NYC Must Invest in Community Safety: Advocates Demand Full Support for OCS and Non-Police Safety Solutions at City Council Hearing

Read a PDF of our statement here.

Press Contacts:
Troi Barnes, Legal Defense Fund, [email protected]
William Owen, STOP, [email protected]
Andrea Ortiz, Dignity in Schools NY, [email protected]
Sophie Ellman-Golan, JFREJ/Hate Violence Coalition, [email protected]
Zara Nasir, The Peoples Plan, [email protected]

Joint statement calls for ending police surveillance, investing in community-led violence prevention and non-police safety solutions, fully supporting the Office of Community Safety, and charting a path toward police-free schools.

NEW YORK, NY - At today's New York City Council Public Safety Committee oversight hearing, the Grassroots Association for Neighborhood Groups and Solutions (G.A.N.G.S.) Coalition, the Dignity in Schools Campaign of New York, the Peoples Plan, and the NYC Against Hate Violence Coalition called on the Mamdani Administration and City Council to stop criminalizing Black and Brown communities and invest in the people, programs, and resources that make communities safer.

The organizations are calling for the complete abolition of the NYPD Criminal Group Database, which covertly labels more than 8,000 New Yorkers as alleged gang members. Black and Latino New Yorkers account for 99 percent of people in the Database, according to the Department of Investigation's Office of the Inspector General. The coalitions also called for sustained investments in credible messengers and violence interrupters, alongside an expanded Office of Community Safety with a mandate to address youth and school safety.

The organizations are also demanding a clear three-to-five-year plan to transition toward police-free schools and build a civilian school safety workforce. Instead of pouring resources into school policing and surveillance technologies, the City must invest in restorative justice, counselors, social workers, mental health services, and trusted adults who can support students without criminalizing them. This includes advancing Dignity in Schools Campaign NY's proposal for an $80 million investment in School Climate Coordinators across 500 schools.

Schools should be places where young people learn, heal, build relationships, and hold one another accountable, not places where they are surveilled and punished. Students, families, and educators must help shape school communities where safety is built together,

The organizations urge the City Council and the Mamdani Administration to strengthen the Office of Community Safety, sustain community-led violence prevention, and redirect resources away from policing and surveillance toward prevention, restoration, and care.

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About the G.A.N.G.S. Coalition

The Grassroots Association for Neighborhood Groups and Solutions (G.A.N.G.S.) Coalition brings together more than 60 New York City community-based organizations, advocates, legal professionals, elected officials, and directly impacted New Yorkers working to end racially discriminatory gang policing and surveillance.

About Dignity in Schools Campaign NY

Dignity in Schools Campaign of New York (DSC-NY) is a coalition of New York City public school students, families, educators, and advocates, organizing to transform our schools into safe, welcoming places that support young people to live full, self-determined lives. We advocate for expansions for school based restorative justice, mental health access, and immigrant protections, while moving school safety away from policing, surveillance, and punitive discipline.

About NYC Against Hate Violence

NYC Against Hate Violence is a coalition of community-based organizations working across identities to make New York safer for our communities. Convened by Jews For Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ), the coalition unites Jewish, Arab-American, Muslim, LGBTQ, and Black and Brown New Yorkers to advocate for New York City to make a fundamental shift away from reactive policing and unreliable reporting systems, and toward the evidence-based, community-driven relationship-building strategies laid out in the NYC Against Hate Violence policy proposal. We believe that the only effective solution to hate violence and bias incidents is in our communities, not in more policing and prosecution.

About The Peoples Plan NYC

The People's Plan (TPP) is a collective vision for a City that provides dignity, care and justice for all New Yorkers - and an engine that fights for that vision. The coalition uses grassroots advocacy as our primary strategy to build political power for low-income New Yorkers of color. Zara Nasir serves as our executive director.

Quotes

"We know that true safety comes from strengthening our neighborhoods rather than relying on punishment alone," said Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams. "This means dismantling conflict and violence at their root: addressing poverty, expanding access to stable housing, and connecting New Yorkers to mental health resources. It also means putting an end to the overt criminalization of Black and Brown New Yorkers, and strengthening initiatives like the Office of Community Safety that put prevention and healing at their center. The City must continue to strengthen community-based safety solutions and curb quality-of-life policing to deliver on its promise of keeping our neighborhoods safe."

"Safety in our neighborhoods and schools is built through trust, prevention, and consistent support. New York City must fully support the Office of Community Safety and commit to investing more in the credible messengers, violence interruption, restorative justice, mental health services, and the trusted adults who help young people thrive," said Council Member Chris Banks, Chair of the Public Housing Committee. "The people most affected by public safety policies must have a meaningful voice in shaping the solutions. Unquestionably!"

"The NYPD's gang's database operates in the shadows and thousands of Black and Brown New Yorkers are being surveilled without their knowledge," said Council Member Sandy Nurse, Progressive Caucus Co-Chair. "Putting resources into surveilling predominantly young Black men is not public safety. I stand with New Yorkers fighting to abolish the database and demanding stronger investments in community safety solutions."

Reverend Wendy Calderón-Payne, Executive Director, Urban Youth Alliance (BronxConnect) said: "As an organization that serves a population most greatly affected by the presence of the GANGS database (Black and Latino young men), we understand how important it is to invest in solutions that are centered around compassion, and redemption - not surveillance, and punishment. Statistics have shown that access to opportunities and resources reduce crime and recidivism. The young people we serve have been transformed, with over 90% of those who complete programming remaining unarrested over a three-year period. This proves that public safety is all about access to community resources. Whether it's in our schools or streets, our organization is a fervent advocate for youth justice and equity."

Andrea Ortiz, Director, Dignity in Schools Campaign of New York (DSC-NY)

"DSC-NY's youth, parents, and educators are calling on the city to prioritize students' safety and redirect funding currently going to police and surveillance technologies into a coordinated and holistic youth safety infrastructure. The Office of Community Safety must coordinate with NYC Public Schools and other agencies to invest in and implement school-based restorative justice, mental health access, and immigrant protections, and community based youth violence interruption and safe passage programs. This Office can and must finally break agency silos by creating a coordinated approach to end youth violence, mental health crises, and criminalization."

"We need to change how New York thinks about safety," said Leo Ferguson, Scholar in Residence at Jews For Racial & Economic Justice, and lead author of the NYC Against Hate Violence report. "Our city needs to invest in evidence-based, public health-driven solutions that are so much more effective in preventing violence and keeping New Yorkers safe than the decades and billions the City has poured into the policing and punishment. The recent $26 million investment in funding for hate violence prevention was a move in the right direction. A well-resourced Office of Community Safety would make hate violence prevention efforts more durable, better coordinated with the rest of city government, and embed them in a much larger framework of violence prevention and harm reduction, so they don't disappear in the next budget cycle. We urge the City Council to create a permanent Department of Community Safety, developed in consultation with community stakeholders and issue experts."

"Community safety runs through every issue our coalition organizes on, from housing to schools to immigrant rights," said Zara Nasir, Executive Director of The People's Plan NYC, a multi-issue coalition of more than 100 grassroots organizations and unions fighting for a just city budget. "We believe safety comes from shifting resources and power away from criminalization and into housing, schools, and care. The Office of Community Safety finally gives this work a home in city government, and we're calling on the City to fund it, scale it, and make it permanent, built with the community organizations, providers, and workers who already do this work."

Cassandra Kelly, Policy Attorney, The Legal Aid Society

"For too long, New York City has relied on police to respond to crises better addressed by trained mental health professionals, violence interrupters, and community-based organizations. Mayor Mamdani's Office of Community Safety is a critical opportunity to transform public safety by investing in non-police responses that prevent violence, de-escalate crises, and connect New Yorkers to care. But this commitment must be backed by sufficient funding, independent authority, and the power to develop and implement meaningful alternatives to police involvement. We thank the City Council for holding this hearing and look forward to working with both ends of city hall to ensure this office delivers real, lasting change for New Yorkers."

"The Office of Community Safety has incredible potential to strengthen public safety through increased investment in proven measures like credible messenger programs. But it can only reach that potential by ending gang policing tactics that currently get in the way of violence prevention," said Jackie Gosdigian, Senior Supervising Policy Counsel with Brooklyn Defenders. "The use of the NYPD's Criminal Group Database and other aggressive tactics erode trust between communities and city agencies and ensnare young people in the criminal legal system before violence prevention workers ever have the chance to get involved. We urge the City Council to pass Int. 460 to abolish the database and open the path for real community-based safety and violence prevention work."

"For too long, Black and Brown communities have borne the harms of aggressive and racialized policing while being denied the investments that actually make communities safe. New York City must adequately fund the Office of Community Safety to invest in credible messengers, community-based violence prevention, restorative justice, and the resources people need to thrive." said Donavon Taveras, Community Organizer, Legal Defense Fund. "True public safety means investing in the people and organizations that sustain our communities."

"The communities we serve deserve resources and investment-not surveillance and over-policing," said Piyali Basak, Managing Director of Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem. "We urge the City Council and the administration to invest in the supports that help achieve real safety for all New Yorkers: housing, schools, medical and mental health services, treatment for people living with addiction, and community-based programs."

"We must fight for a City that champions community-based solutions instead of relying on policing and surveillance tactics that disproportionately harm Black and brown New Yorkers-including the notoriously error prone and traumatizing NYPD gang database," said Medha Raman, Policy Counsel at the New York Civil Liberties Union. "Credible messengers, violence interrupters, and violence prevention programs play a critical role in delivering true public safety in our communities. Our leaders must also address the underlying causes of crime by investing in the resources New Yorkers need to thrive instead of continuing to criminalize people who are living in poverty, unhoused, using substances, or navigating mental health challenges. For the Office-or a potential Department-of Community Safety to be successful, it must be given the independent authority to transition crisis response away from the NYPD to trained mental health professionals who can provide a real alternative to police response."

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