New York City Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams today called for deeper investment in public safety services and infrastructure, beyond simply law enforcement solutions. At a hearing of the City Council’s Committee on Public Safety, he urged the city to fund non-police infrastructure, and emphasized the broad agreement among New Yorkers in recent surveys on public safety priorities, and how police resources should be utilized.
“The NYPD is often called to address issues of homelessness and mental health crises,” noted the Public Advocate. “We know that dispatching police to remove people perceived as being homeless or experiencing symptoms of mental health and acute mental illness hasn’t worked long-term in the past, and that we must invest in non-police responses to people in mental health crisis to address those in crisis and to help address substance abuse.”
Public Advocate Williams also emphasized the overreliance on law enforcement in subway stations, including the recent addition of the National Guard, and said of the previous surge in subway policing “... Crime decreased outside of the subway during that time period more than it did inside of the subway. Despite the recent deployment of New York State Troopers and the terrible deployment of the National Guard to the city’s subways, a recent shooting occurred on the A train as it pulled into the Hoyt-Schermerhorn station, which houses a police station currently. This says to me that police alone can’t solve this, and I think everybody here agrees with that.”
“What I’m hoping is that we have the courage in leadership to not just put money where it needs to go, but to build out an infrastructure of non-police responses that New York City’s actually asking for,”argued the Public Advocate in closing. “... I think if we really want to support our law enforcement partners, the one thing we can stop asking them to do is “everything,” because they can’t do everything, and that's harmful.”
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