Is Subway Grinding A Sex Crime?

New York City victims and lawmakers are trying to make “subway grinding,” which is when people packed in subways rub up against others in a lewd and sexual manner, a felony sex crime.

A Bronx man was recently convicted of doing it to three young women, but did not go to jail because of a ruling by New York’s Supreme Court.

A 29-year-old man was charged with “forcible compulsion” after he grinded on a 14-year-old, but the New York State Court of Appeals ruled the man did not use force, so the charge was downgraded to a misdemeanor.

City Councilman Peter Vallone, Jr. told the media that he wants to put subway grinders on a sex offenders’ list: “The judges are wrong. They’re up in an ivory tower. They’re not a 14-year-old girl pinned in a train having this happen to her. But we shouldn’t rely on them. Albany needs to write a law to fit this crime.”