NYCLU on Adams Admin’s “End the Culture of Anything Goes” Campaign

NEW YORK CITY – Last week, Mayor Adams made a series of public safety announcements. He announced the expansion of the NYPD’s “quality of life” unit, revealed a new dashboard to track the NYPD’s involuntary removals of New Yorkers for psychiatric evaluation, and pushed for new state legislation to forcibly hospitalize people who appear to have substance use disorders. In response, the New York Civil Liberties Union released the following statement attributable to Executive Director Donna Lieberman: 

“The mayor’s announcements are nothing more than political security theater straight out of the failed broken windows’ playbook. What’s worse, these actions dangerously track the cruel, callous and hateful provisions of Trump’s recent executive order criminalizing homelessness.  

“The data is clear: involuntary commitment is ineffective and will not deliver community safety. Subjecting people who are in need of care to this failed strategy is an exercise in self-deception and political pandering. So is the administration’s recent partnership with Citizen, a fearmongering app notorious for spreading false accusations and racial bias. 

“Polling shows that New Yorkers aren’t clamoring for more police, nor are they buying our politicians’ tough-on-crime rhetoric. Instead, they are eager for measures that advance crime prevention and move away from over-policing. 

“Our City’s leaders would be wise to heed their calls.” 

A recent poll conducted for the ACLU shows New York voters prefer crime prevention over punishment, more support for vulnerable people, and less policing: https://www.nyclu.org/commentary/new-yorkers-want-solutions-to-the-root-causes-of-crime-not-more-police-and-punishment  

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