Undoing Mayor de Blasio’s $1 billion-plus expansion of NYC police funding will make us safer
The sustained protests directed at transforming our criminal legal system have forced an urgent nationwide public discussion about Black Lives. Within weeks, these sustained protests have led to significant legislative reform in New York.
But so much more is left to be done. Without question, at the top of the list is shrinking and re-imagining the role of police. In New York City, that means undoing Mayor de Blasio’s more-than-$1 billion expansion of the NYPD’s budget and using those funds to invest in critical social service programs.
As a candidate for Manhattan District Attorney, I have been asked whether these budget cuts will make us less safe. My personal experiences — as a kid growing up in Harlem and the son of a dad who oversaw homeless shelters and a mom who was an educator — tell me no. I learned early that investing in people and communities is the cornerstone for true public health and safety. Perhaps equally as important, my experiences as a state and federal prosecutor confirmed these early lessons. We can have better, more effective law enforcement and less policing.
The starting point is to look at where police officers spend their time. In Boston, until changes by the recently-elected DA, more than 60% of the most-commonly charged crimes were for low-level, non-violent conduct. While New York’s opaque public reporting means that we do not have ready access to the same numbers here, anecdotal evidence tells us that the NYPD is spending an inordinate amount of time on cases that do not make us safer.
Take the tragic example of the NYPD’s misguided focus on the sale of loose/untaxed cigarettes. Senior members of the NYPD set this policy. The result was stops of young Black men on street corners from Harlem to Bedford-Stuyvesant to Tompkinsville, where Eric Garner was killed. A tax on being Black. A means of social control. No clear public safety or health benefit. If the goal is to promote public health by enforcing the tax on cigarettes, the better law enforcement strategy is to stop the large companies that ship untaxed cigarettes. That is what we did when I was at the Attorney General’s Office. We went after two major shipping companies, won in court, and got over $125 million awarded to the State and City.
We need the same shift in focus for mental health issues, the homeless, and our schools.
My mom suffered from and died of Alzheimer’s. While she was sick, she could be cantankerous. I did not know what to do. I got advice from doctors, home health aides, and mental health advocates. Not once did it cross my mind to ask a police officer. But, if I needed emergency help, 911 was the only response. And, from investigating police killing cases, I knew that 25 to 50% of such cases arise from a mental health issue. We need to change this. Asking an officer to respond to these issues is like asking me to perform heart surgery. Changing our response to mental health issues is a centerpiece of the calls to cut at least $1 billion in NYPD funding, and it is an urgent matter. Fairer, more tailored law enforcement can complement this effort. Among other matters, we need stepped-up enforcement of wage and hour laws for home health care aides and policing of pharmaceutical companies’ obligations to treat mental health. We did both at the Attorney General’s Office.
The policing of the homeless is an abject failure. Police should not be doing homeless sweeps. We have experts who should be tasked with addressing homelessness. People like my dad. Let them lead. It is that simple. Law enforcement efforts should focus on housing insecurity. My last trial was of a lawyer who stole people’s identities, took out sham mortgages they could not afford, and left neighborhoods destabilized. This conduct, along with other financial fraud like it, undoubtedly increases housing insecurity and homelessness.
Policing in schools also must be urgently addressed. The Mayor’s proposed budget calls for more school police officers than psychologists, social workers and counselors combined. We would have eight times more school police officers than school nurses. There is a road map for a better way. When I was at the Attorney General’s Office, we investigated and reached agreements with two upstate school districts to change from zero-tolerance disciplinary practices to a restorative justice approach.
Let me be clear. There are still cases where we will need police. I prosecuted the owner of a $30 million business who laundered tens of millions of dollars for a violent criminal enterprise that beheaded people. This is the type of case where we need armed officers. But, that is not where Mayor de Blasio’s $1 billion-plus expansion of the NYPD went.
There is more work to be done. We need to change the law on when police are allowed to use deadly force, we need a searchable database of police misconduct, and we need nationwide standards for police departments. But, most significantly, we need to invest in education and youth programs, center communities and social service experts in our response to public safety and public health, and we need prosecutions that complement this approach.
Alvin Bragg served as the Chief Deputy New York State Attorney General and a federal prosecutor. He is a Visiting Professor and Co-Director of the Racial Justice Project at New York Law School and a candidate for Manhattan District Attorney.
