More than 60% of every criminal summons the NYPD wrote for loitering between 2025 and the first half of 2026 came out of a single police precinct — the 40th, which covers Port Morris, Mott Haven and Melrose in the South Bronx. The same precinct accounted for more than a third of the city’s panhandling complaints over that period, according to a new analysis of NYPD data. Across the East River in East New York, the 75th Precinct led the city in a different category entirely: public drinking.
The findings come from an analysis described by Gothamist, which reports that officers in East New York issued 855 criminal summonses for alcohol in public from 2025 through the summer of 2026 — the most of any precinct citywide and 8% of all such tickets issued in New York. Taken together, the numbers show NYPD officers issuing criminal tickets for low-level offenses at higher rates in the South Bronx and East New York than anywhere else in the city, per the analysis.
NYPD spokesperson Bradley Weekes attributed the enforcement pattern partly to a surge in resident complaints. He said officers in both precincts are responding to a rising tide of 311 calls, noting that in the 40th Precinct, 311 calls have increased 215% since 2015, while in the 75th Precinct they’ve jumped 556% over the same stretch. Weekes did not immediately say whether those precincts actually receive disproportionately more 311 complaints about low-level offenses than other parts of the city.
Tickets Are Down, But Still Concentrated
Despite the outsized share of enforcement in these two neighborhoods, the NYPD says the overall volume is shrinking. Weekes said officers in the 40th Precinct have written 20% fewer criminal summonses this year compared with the same period last year, while officers in the 75th Precinct issued 15% fewer. He also said citywide criminal summons levels have not grown over time and are now similar to where they stood during the de Blasio administration, excluding the pandemic years…