They Got Capone On Tax Evasion, They’ll Get You For Walking Between Cars

Is there a correlation between walking between subway cars and crime? Steven Levitt is never around when you need him:

The MTA’s rule banning people from moving between subway cars has helped put the brakes on crime and increase arrests, including 166 people busted for outstanding warrants, the NYPD said yesterday.

NYPD Chief of Transit James Hall said the subway rule, created for safety reasons, has been “extremely effective” for transit cops nabbing some rough riders.

“When we looked at that [regulation] and then looked at our complaint reports, we see a lot of victims tell us that when they were victimized that the bad guy or the bad gal walked through the cars,” said Hall. “So we’ve attempted to put a lot more officers on the trains looking for that offense.”

Since January, transit cops around the city have issued 1,953 summonses for people moving between cars, and have arrested 166 for a return on warrants, four for loaded guns and 45 for illegal knives, an NYPD spokesman said.

But it’s not so much a safety issue as it seems to be just another way to harrass bad people:

“We’re really stopping people with bad histories,” said Hall. More than 100 “people already with outstanding warrants — that’s huge.”

Now where’s the ACLU when you need them?