Key takeaways:
- NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani proposes making a Department of Community Safety to coordinate prevention and outreach packages.
- Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch anticipated to stay in place underneath Mamdani’s administration.
- NYPD staffing ranges to remain flat as metropolis strikes ahead with plans to shut Rikers Island.
NEW YORK — With Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a self-described Democratic Socialist, now elected as New York City’s subsequent mayor, one of many largest questions going through officers is how his management will have an effect on the nation’s largest police division.
Once an outspoken critic of the NYPD, the 34-year-old softened his tone through the marketing campaign and pledged to maintain Commissioner Jessica Tisch in place. His public security platform differs from the method taken underneath Mayor Eric Adams, proposing adjustments to how the division coordinates with City Hall.
Here’s what his report and proposals point out about what’s forward for the NYPD.
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Mamdani says he’ll preserve Commissioner Jessica Tisch
Mamdani introduced throughout an October debate that he meant to retain Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. According to CNN, he made the announcement publicly earlier than ever talking to Tisch immediately, telling the community, “I haven’t had a private conversation with her on that.”
Mamdani expressed confidence she would stay within the function: “I am confident that we will be working together,” he stated.
He has publicly credited Tisch with rooting out corruption inside the NYPD and overseeing a decline in crime charges, in keeping with CNN.
The Department of Community Safety
A central element of Mamdani’s agenda is the creation of a Department of Community Safety (DCS) — a brand new civilian company with a proposed $1.1 billion price range, in keeping with a plan launched by his marketing campaign. About $605 million would come from current packages moved underneath the division and $455 million could be new funding, generated via efficiencies and reallocated sources.
Mamdani says the division’s mission is to “prevent violence before it happens” by addressing root causes equivalent to poverty, psychological sickness, housing instability and inequality. The DCS, he says, will take a public well being method to crime prevention, prioritizing “prevention-first, community-based solutions.”
While the brand new division would soak up many obligations at present shared with the NYPD, the plan stresses that police “have a critical role to play.” Mamdani’s proposal contends that officers are too typically tasked with dealing with psychological well being crises, homelessness and different social points — work that he says has contributed to 20% longer response instances and clearance charge declines.
The DCS would oversee and develop a number of main initiatives:
- Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division (B-HEARD): Moved underneath DCS and expanded citywide, with peer counselors on each crew, trauma-informed coaching, and 24/7 service.
- Community Mental Health Navigators: New neighborhood-based outposts connecting residents to care and decreasing 911 mental-health calls.
- Transit outreach: Teams of friends, EMTs and psychological well being professionals stationed in 100 subway stations to interact folks experiencing homelessness or disaster, changing police-led outreach.
- Gun violence prevention: A 275% funding enhance for town’s Crisis Management System, increasing “violence interrupter” and hospital-based packages modeled on Cure Violence.
- Victim and hate-violence providers: Expanded funding for Safe Horizon, Family Justice Centers and anti-hate education schemes.
The division would additionally coordinate throughout metropolis companies, internet hosting quarterly security summits to overview progress and share finest practices — a “whole-of-government” method, in keeping with the proposal.
Past criticism of the NYPD
Mamdani’s views on regulation enforcement have shifted since 2020. After the 2020 killing of George Floyd, he was among the many Democrats calling to defund the police, writing on social media that the NYPD was “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety.”
He additionally referred to the division as a “rogue agency,” feedback that drew sharp criticism from police unions and metropolis officers.
In a later interview with The New York Times, Mamdani stated he owed officers an apology. He has since stated he now not helps chopping the NYPD’s price range and promised to keep up present staffing ranges.
A plan to take away police from homeless outreach efforts
Mamdani stated he intends to take away NYPD officers from town’s PATH homeless outreach groups, which at present embody police, nurses and outreach staff who take away folks with extreme psychological sickness from subway stations. The plan would change these officers with “transit ambassadors” — civilians skilled to help riders and join homeless people with social providers. His marketing campaign states that taking police out of these roles would enable them to give attention to critical crime.
Critics, together with psychological well being professionals at present engaged on the PATH groups, say the plan might be unsafe.
“You can’t do this without police — it’s impossible,” a behavioral nurse informed Gothamist. “No one in their right mind would do this alone. You’re going to get hurt.”
The proposal coincides with an NYPD-reported decline in subway crime following the growth of police patrols. According to the New York Daily News, main crime within the subway system fell 18% through the first three months of 2025 — the bottom stage in almost a decade — and there have been no murders within the system throughout that interval for the primary time in seven years. Citywide, shootings dropped 23%, the bottom quarterly determine for the reason that CompStat period started within the Nineteen Nineties, Commissioner Tisch stated.
Tisch credited “precision policing” and elevated officer presence on trains and platforms for the development. Gov. Kathy Hochul’s directive to deploy 750 extra officers on in a single day trains additionally performed a job, costing about $154 million in additional time, in keeping with officers.
NYPD staffing
Under the present mayor, Eric Adams, the NYPD introduced a plan to elevate its headcount to 40,000 officers by 2029, the very best stage in 20 years. The plan contains $17.8 million this fiscal 12 months and rising to $318.5 million by 2029 to help the hiring of greater than 5,000 officers.
Mamdani has stated he would preserve NYPD staffing flat, noting: “I believe we have the right number of police officers. We have budgeted about 35,000 head count in the NYPD. Eric Adams cannot actually hire enough officers that he actually has the money to do so. And so then now to say that instead of being able to hit his previous mark of 35,000 he’s going to now try and hit 40,000.”
He added: “It’s a question of safety, and that’s exactly what I’m going to deliver.”
Rikers closure
Mamdani helps the regulation requiring New York City to shut Rikers Island and change it with 4 borough-based jails. During the ultimate mayoral debate earlier than early voting, Mamdani stated he would “do everything in my power to try and meet that deadline” and added, “We have to close Rikers Island. Rikers Island is a stain on the history of this city.”
The plan faces main obstacles. Construction is years not on time, and projected prices have doubled — from an unique $8 billion to about $16 billion — whereas Rikers nonetheless holds roughly 7,100 detainees, almost twice the capability of the 4 alternative jails mixed, the Queens Daily Eagle reported.
A federal choose has warned she could quickly strip components of management over the jail complicated from town and appoint a third-party receiver due to persistent security and administration failures, in keeping with the Queens Daily Eagle.
According to the plan launched by his marketing campaign, the Rikers closure is a part of a broader housing and psychological well being technique. The plan states that incarceration has turn into town’s default response to homelessness and psychological sickness — and that addressing these crises outdoors of the jail system would make New York safer.
According to the plan, greater than 2,500 folks held on Rikers every year want supportive housing, which town has failed to supply. The proposal estimates that it prices $1.4 billion yearly to incarcerate these people — in contrast with $108 million to accommodate them, or lower than 8% of jail bills. Mamdani says that increasing supportive housing, paired with sustained remedy and outreach, would “break cycles of homelessness” and cut back reliance on incarceration.
The DCS would direct outreach groups and housing navigators to attach people experiencing homelessness or psychological well being crises to long-term housing choices, emphasizing that “communities are safer when everyone has a home.” His plan additionally commits to freezing lease for rent-stabilized items and increasing rental help packages as a part of a “housing-first” security technique.
Mamdani clarifies previous feedback on NYPD coaching with Israel
Mamdani has additionally confronted scrutiny for previous remarks linking the NYPD to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
At a 2023 occasion, he stated, “When the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF.” When requested by CNN’s Anderson Cooper in regards to the remark, Mamdani clarified, “It was a reference to training exercises that have taken place between the NYPD and the IDF.”
Asked whether or not he nonetheless believes the NYPD is “working hand in glove” with the Israeli navy, Mamdani replied, “No, what I’ve made very clear is those are training exercises that are of concern to me.”
Next steps
On Jan. 1, Mamdani’s administration is about to start with an emphasis on prevention-based public security packages and coordination between police and civilian companies.
How coordination between the NYPD and new civilian companies will work in follow has not but been detailed.
In your view, what are the largest challenges the NYPD will face underneath Mamdani’s prevention-first public security technique?
Police1 readers reply:
- Trained NYPD officers will go away and emphasis/price range will probably be shifted away from increasing NYPD and their function. I don’t need to see fewer officers on the subways or have fewer officers take care of emotionally disturbed folks. Mamdani just isn’t certified to make these selections and I’ll now not work/journey to NYC if this happens. I really feel much less secure understanding he will probably be in workplace.
- My recommendation to all LEOs in NYC: beat the push, ship out your resumes. There are nonetheless loads of states the place your providers are wished and wanted.
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We’ve seen how properly these insurance policies have labored in cities like San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. Expanding entry to psychological well being providers is necessary, however responding to people in disaster typically nonetheless requires a regulation enforcement element.
I’d wish to see larger give attention to youth intervention packages, training, crime prevention efforts, private accountability enforced, and making communities safer and extra fascinating locations to stay and go to.
Mamdani would profit from taking a while to watch firsthand — listening to the officers on the bottom and spending time with them on their beats — earlier than implementing adjustments that could be futile efforts. Some issues sound nice and look good on paper, however with regards to implementation, they only don’t work.
There’s no substitute for seeing what’s actually occurring earlier than growing a plan. Look again in historical past and see what works. Priorities ought to prioritize the larger good — the security, stability, and well-being of the group as a complete — relatively than regularly catering to a small phase of the inhabitants who persistently disrupt and endanger the group.
- He made his mattress speaking trash on the PD previous to successful workplace. He doesn’t know what sort of folks regulation enforcement officers are. He’s not going to win that again. I’d say if NYPD is at 35,000 now, they’ll be at about 15,000 in six months, and New York will probably be an absolute mess in a 12 months that not even Batman can save.
- NYPD is mendacity. There are solely 27,000 on the job, and that may go right down to a brand new low of 4,000 as a result of retirements. This commissioner is a joke — an actual dangerous joke — and can do no matter the brand new mayor tells her to do.
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The metropolis failed to shut Rikers Island due to unrealistic development objectives which have far exceeded town’s price range. We have already got borough-wide amenities that can be utilized rather than Rikers whereas town evaluates zoning laws for brand spanking new websites.
For instance, the Brooklyn Detention Complex (Schermerhorn), the Manhattan Broadway Complex (The Tombs — now closed), and Queens ought to be divided into three amenities: Long Island (116th Precinct), Astoria, and Forest Hills — whereas deferring the Bronx to the state in-processing complicated that homes short-term stays transferring to long-term care amenities (Ulster Correctional).
- I’m extraordinarily involved and disgusted with the mayoral election and I pray for town.
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