at the same time last year.
Bratton has admitted that the crackdown is part of his “broken window theory,” that targeting smaller crimes like graffiti can “cultivate a greater sense of disorder and embolden more dangerous offenders.”
“Is it a significant crime? Certainly not,” Bratton recently said. “Does it have the potential both for creating a level of fear as well as a level of risk that you want to deal with?” The NYPD cites safety issues as their concern, however, no injuries by subway dancers have been reported. It’s difficult to imagine how eliminating the “Showtime!”-yelling, pole-swinging acrobatics will inspire away such actual problems as the recent spree of gun violence.(Photo: @zokuga)
It's no secret that the targeting of subway performers has only increased since Police Commissioner William Bratton was appointed, and underscored the city's need to enforce the "Broken Windows" policy. Among the many performers, though, is 5-year-old Nasir Malave, a talented dancer who roams the trains with his older brother,…
Arrests of panhandlers and subway performers has risen by 271% since police commissioner Bill Bratton has taken over, Business Insider reports. Bratton thinks that getting rid of illegal performers is somehow linked to crime prevention, but the young UK filmmaker Scott Carthy disagrees. Watch his short documentary above. As they practice…
It's always been tough to be a "showtime" subway performer in NYC, but more so now that the NYPD has been cracking down on them. So what better time to give them some love? Just like this documentary shows how hard subway dancers practice in order humanize them, a new…
