Reducing Crime and Improving Public Safety
As Mayor, I pledge to cut crime by 50%.
New Yorkers deserve to feel safe in their homes, on the streets and subway and in their communities – but the majority of New Yorkers do not.
We need a Mayor that can speak hard truths when it comes to crime. Yes, we must lead with compassion but allowing criminals to prey on the poorest and most vulnerable New Yorkers is cruel and negligent.
Five years ago, after decades of progress, we had become one of the safest large cities in America. But since then, the seven major felonies are up by an average of 52%, and in the subway system, felony assaults are up 150%. In the last year alone, 25 people were pushed onto the subway tracks, and one person was even lit on fire.
We cannot allow this to continue.
To address this crisis, I will do three key things:
1) Invest in communities most impacted by violent crime
Reading the newspapers, one might think that crime is everywhere – that it’s random.
In fact, fewer than 4% of New York City’s 120,000 blocks account for more than half of the city’s violent crime.
These areas tend to be the ones in which the city is failing local residents on every front – struggling schools, few after-school programs, poorly run housing projects, insufficient mental health resources, dilapidated parks, and a broken infrastructure.
As Mayor, I’ll invest in these communities and make sure every city agency is serving them better to reduce the long-term root causes of crime.
2) Hire 10% more police officers
The number of NYC police officers has declined by roughly 10% in the last five years and today is at a 34-year low. Cops are demoralized and hence are resigning at record rates, while the number of applicants has fallen from 18,000 in 2017 to 8,000 today, making it impossible to replace those who retire while also maintaining standards.
3) Make crime illegal
The state legislature, city council and borough district attorneys have enacted numerous laws and policies like bail reform and discovery reform that, collectively, have effectively decriminalized all but the most serious felonies.
Police now don’t bother to arrest even chronic offenders because they either won’t be charged or will be released the same day.
The result is chaos that is wrecking quality of life for all New Yorkers and a spike in more serious crimes.
To reverse this, I will fight for reforms to misguided legislation – for example, allowing judges to consider a defendant’s dangerousness when making pre-trial detention decisions (we’re the only state that prohibits this) and reducing the onerous paperwork requirements in the discovery reform law. California’s Prop 36 ballot initiative, which passed with 68% of the vote in November, is a good model.
Additional ideas
While Rikers Island is an abomination, closing it completely would endanger us all. There simply isn’t enough capacity in the four borough-based facilities the City Council has approved (which are wildly over budget and behind schedule). I pledge to work alongside the independent receiver who is selected to reduce the number of prisoners at Rikers, tear down the dilapidated, dangerous facilities there, and rebuild and improve it with state-of-the-art, safe new facilities.
I strongly support our original sanctuary city law, dating back to 1989, and will not cooperate with the Trump administration’s attempt to deport 12 million people nationwide, the vast majority of whom are hardworking and law abiding. But the legislation the City Council passed in 2014 and 2018 that closed the ICE office on Rikers and effectively prohibited all cooperation between city and federal officials went way too far and should be repealed. Anyone in this country who’s not a citizen is a guest. It’s a privilege, not a right, to be here, so anyone who joins gangs or commits serious crimes should be deported immediately.
Streamline court case processing times to match national best practices, which would reduce the number of beds needed in city jails by 1,728 and save the city $877 million annually.
Leverage new technologies like machine learning and predictive analytics to give police the tools to de-escalate violence and intervene before violent crime occurs.
Expand collaboration with organizations like the Citizens Crime Commission of New York and take a multidisciplinary approach in reducing violent crime.
Reduce the sky-high recidivism rate by investing in proven programs like the Community Justice Reentry Network, which provides paid transitional employment, job training, access to higher education, and supportive services to approximately 5,000 formerly incarcerated individuals.
