Would Mamdani’s $1.1 Billion Progressive Dream — To Replace Police With Social Workers for Some Functions — ‘Defund the Police,’ or Just Help Them?

All New Yorkers deserve to be safe. So said mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani of New York City, a Democrat who by this time next year may find himself needing to call upon the New York Police Department, which he once said in an X post was “racist,” “anti-queer,” and a “major threat to public safety,” to help him roll out his ambitious plan for protecting all of New York.Mr. Mamdani wants to establish a standalone city agency, the Department of Community Safety, which he said would take a public health approach to public safety, seeking to prevent violence before it occurs.“Police have a critical role to play. But right now, we’re relying on them to deal with our frayed social net,” Mr. Mamdani’s campaign writes in its 17-page public safety plan.The idea, which would be a sea change in city law enforcement, would be to effectively replace the police with social workers when it comes to many non-violent — or less violent — infractions, from responding to domestic violence calls to dealing with mentally ill homeless people in the subways. Instead of police responding, as they do currently, Mr. Mamdani said the DCS he envisions would employ “community-based solutions which have been consistently shown to better improve safety.” The DCS would create a “whole-of-government” approach to improve safety outcomes, and it would cost the city $1.1 billion to bring Mr. Mamdani’s ambitions for public safety to fruition.Mr. Mamdani wants to invest an “unprecedented” $362.8 million in mental health services, which would include creating dedicated outreach teams to work out of 100 different subway stations throughout the city. The city has been struggling to handle the subway’s homeless population, many of whom are severely mentally ill.Mr. Mamdani also wants to increase funding to New York’s existing Crisis Management System by 275 percent, and to double funding for victim services programs like Safe Horizon and Family Justice Centers. But does this mean moving resources from the NYPD to this “Department of Community Safety,” and effectively “defunding the police?” Some of DCS’s ambitious budget, at $605 million, would come from consolidating existing programs within the new city agency. The remaining $455 million, Mr. Mamdani said, would be funded “by better use of existing funding, finding government efficiencies, and cutting waste—combined with newly generated revenue where needed.”Certainly, some of this $455 million would come entirely from the NYPD’s budget — expected to be about $6.14 billion for 2026. Mr. Mamdani has also proposed slashing police overtime. He did applaud the police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, for reducing the NYPD’s in-house communications department by nearly half. Some political observers believe Mr. Mamdani will promise to keep Ms. Tisch in place as he tacks somewhat carefully toward the center.Mr. Mamdani insists that creating the DCS would “move mental health calls out of the police department.”“That can reduce the calls that police have to deal with by 20 percent, and in doing so, you can increase police response time to those major categories of crime,” he said during a June appearance on “The Breakfast Club” radio show.If Mr. Mamdani wins, he would be the latest in a new breed of progressive politicians, like Denver’s mayor, Mike Johnston, and a Minneapolis mayoral hopeful, Omar Fateh, who stress compassion over law enforcement when dealing with non-violent crimes. Mr. Mamdani, who has defended the use of the phrase “globalize the intifada,” also wants to increase funding for hate violence programs by more than 800 percent to “further a vision of a New York City that is free from hate violence, especially given rising antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, anti-Asian hate crimes, and LGBTQ+ hate.” He points to similar community-based programs in Denver, Olympia, Washington, and Eugene, Oregon, as proof that sending trained professionals to respond to non-violent 911 calls can ultimately improve public safety. But Denver’s city population is less than a tenth the size of New York City’s. Even the town of Hempstead, on New York’s Long Island, is larger than Denver. Eugene has 180,000 people living there, while Olympia has about 58,000. What may work in Olympia may not be easily replicated in America’s largest city.New York City’s violent crime rates have gone down, but crime remains a serious concern. Robberies have increased by 20 percent since 2021. Felony assaults have gone up by 29 percent in that same time frame. Car thefts are up by 36 percent. Murders and shootings have dipped since Mayor Adams took office in 2022. Total infractions across all 34 crime categories, including quality-of-life crimes, increased by 28 percent from 2021 to the end of 2024, Politico reported in May. Mr. Mamdani’s ambitions for reshaping New York’s approach to public safety, and whether tackling non-violent crime with a more empathetic and progressive touch will improve overall crime numbers or plunge New York City into the “Fear City” days of the 1970s. Mr. Mamdani’s ambitions for reshaping New York’s approach to public safety presents a dangerous gambit for the city.Whether tackling non-violent crime with a more empathetic and progressive touch will improve overall crime numbers or plunge New York City back to the “Fear City” days of the 1970s remains to be seen. There’s a chance that this time next year, we’ll find out the hard way.

Would Mamdani’s $1.1 Billion Progressive Dream — To Replace Police With Social Workers for Some Functions — ‘Defund the Police,’ or Just Help Them?

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