Queens mayoral candidate pitches new Department of Community Safety
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Queens Assemblymember and mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani pitched a new Department of Community Safety that he said he’d create if elected mayor. AP file photo by Julia Demaree Nikhinson
By Noah Powelson
A Queens lawmaker running for mayor said Monday that he would build a new $1.1 billion public safety department in City Hall if he wins the upcoming mayoral election.
Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, who represents areas of Astoria and Long Island City, released a 17-page plan on Tuesday detailing his vision for a new Department of Community Safety, a city agency that would be aimed at reducing crime and increasing safety in New York City through non-police measures. The new department would oversee investments into mental health services and community-based gun violence prevention nonprofits.
The report estimated the department would require a budget of $1.1 billion. Mamdani said his team estimated $605 million of that budget would be transferred from other departments and offices that currently exist in City Hall, and the remaining $455 million would come from new funding sources, not all of which have been identified.
“This is a proposal for a department that will invest and expand in mental health outreach teams in response across the city, that will further invest in gun violence retention programs and will ensure that New Yorkers are not denied that which they were promised many years ago,” Mamdani said on Tuesday. “Police have a critical role to play, but right now, we are relying on them to deal with the failures of the social safety net and that reliance is preventing them from doing their actual jobs.”
“This approach is one that will ensure that when New Yorkers are taking the train, when they are walking their streets, they know that safety is something that is actually being provided for them by their city,” he added.
Mamdani said the DCS’ goal would be to stop crimes before they occur by addressing root causes of crime. His plan listed four areas DCS would focus to reduce crime: mental health, gun violence, hate crimes and victim services.
Most of the plan centers around boosting funding for existing programs and putting them under one umbrella.
Under the proposal, the DCS would deploy mental health specialists over 100 subway stations, renovate vacant MTA commercial space into medical service centers, and expand the city’s Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division. To address gun violence, Mamdani advocated investing $337 million into New York City’s Crisis Management System, which partners with community nonprofits to send teams of violence interrupters to high-risk areas and individuals.
The DCS plan also included funding for educational youth programs and training on hate violence curriculum, including the Interagency Committee on Hate Crimes, COMPASS and Summer Rising.
Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, also used the plan to lob criticism against Mayor Eric Adams and former Governor Andrew Cuomo, both of whom he’s running against, for their public safety policies.
“The Department of Community Safety will turn the page on the broken ‘solutions’ peddled for years by Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo that have failed to make New Yorkers any safer,” Mamdani’s campaign said in a statement.
Polling consistently shows New York City residents view public safety and affordability as their most important issues at the ballot box.
Mamdani is not the first candidate to unveil a public safety plan but unlike his opponents, the Queens lawmaker is the only mayoral candidate whose public safety pitch didn’t include bolstering police officer numbers.
Since Adams, who ran on a public safety message, first took office, a large number of officers have left the job. Adams has repeatedly promised to increase recruitment to get officers back to pre-pandemic numbers, but has struggled to build interest for potential candidates.
In that vein, Cuomo said he plans to hire 5,000 new NYPD officers if elected, a change that would amount to a 15 percent increase.
“New Yorkers deserve to feel secure in their neighborhoods, on the streets, and in the subways,” Cuomo said in a statement. “My plan brings discipline, accountability, and leadership to policing while respecting civil liberties and rebuilding trust in our communities.”
Former Comptroller Scott Stringer, who also ran for mayor in 2021, unveiled his own public safety plan on Tuesday. He likewise promised to hire more officers and called for an overall to their work schedule to increase retention.
“Currently, the NYPD has 33,473 officers — lowest level in staffing since 1991 while the population has increased by almost 1 million more residents,” Stringer said on X on Tuesday. “That is unacceptable, and why I'm rolling out a comprehensive plan to fix the massive retention and recruitment crisis at the NYPD, eliminating the biggest roadblock to achieving a safer city.”
Mamdani himself has faced accusations from his critics that he’s anti-police, and his opponents, including Cuomo, say a Mamdani administration would mean police funding cutbacks. When asked if the proposed DCS would mean cutting NYPD funding, Mamdani denied any DCS policies would reduce the number of uniformed officers on patrol.
“This does not have a relationship with any reduction in the police department's funding,” Mamdani said during a press conference. “This is clearly a new department that will provide public safety and will ensure that police can actually focus on their jobs.”
George Grasso, the former top Criminal Court judge in Queens and former NYPD official, told the Eagle on Tuesday that he would likely support a new public safety agency as long as it didn’t divert resources from the police and as long as coordination with the NYPD was baked into the agency’s mission.
“I give credit to him for some original thoughts here,” said Grasso, who ran for Queens district attorney in 2023, losing to Melinda Katz in the Democratic primary. “But the devil is going to be in the details.”
