Department of Community Safety: An Implementation Guide for Mayor Mamdani's First Term
Overview
A central piece of Mayor Mamdani’s platform was the creation of a Department of Community Safety (DCS) to deliver the evidence-based public health approach to safety our city needs. The DCS would fill gaps and improve coordination of safety-related responsibilities distributed across the New York Police Department, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the Department of Homeless Services, the Office of Neighborhood Safety, and other departments and offices. With this new department, the city can address our crises of mental health, homelessness, and violence; relieve the NYPD of work better handled by health and social service providers so it can focus more on serious offending; improve coordination; better use and collect data; and invest in long-term, community-centered safety. This guide lays out steps the Mamdani administration can take to best set up DCS for success.
Key Takeaway
This guide focuses on immediate steps needed to build New York City’s Department of Community Safety, including improving and scaling violence prevention and intervention and improving connections between behavioral health services and the criminal justice system.
Publication Highlights
Once implemented as part of DCS, the Crisis Management System can once again be a national leader in evidence-based public health response to gun violence.
DCS can improve coordination between behavioral health and substance use disorder services and the criminal justice system, as well as crisis response—including how 911 calls are handled and callers receive services.