Subway crime has dipped in the Big Apple — but try telling that to the victims of these transit terrors.

A cluster of 63 career criminals continues to wreak havoc in the city’s underground, racking up more than 5,000 busts between them — yet only five of them are currently behind bars, The Post has learned.

The motley crew has amassed a disturbing rap sheet for crimes including assault, robbery, theft, turnstile-jumping and a string of other nuisance offenses — but they largely remain free because the state’s lax criminal-justice reforms bar judges from holding them on bail.

“Crime is down in the subways, but it’s the same handful of criminals making it feel like chaos,” a frustrated law-enforcement source said. “This kid gloves approach to bail and lack of prosecution isn’t cutting it.”

The latest NYPD statistics show that transit crime in the five boroughs has been on the decline, down 3.8% over the first eight months of the year compared to the same period in 2024 and dipping nearly 6% in the past two years thanks to focused enforcement and police deployments.

That’s no thanks to the state’s 2019 criminal justice reforms, which bar judges from setting bail on most crimes, including all non-violent crimes.

Under the so-called reforms, repeat offenders busted for any crime other than violent felonies typically get a slap on the wrist and are cut loose while their cases are pending — with many allegedly committing new crimes.

That’s been the case with dozens of transit system offenders, according to sources.

Among the most notorious is Michael Wilson, a 39-year-old vagrant with 198 total arrests, 190 of them tied to the transit system — and 36 of them this year alone.

Wilson’s rap sheet — who cops say should be in the subway crime “Hall of Fame” — includes multiple arrests for alleged criminal tampering for rigging MetroCard dispensers.

Another repeat offender is 28-year-old Kenney Mitchell, who has been arrested a total of 149 times in his life, including 18 times just since May of this year for alleged theft and forgery — and in June after he was found lying on a C train platform with a pocket full of crack vials, sources said.

Carlos Baezcaban, 53, has logged 72 career arrests, including for alleged grand larceny, trespassing and drug possession. That count includes the six times he has been busted since he was put on probation in May for a possession of stolen property conviction.

Some of the offenders have been hit with sex-related crimes such as public lewdness and forcible touching.

Matthew Leon, 26, has 29 arrests under his belt — with 13 that were sex-related, including for allegedly fondling female straphangers and pressing against others.

Another repeat offender, 38-year-old Jamar Cobb, has logged 48 career arrests including for alleged robbery and public lewdness and theft.

Shaquille Clarke, 32, whose 18 arrests include alleged forcible touching and robbery, has been charged with pressing against a woman in the subways and slugging a lady to take her phone, sources said.

Clarke was placed on probation in May for a robbery conviction and has been arrested once since.

Of the six chronic offenders named above, only one, Leon, is currently behind bars. The rest are still roaming the streets and train system.

Leon was finally ordered held without bail on a February charge of forcible touching of a minor in Queens.

Some conviction and prosecution rates have fallen, too.

Ten years ago, 81% of transit felony arrests resulted in convictions, compared to just 36% to 38% today, according to sources familiar with the situation.

The accused scofflaws have been represented by multiple lawyers over the years, primarily public defenders, while some of the charges against them were minor and did not involve the need for an attorney.

The Legal Aid Society, which helps provide public defenders, declined to comment. The Post reached out to numerous lawyers who have repped some of the scofflaws, but the attorneys either did not return calls for comment or would not discuss the cases.

State lawmakers are demanding more answers after growing evidence suggested that Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration allegedly steered the contract for a massive $11 billion Medicaid home care program.

A rep for Public Partnerships, LLC, admitted in a letter sent to state Senators investigating the disastrous transition process to the new firm that she falsely stated under oath last month that the company hadn’t been in touch with state officials — even after she was presented with a copy of a draft piece of legislation with the company’s name on it.

“Something here stinks,” State Sen. Steven Rhoads (R-Nassau) said in a statement to The Post after the bombshell admission from PPL, a company hired to handle payment services in the revamped Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, or CDPAP.

“These families deserve to know the substance of those communications; who was involved; whether they influenced the bid drafting and selection process and if so, whether anyone in the Hochul Administration or her donors benefited as a result.

“We want answers. And so should all New Yorkers,” Rhoads concluded.

Patty Byrnes, PPL’s vice president of government relations, had denied there were communications between the Department of Health and the company before the enactment of the budget — but admitted those statements “were not accurate” in a letter to Senators provided to The Post.

“There were general communications with DOH staff (of which I was unaware at the time I testified) in late March and early April when NY was considering the possibility of moving to a single FI program,” PPL’s letter said.

State Senate Investigations Committee Chair Jim Skoufis (D-Orange) co-chaired the hearing last month with Health Committee Chair Gustavo Rivera (D-Bronx), and promised a follow up.

“All these statements, all these amendments to testimony, all of these comments now, since the hearing only elicit more questions,” Skoufis said.

The company has, so far, remained cooperative with the investigation, though subpoenas are not off the table, per Skoufis.

Rivera said there was still “harm happening to patients and workers” after a chaotic rollout of the changes which consolidated hundreds of fiscal intermediaries that handled payroll services for home care aides to one hand-picked by the state during backroom budget negotiations.

“Senator Skoufis and I are clear that PPL’s handling of the transition has been unacceptable and they will be taken to task to ensure that New Yorkers receive reliable home care from workers who are paid appropriately,” Rivera said in a statement.

The admission from PPL of ongoing discussions creates a bit of a headache for the Hochul administration as it continues to handle fallout over the change — which sparked widespread outrage as hundreds of thousands of home care aides and their recipients faced bureaucratic nightmares and missed paychecks as they transitioned to the new firm.

During last month’s hearing on CDPAP, Health Commissioner Jim McDonald had similarly denied under oath that he and DOH had been in touch with the firm prior to the bidding process.

“New York is a big state. You hear a lot in New York all the time,” McDonald said, asked about the bid rigging accusations.

“My team did an honest [request for proposals] and an honest bid and did an honest evaluation. And they did a good job of this. We did what we were supposed to do,” McDonald maintained.

A spokesperson for Hochul didn’t respond to PPL’s admission nor deny that her office was in touch with the company ahead of finalizing the state budget last year.

“The shift to a single fiscal intermediary went through a standard procurement process at DOH, following the law passed by the State Legislature – and no State officials knew who would be selected until the procurement process was complete,” a spokesperson for the governor wrote in a previously released statement.

PPL declined to comment further.

In a statement, a DOH spokesperson maintained the commissioner did not know his employees were communicating with PPL.

“As Commissioner McDonald testified before Senate leaders, he was not aware of any communications between Department of Health staff and PPL that occurred prior to the procurement process,” the spokesperson said.

A female NYPD cop was slashed in the face in Brooklyn Sunday morning by a madman armed with a 14-inch butcher knife after he entered a police precinct by the back door, authorities said.

Officers chased the attacker — identified by sources as 36-year-old Justin Coleman — and shot him dead after he refused to drop the knife and lunged at a cop, NYPD Chief of Patrol Philip Rivera said.

The attack happened after the man tried to enter the 73rd Precinct in Brownsville via an employee entrance about 5:28 a.m. When a cop stopped him and told him to go through the front door, he pulled out a knife and slashed her in the face, Rivera said.

Law enforcement sources told The Post that the knifeman appeared to be trying to cut open the cop’s throat with his surprise attack.

The heroic female officer — who is the daughter of two NYPD detectives, one of whom is still on the force — was able to block her attacker’s blade with her arm but was cut on the top of her head and her left ear, PBA President Patrick Hendry told The Post.

Another officer then Tasered the man, who fled out the back entrance of the precinct with cops in pursuit.

The attacker, initially described as a man in his 40s, then brandished a knife and charged at cops outside a housing project on Saratoga Avenue about two blocks away, Rivera said.

He was shot several times by multiple officers and rushed to Brookdale Hospital in Brooklyn, where he died on arrival.