You are not welcome!
That's the message the MTA is sending to career subway criminals.
The MTA's subway and bus committee is calling for a new state law that would allow judges to banish from the transit system offenders with repeat convictions for robbery, assault, and sexual offenses in the subway.
"What I think we need is for the legislature to take action and judges to start deciding that this is a potential punishment," said MTA Board Member Sarah Feinberg.
"I personally was the victim of a misdemeanor sexually oriented offense. And the undercover officers and law enforcement were tremendous, but if someone has been convicted multiple times, why do we need to go through that again?” said MTA Board Member Linda Lacewell. “Let's prevent the problem from happening in the first place."
Two members of the board's transit committee, both appointees of Mayor de Blasio, abstained from the resolution.
"Unless we characterize this extraordinarily narrowly, we're gonna end up sweeping in people and make it almost certain that they're gonna have to return to a life of crime because they won't have any transportation options," Said MTA Board Member David Jones.
Police arrested 67 so-called transit recidivists, including 23 for sex offenses in the first three months of the year, and 266 repeat offenders were arrested last year.
"The troubling part of all of this is, in all these cases, there is no case until there is a victim," said NYPD Transit Bureau Chief Edward Delatorre.
The resolution will go to the full MTA board on Wednesday, where officials hope to send a message to Albany lawmakers to put it on their agenda when they return next year.