"New York routes acute crises to the police in part because it has never built the infrastructure required to resolve them. Instead of constructing a system designed to stabilize people before a crisis escalates, we've transferred responsibility to law enforcement to absorb what they can only address through arrest, removal, or force."
"Last month, Jabez Chakraborty's family called 911 for an ambulance after exhausting every option for community-based psychiatric care. They did what the system tells families to do when every other door is closed. The result was gun violence and criminal charges."
"A Department of Community Safety is how we change trajectory. Mayor Mamdani's plan calls for expanding and retooling a number of existing programs to address mental health crises, gun violence, gender based and domestic violence, hate crimes, and outreach to those unhoused."
New York City's crisis response system, built on outdated infrastructure, routes acute crises to police because specialized community-based alternatives were never developed. This approach forces law enforcement to address issues through arrest, removal, or force rather than resolution. Recent cases demonstrate the system's failure: families seeking psychiatric care for mental health crises receive police intervention resulting in violence and criminal charges. Overpolicing policies create cascading crises, with hundreds cycling through central bookings due to enforcement decisions rather than crime surges, causing constitutional violations and destabilization. Mayor Mamdani's proposed Department of Community Safety would expand existing programs addressing mental health crises, gun violence, domestic violence, hate crimes, and homelessness through acute crisis stabilization and connections to long-term support, requiring transformation of the 911 system.
#crisis-response-reform #police-alternatives #mental-health-services #public-safety-strategy #community-based-interventions
Read at www.amny.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]