CTA: Crime down 25% across transit system in 2015

CHICAGO (STMW) - Overall crime across the CTA dropped by 25 percent in 2015, officials said.

In 2014, the CTA reported 4,691 criminal incidents on buses, trains, rail stations, parking garages and rail platforms, CTA spokesman Brian Steele said Tuesday night. In 2015, that number dropped to 3,512.

Steele credited the CTA’s security camera system as one of the major reasons for the decline.

“Anywhere a customer goes on the CTA system, there is a camera,” Steele said. “Those cameras are really serving as a deterrent effect.”

Thefts and robberies, two of the more commonly reported crimes on the CTA, both dropped substantially, Steele said. Thefts were down 19 percent in 2015 and robberies fell by 22 percent.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is expected to formally announce the CTA’s drop in crime with officials from the transit agency and the Chicago Police Department’s public transit unit Wednesday morning.