Mayor Eric Adams kicked off summer by announcing $13 million in community-based safety initiatives to keep the kids busy during the hottest — and most violent — months.
“In order to make our city a place of peace and the best place to raise a family during the summer months, we need to reach our young people before they fall into the rivers of violence,” said Mayor Adams in a statement. “This summer, we are going to make sure our young people have fun and stay safe by investing in upstream solutions that provide them with things to do. As part of our ‘Best Budget Ever,’ we are announcing $13 million in funding to support at-risk youth, justice-involved New Yorkers, as well as people living in neighborhoods with high rates of violence.
“Summer in our city should always be a time of joy and fun for our young people, so we’re going to use every one of the tools we have to ensure we’re keeping every New Yorker safe.”
Half the money goes toward a restorative justice program in collaboration with CUNY which is open to all New Yorkers affected “by a conflict to develop a shared understanding of its root causes and its impact on those harmed, while encouraging those responsible to take accountability.”
$4.5 million will go to the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice (MOCJ), which the agency’s director Deanna Logan characterizes as the city’s “solution-oriented arm of the public safety portfolio.”
Most of MOCJ’s funding ($4 million) will go towards its Project Reset diversion program, which allows young people to resolve low-level criminal cases without going to court in exchange for attending educational sessions. Participants found eligible by their prosecuting district attorney’s office will get their charges dropped and their arrest record sealed upon completion to prevent justice involvement from impacting their schooling, housing and employment.
According to the Center for Justice Innovation, Project Reset helped more than 10,000 people avoid a criminal record since starting as a pilot for teenagers in Harlem and Brownsville a decade ago.
Another $500,000 will go towards MOCJ’s Flip the Script, a paid filmmaking apprenticeship for Brownsville youngsters ages 18-24. The four-month program connects participants to mentorship in making their own short film, which could be screened at events like the Tribeca Film Festival.
“Brownsville is a neighborhood that’s just teeming with individuals that have culture and arts, pulsing through them,” said Logan over the phone. “There’s so much creativity, and there wasn’t an outlet for that creativity … sometimes when you think about the activities [like] how did this age find a gun here and all of the things that that creativity that gets them to put into [the] negative, how do we take all of that creativity and put it into something so powerful [and] so meaningful that they can step back and they can be proud.”
Lastly, $2 million goes toward expanding Department of Youth & Community Development (DYCD) programming including Saturday Night Lights, which sprung from local Harlem gym closures during the 2010s and now provides drop-in sports activities across roughly 140 locations in the city through nonprofits like the Police Athletic League and the YMCA of Greater New York.
“With select community locations open seven days a week, until 11 PM — focused on programs in neighborhoods with the highest incidents of gun violence — every day, this summer, the city is connecting young people and other New Yorkers to safe places so they can play, learn, and stay engaged,” said DYCD commissioner Keith Howard.
I think this is an injustice to the Black people in New York! I clicked on this article because I thought the mayor’s plan to public safety was going to include providing job training programs, living wages jobs, affordable housing, and schools with quality educational programs and opportunities! 4.5 million dollars goes to the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice! What is heck is that? 2 million goes to the Harlem Night Lights- Please tell me how is keeping the gym open late going to solve crime?? Another 500,000 goes to Flip the Script! Again, how many Black children will benefit from this frivolous program? These sorts of programs are geared towards Latinos and white people. The majority of Black kids will continue to be murdered, homeless, hungry, and uneducated! These programs are illusions; it’s what magicians used to make people believe something is there when really it isn’t!