Councilmembers Yusef Salaam and Erik Bottcher introduced a bill that would mandate social workers at all 77 police precincts last Thursday, May 16 in an announcement held at Harlem’s Masjid Malcolm Shabazz.
“For far too long, our police precincts have shouldered the burden of addressing social and emotional needs beyond their scope of expertise,” Salaam said in his remarks. “Everyday officers encounter individuals grappling with issues like poverty, substance abuse, mental health crisis, and domestic violence. These are issues that demand a delicate touch, a nuanced understanding, and resources beyond what traditional law enforcement can provide.
“Our bill calls for trained social workers to be stationed in every police precinct across our city,” he added.
These social workers would be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And they would report directly and independently to the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, not police. The licensed specialists would be tasked with handling non-carceral business that regularly shuffles through police precincts.
If the bill passes, the city would need roughly 200 social workers to fully staff the initiative, but its introduction coincides with a current shortage in the field.
“It is true that we are facing a shortage of social workers and we’re having trouble filling the spots that are available right now in the social work field,” said Bottcher. “But that should not stop us from pursuing these critical policies…the answer is to redouble our efforts to increase the number of social workers. There’s no reason why in a city of 8.5 million people, we shouldn’t have licensed social workers for every open position.”
The bill’s authors suggested state legislation repealing licensing exams could be the answer to not only more social workers, but more culturally competent ones. Just 49% of Black and 63% of Hispanic social workers passed the Association of Social Work Boards exam on their first try compared to 86% of white social workers. Meanwhile, social workers overwhelmingly operate in communities of color statewide.
Unlike programs like the NYPD’s B-Heard or proposed state legislation like Daniel’s Law, the city council bill does not specifically replace cops with social workers on certain calls. Rather, the civilian responders remain present and available to tackle public safety concerns that don’t necessitate police.
Joining Salaam and Bottcher on stage last Thursday was civil liberties lawyer Norman Siegel and Terrance Coffie, a professor of social work at NYU.
“This could be a win-win, not just for the alleged victims, [but also] it could be a win for the police,” said Siegel.
“We have more individuals [nearby on] 125th Street [through] what we refer to as the ecosystem from incarceration [to coming] right back here to New York and [dropping] right back on our streets to begin the whole cycle again,” Coffie said. “At what junction do we begin to invest in intervention? We have a responsibility not only to those members of our community, but also our broader community in the name of public safety.”
The bill comes at the request of Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, who was one of the three then-City Council members, alongside current Speaker Adrienne Adams and ex-Education Committee Chair Mark Treyger, to introduce a similar bill in 2017.
The current bill is distinguished by an emphasis on victim services and the deployment of non-clinical specialists who focus on broader, systemic issues, according to Bottcher. Salaam sees this iteration as an investment that should have been made back in 2017, long before he entered the political sphere. But there’s no time like the present.
“I’m a newcomer to the political space and when I think about what’s changed since then, I’m thinking [how] we didn’t pay for it then so we’re paying for it now,” Salaam said. “And if we paid for it then, we don’t have to pay for it now with interest.”
Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member and writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.