Cut $1.3 Billion from the NYPD budget.

The NYPD is bloated and overfunded. Read here for my detailed plan on how I will cut $1.3 billion from the NYPD budget. In short, my proposal includes:

• A reduction in uniformed officers and a commensurate reduction in civilian employees; freezing the next class of officers from the Cadet Corps

• Freezing capital expenditures and cutting funding from wasteful training programs and facilities 

• Reducing increases in fringe benefits 

• Investing in transparency in both discipline and data

Once these cuts are made, we will have the ability to reevaluate and determine areas for additional cuts. In addition to the above cuts, I would freeze an additional $1 billion currently being spent on a new NYPD training facility until we evaluate what police training means in a city where Black lives truly matter.

Re-frame our use of CompStat.

Crimes are the symptoms of communities in crisis. Instead of CompStat being used solely to organize armed response to crime, CompStat will be used to signal where we have potential community distress and to direct intensive and coordinated responses from the different components of government that would decrease that community’s pain and lead to healthier communities.

Utilize alternatives to armed crisis response for every situation.

Armed police officers often are called on to handle situations that they’re not trained or equipped for, and this armed intervention often escalates into violence. To combat this, we will create rapid response teams that have training in crisis de-escalation, mental health issues and social work that operate 24-7-365, like the police, to offer unarmed expert intervention in non-violent situations. 

As a parent and member of the School Leadership Team at Brooklyn Tech, I’ve personally seen School Safety Officers prevent violent physical assaults of school faculty. This resource is important to keep our teachers and students safe in the case of physical altercations only. We will remove all armed officers from schools, but keep un-armed School Safety Officers, whose exclusive duty is to ensure physical safety for students and teachers, and ensure unauthorized individuals do not enter our schools. Additionally, we would at minimum double the number of guidance counselors in our schools, and mental health crises would fall exclusively under the purview of guidance counselors and mental health professionals — not the School Safety Officers.

Re-evaluate how police are equipped for their work.

We need to demilitarize the NYPD. We need to suspend tech-driven surveillance when the algorithms that power them are shown to be racially discriminatory. 

Make data about policing more transparent and actionable.

We know that the application of policing has been unequal and discriminatory, particularly with respect to black communities. We must be able to react to that. We know that black men are 2 1/2 times more likely to be killed by police during their lifetime. Black people fatally shot by police were twice as likely to be unarmed as white people. In order to change the way we keep people safe, we must have clear data that shows us where the problems lie. As Mayor, I’m committed to open and transparent distribution of data so that all of our City agencies are held accountable, especially the NYPD.

We must also prohibit potentially abusive uses of technology, particularly by law enforcement, such as:

• Facial recognition and other biometric surveillance technology

• NYPD Criminal Group Database and use of fake social media accounts

• Purchases of geolocation data

• Warrants for geogence and keyword searches

• Drones and robots

• Data-sharing with ICE, including through intermediaries

• Predictive policing technologies like PredPol

Emphasize restorative justice and alternatives to jail.

We have a one-size-fits-all approach to criminal justice. First offenders, nonviolent crimes, and youth crimes need to be treated appropriately and with restorative justice. We must ensure that when cannabis is legalized, the first applications to establish businesses should come from those whose lives were harmed by the war on drugs.

*Update: New York State has legalized recreational marijuana! Read my plan on restorative justice for marijuana-based crimes here.

Lessen the trauma of imprisonment.

We must think about criminal justice in the context of a person’s life with the goal of reintegrating people back into their communities. This means preserving the mental health of the prisoners, especially young people, and abolishing solitary confinement. We must provide sufficient mental healthcare and educational opportunities (to obtain GEDs, and learn marketable skills that will lead to job opportunities upon release) in prisons.

Assert control over the NYPD.

In collaboration with Nicole Napolitano, Ph.D., author of a recent article titled “New York Should Completely Rebuild, Not Just Patch, its Police Oversight System; Here’s How,” I am proposing that my City Hall will include two new offices of police oversight. I believe that these two offices would create truly effective, independent oversight of the NYPD. 

The current system allows for NYPD leadership and their politically-appointed allies to retain control over disciplinary action. The NYPD holds the rights to a significant amount of data which should be publicly available, including body camera footage and other relevant evidence in many cases of police misconduct. The Commissioner remains the final arbiter in misconduct cases, often resulting in a system of retraining officers who have exhibited biased misconduct rather than removing these officers from the force entirely. 

To fix this problem, I propose that two new offices be created, autonomous from the NYPD, jointly appointed by the Mayor and Public Advocate and confirmed by the City Council: 

• An Office of Police Accountability, which would serve as an umbrella agency controlling many of the same functions as the CCRB and the Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD, but with a broader scope of jurisdiction. The OPA would fix many of the institutional blocks inherent in the operation of the CCRB and allow for increased accountability and enforcement of independent review. 

• An Office of Police Discipline, which would replace the Commissioner as the final authority and enforcer of disciplinary action in substantiated cases of misconduct (responding to cases already evaluated by the OPA). This office would control the release of data to promote transparency and accountability. 

These two together would remove the NYPD leadership as a disciplinary arbiter, require transparency in data and practices, and allow for systematic reviews of police operations in New York City. For more information on the role of these offices, or a more detailed structure and description of each, please review Dr. Napolitano’s initial proposal here.

Police oversight should not give the NYPD, the mayor, or the CCRB more power—instead, policy must prioritize independent authority and non-politically-motivated appointments and elections. As cases of police misconduct and brutality continue to emerge in our city, we have a duty to institutionalize systems to evaluate them which will outlast any single mayor’s term of office.

Close Rikers.

• Close Rikers Island, demolish it, and explore how the people of New York want to plan for future use of Rikers Island.

• We need to continue reevaluating the bail system, building on the new legislation regarding cash bail, and work to minimize the populations entering the carceral system by decriminalizing minor crimes and “vices.”