New York City’s district attorneys should go back to prosecuting people who commit subway fare evasion, Mayor Eric Adams said on Monday.

“They need to, it’s a crime. It’s a crime,” Adams said during a press conference in the Bronx with NYPD leadership in response to a question about controversial soft-on-crime DAs in Brooklyn and Manhattan’s Alvin Bragg who have opted not to prosecute fare beaters.

Adams said prosecutors’ soft touch on turnstile jumpers has fed into increased subway crime rates in recent years.

“If we start saying it’s alright for you to jump the turnstile, we are creating an environment where any and everything goes,” the mayor warned. “It’s a crime. Now, you could defer prosecution, you could people in programs, you could do all sorts of things, but let’s not ignore it, and that’s what’s happening to our subway system.”

The mayor said prosecutors declining to press charges against fare beaters “sent the wrong message.”

“We allow people to jump over the turnstile and not pay their fare and not prosecute. We sent the wrong message,” he said.

Adams appeared in the Bronx Monday to share the accomplishments of the NYPD’s new anti-gun squad, which launched last Monday after a slight delay.

The new anti-gun teams — which replaced controversial plainclothes anti-crime teams that were disbanded in 2020 — nabbed 31 people in their first six days on the streets, and recovered 10 illegal guns. Other arrests were for  drug sale or possession, forgery, suspended or revoked driver’s licenses, reckless endangerment. felony assault, criminal possession of a knife and criminal trespass, NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said.

“Going deeper of the 31 total arrests made in the last six days by the women and men of our neighborhood safety teams — 61 percent of those arrested have been previously arrested most for major felony, 39 percent have a history of narcotics related arrests, 26 percent have a link to gangs or crews and 23 percent or more are on parole or probation,” Sewell said.

“This is how the NYPD is reducing and working to eradicate gun violence across the city.“

Adams called the first week’s haul “a success.”

“We’re not going to allow all the naysayers that don’t believe we can do our job correctly and legally to get in a way of keeping people safe,” he said. “We’re going to put violent people away. We’re going to remove the guns off our street.”

As for the state’s controversial bail laws, Adams said he welcomed Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposal to make more crimes bail eligible, but that its fate was out of his hands.

“I gave my blueprint to Albany. I don’t control Albany. I’m happy to see the governor has embraced some of the things that I raised in the blueprint.. but they have to make a determination. I have to deal with things that are within my span of control,” he said.

Additional reporting by Craig McCarthy