The pandemic-era spike in gun violence pushed the issue front and center during New York City’s 2021 Democratic mayoral primary race. With rates of gun violence in the city declining in the last three years, issues like housing affordability and subway safety have commanded more attention this primary cycle. But the violence remains a key concern among residents of communities where it is concentrated, in under-resourced, largely Black and Brown neighborhoods that have faced decades of disinvestment.
How would the slate of Democratic mayoral candidates combat gun violence if elected? The AmNews reviewed the public safety plans of these candidates and talked to some of them to understand how they would approach gun violence prevention if they became mayor.
Community-based solutions
The next mayor will inherit a patchwork of city-funded violence prevention programs active in high-violence neighborhoods across the city. The most prominent of those is the city’s Crisis Management System (CMS). Since its creation about a decade ago, CMS’s budget has grown from $4.8 million to almost $100 million. The system is designed to reduce violence by funding community-based organizations to hire violence interrupters who mediate neighborhood conflicts and connect those at risk for participating in violence with resources to steer them away from illegal activity.
A recent report by the City Comptroller’s Office, led by mayoral candidate Brad Lander, found that police precincts with a CMS group saw a 20% reduction in shootings compared to what would be expected if the program did not exist. But only 29 out of 77 total precincts have active CMS groups, and the report found that the system suffers from administrative issues, such as a lack of access to real-time data and delayed payments to organizations.
Some candidates have seized on this potential for reform and expansion. State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, currently polling in second place, has proposed a 275% increase in CMS funding.
“At the heart of this [approach] is an understanding of gun violence as a public health crisis,” Mamdani said.
The investment would be used to double funding for existing CMS programs, expand the system into other high-violence neighborhoods, and increase resources for violence interrupters. CMS would be moved into a new Department of Community Safety, where it would sit along with a host of other community-based public safety efforts. The new department would have a total budget of $1.1 billion.
New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams has also pledged to increase investment in the CMS system. Her plan calls for expanding or adding capacity to the 20 police precincts with the highest rates of violent crime, and adding programs to the precincts above the 50th percentile of violent crime rates if they don’t already have one. She has also proposed piloting a subway-based CMS program.
“While the exact investment will depend on the scale of expansion, the cost is justified by the potential to save lives and reduce long-term societal costs associated with gun violence,” Adams said via email.
Lander said he supports an expansion of CMS to more neighborhoods with violence hotspots and will implement reforms to address the administrative challenges highlighted by the Comptroller’s report.
State Senator Zellnor Myrie, former state assemblymember Michael Blake, and former investor Whitney Tilson all said in interviews that they support increasing the funding of the CMS system, though they did not provide specific plans.
Iesha Sekou, CEO of Street Corner Resources, a CMS organization in Harlem, said that more funding would make a significant impact.
“Rather than have one site having to run all over the place, outside of their catchment [area], to address beef, which makes it very tiring and traumatic for those who do this work, it would be great to be able to expand, with greater funding, the number of sites in the hot spot areas so that we can directly address the shootings… in a more cohesive way,” she said.
Jeffrey Butts, a professor at John Jay College who has studied CMS’s impact, said that research supports continued investment. But he said it is difficult to predict the exact effect an expansion would have on shooting rates, and that it would depend on the implementation.
“The effect of an actual specific expansion is really hard to say, because it’s like [asking], ‘does teaching work?’ Well, sure, it can work, but there are a lot of people who claim to be teachers that aren’t very good, and it’s just really hard to nail all the details down,” he explained.
Other candidates have made less concrete commitments to the expansion of CMS.
Former New York City Comptroller and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s safety plan does not include proposals for CMS. He explained in an interview that he is open to further investment for CMS and other community-based prevention efforts, but would like to carry out a review of the programs to identify which are working best.
“You have to measure, are these programs actually working? And my sense is some are doing very well, but others aren’t. We need to have a transparent approach to see what works and what doesn’t,” he said.
Selma Bartholomew also said she is open to an expansion of CMS, but that her focus would be less on individual programs and more on creating healthier ecosystems. She has proposed an approach that assesses the resources available in each zip code to improve the quality of life of New Yorkers.
“We first need to be able to communicate across New York City, what is available, what is working, what programs, what organizations are doing this work? And to then be able to strategically elevate and lift this work,” she said.
Former Governor Andrew Cuomo, currently the frontrunner in the race, does not specify investment for CMS in his public safety plan. Campaign spokesperson Esther Jensen did say over email that he “strongly supports” anti-violence programs, and will continue to invest in them, however.
The role of law enforcement
Cuomo said he would prioritize law enforcement efforts to reduce crime, including hiring 5,000 more NYPD officers. The NYPD currently has an operating budget of $5.8 billion, with about 33,500 uniformed officers out of a budgeted headcount of 35,000.
“While he recognizes that social and economic issues contribute to gun violence, Cuomo’s immediate priority as Mayor is to restore order and public safety, because that is the foundation we need to address the deeper, systemic problems facing our city,” Jensen said.
Lander, Myrie, Stringer, Blake, Tilson, and Adrienne Adams also say they would hire more police officers if elected. Lander wants to hire 1,500 officers, Adams plans to hire 2,400, and Stringer has set a goal for 3,000. Myrie will target the 2018 headcount of 36,600. Tilson and Blake have also set a target to reach pre-pandemic levels of staffing, with Tilson saying he would expand the current force by 10%.
In contrast, Mamdani does not plan to hire more police officers, explaining that his Department of Community Safety will reduce the workload of the NYPD, allowing them to focus on more serious crimes.
Bartholomew is also not interested in hiring more police officers.
“I don’t think that it’s so much about the police, the number of the police, that’s going to shift the culture in New York City,” she said.
Butts said he was skeptical of plans that prioritize hiring more officers over other public safety investments.
“We tend to underfund everything and then believe that all problems can be solved by increasing police power,” he said. “If you think that part of public safety is reliable food supply, safe housing, neighborhoods that are active, people that have support for trying to raise children … then you start reducing the extent to which you think you need to hire police officers.”
When it comes to combating gun violence specifically, strategies like hotspot policing — surging officers to blocks with high rates of violence — and a focus on improving clearance rates are popular proposals among the candidates.
Myrie has set a “north star” goal of solving 100% of shootings that take place in the city, both fatal and nonfatal. In recent years, the clearance rate for shootings has hovered around 40%.
To do this, Myrie plans to hire 2,000 more NYPD detectives and create a specific unit focused on solving nonfatal shootings.
“What happens now is that our detectives have the first 48 hours to direct attention [to a shooting], but then they are pulled off to tackle something else. And what I would like is a dedicated unit that is not going to be pulled off, but is going to be continually focused on solving the shooting,” he said.
Myrie’s campaign said the initiative would not require additional funding, as the costs would be covered by what is already budgeted for in the current city budget, and savings from reduced NYPD overtime.
Butts said it is hard to say how realistic a goal of solving 100% of shootings is, but that “[spending] public resources on clearing up all cases, especially nonfatal shootings, is of value.”
Candidates also spoke about the importance of combating the “iron pipeline” through which guns are illegally trafficked to New York. Myrie highlighted his work as state senator, including passing a bill that allows gun violence survivors to pursue civil suits of irresponsible gun manufacturers. Lander said he would explore state gun insurance legislation in order to promote responsible gun ownership.
Addressing root causes
Research shows that gun violence concentrates in disinvested neighborhoods where residents struggle to afford quality housing, education, and healthcare. Many of the candidates have framed their campaigns around issues of affordability, proposing an array of policies to help low-income New Yorkers.
“People having more money in their pocket means they’re less likely to have a gun in their pocket,” Blake said.
He touted his housing plan, which calls for building more affordable housing, removing credit score requirements on rent and homeownership applications, and using local median income as a metric for neighborhood affordability rather than area median income.
Myrie explained that his universal afterschool plan, which would provide afterschool seats for students from 3-K to 12th grade, would be a critical public safety tool. Research has found that juvenile delinquency and crime is highest between the hours of 2 p.m. and 6 p.m..
“[Afterschool programming] is what keeps our kids off the street while also empowering them and giving them the opportunity to grow into all of the beautiful things that we want them to be,” Myrie said.
On a similar note, Stringer’s childcare plan includes extending school hours to 4:30 p.m.
“Kids are the most vulnerable between the afternoon and going home. So why can’t we put them in programs that keep them busy and successful? You don’t have to turn to gangs, you don’t have to turn to guns when you feel that your life has purpose and respect,” he said.
Lander has also proposed a universal after-school program through eighth grade, and said his plans to improve healthcare and boost workforce development will also go towards creating safer neighborhoods.
“The broader set of investments in housing, in schools, in good jobs, in healthcare and mental healthcare, in childcare, in parks, in the libraries, in open spaces, all of that is a part of this more deep root cause strategy addressing neighborhood trauma and disorder,” he said.
Adams plans to expand the city’s network of trauma recovery centers (TRCs), which are designed to help survivors of violent crime heal physically and mentally. Having spearheaded efforts to create the city’s four existing TRCs, she wants to establish 20 more in precincts with the highest rates of violent crime.
“TRCs help survivors heal and prevent further violence in their communities, but too often, survivors in the highest crime communities aren’t given access to tools and resources needed for recovery, perpetuating unaddressed trauma and cycles of violence,” Adams explained.
Tilson, a charter schools advocate, said a main focus of his administration would be reforming the Department of Education, explaining that better quality education would steer youth away from the school-to-prison pipeline.
“Some of it will involve more money. We need more money for tutors, for kids who are struggling readers early in elementary school. But some of it is just managing one of the world’s largest bureaucracies better, and I will appoint a real reform-oriented chancellor, and we will be expanding schools that are successfully educating kids, including charter schools,” he said.
Mamdani highlighted his economic agenda, which promises sweeping reforms like freezing the rent for rent-stabilized tenants and creating universal childcare and city-owned grocery stores.
“The true addressing of [this crisis] can only come when you are addressing the immediate symptoms … and the root causes of it at the same time, and what our campaign presents is a vision that does exactly both,” he said.
Shannon Chaffers is a Report for America corps member and writes about gun violence for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.