New Yorkers Want Solutions to the Root Causes of Crime, Not More Police and Punishment

Public safety remains an ongoing concern for many New Yorkers – everyone wants and deserves to feel safe and secure in their communities. But a recent poll conducted for the ACLU by the polling firm YouGov cuts through the noise from fearmongering news outlets to show how New Yorkers truly want lawmakers to deal with crime.

The findings, which confirm previous trends, are crystal clear: New Yorkers aren’t clamoring for more police, nor are they buying politicians’ tough-on-crime messages and policies. Instead, they are eager for policies that advance crime prevention over punishment and move away from over-policing — which they don’t see as making communities safer.

New York voters want solutions that tackle the root causes of crime by improving access to mental health care, addiction treatment, and other resources.

The vast majority of New York voters believe increasing these services and addressing poverty and homelessness would significantly help improve safety in their communities. They feel similarly about sending mental health specialists instead of the police to respond to mental health and addiction crises.

69 percent of voters say sending mental health and addiction specialists – rather than the police – to calls related to mental health, homelessness, and substance use would help improve safety in communities a lot or some. Funding more appropriate first responders for such calls would not only reduce the burden on police, but also ensure that individuals receive the help they need from specially trained providers.

Despite the fact that studies show coercing people into getting mental health care is generally ineffective, New York State recently made it easier to forcibly commit vulnerable people to psychiatric facilities — even when they pose no imminent harm to themselves or others.

Before this reform was enacted, the New York City Council released a study showing police and city officials claim they forcefully commit more than 100 people every week, and there is little transparency about what happens to them. We know that when clinicians are the ones initiating this process, 40 percent of the time the person doesn’t end up being admitted for in-patient care.

This data isn’t available for police-initiated involuntary removals, but we can assume the ratio is at least as high, given their lack of medical training. This means it’s likely that police are involuntarily removing hundreds of New York City residents from public and private spaces who ultimately don’t meet the criteria for involuntary confinement. In addition to disrupting the lives of the people removed, this is an ineffective use of police resources.

Our leaders must end their over-reliance on police as first responders and instead treat mental health crises as public health emergencies. That is why the NYCLU has called for state lawmakers to pass Daniel’s Law.

The bill would make teams of EMTs and peers — individuals with lived substance use or mental health experience — the primary responders for mental health emergencies. These teams would be trained to deescalate situations and connect people with appropriate care, thus reducing the need for police intervention.

Most voters believe we need to address the root causes of homelessness

Homelessness is often an outcome of poverty, a lack of affordable housing, and structural inequality. Yet, in stark contrast with what most New Yorkers want, too often our leaders push for policies that criminalize homelessness, instead of addressing its root causes.

There are more than 90,000 homeless people on any given night in New York State, many living with mental illness or other severe health problems. There is not nearly enough affordable housing, and many homeless people are afraid to stay in shelters that are too often unsafe and unsanitary.

We need meaningful, comprehensive, and paradigm-shifting new investments in affordable housing. This starts with investing in housing connected to services like mental health care and case management.

Most voters support changing how police enforce traffic violations

The discretion police officers have when enforcing traffic laws – including who is stopped, who is searched, and who is arrested – has led to vast racial disparities nationwide. Black people are stopped at much higher rates than white people.

In New York City, NYPD traffic stops are surging and the racial disparities uncovered by the NYCLU are staggering. In 2024, 90 percent of people arrested during a traffic stop were Black or Latinx. 83 percent of drivers stopped were male. There is no evidence that traffic stops advance public safety, but NYPD traffic stops do result in the harassment of many Black and Brown men.

Seventy percent of New York voters support legislation to limit or end police enforcement of certain minor traffic violations to reduce unnecessary police interactions with drivers. Other states like Virginia have already passed legislation that limits traffic stops for minor violations, and a similar bill was introduced this year in New York.

Most voters support reducing the prison population

New York continues to lock up a higher percentage of its people than almost any democratic country on earth, holding more than 40,000 people behind bars. Three-quarters of them are people of color. This creates dramatic, lasting consequences for people who are incarcerated, their families, and communities, as well as a huge financial burden for taxpayers.

The NYCLU has long fought to end our overreliance on jails and prisons, reduce the incarcerated population, improve conditions in jails and prisons, and push for rehabilitation. Most New York voters support these efforts.

New York’s draconian parole practices and sentencing laws lead many to languish and have led to an aging crisis behind bars. The NYCLU is part of the People’s Campaign for Parole Justice, a coalition that seeks to reform the parole system by allowing individuals to be assessed as the people they are today, and giving elders who have already served at least 15 years the chance to go before the parole board.

New York’s racist and draconian sentencing laws are also in desperate need of a total overhaul. That’s why the NYCLU supports the Communities Not Cages legislation, a series of bills aimed at ending the use of mandatory minimum sentences, allowing people’s sentences to be revisited by the court after a period of time, and improving opportunities to earn merit and good time credits to reduce sentence length. These parole and sentencing reforms would help reunite families, advance justice, and enhance community safety.

The Path Forward

New Yorkers want our leaders to invest in evidence-based solutions to keep them safe – not more jails, prisons, or police. The results of this latest ACLU/YouGov poll closely align with previous polling done for the NYCLU last year.

Again and again, New Yorkers say they prefer policies that tackle root causes of crime, reduce policing, lower our prison population, improve access to mental health care, and deeply invest in affordable housing.

The path forward is clear, if our elected leaders listen to what New Yorkers want.