As Mayor Zohran Mamdani takes office, New York City stands at a crossroads. For decades, “public safety” in this city has been synonymous with policing, punishment, and incarceration. But New Yorkers know better: real safety isn’t achieved through handcuffs or jail cells—it’s built through stable access to affordable housing, food, health care, transportation, and other life essentials.  

Mamdani’s campaign centered on affordability, rightly arguing that when people can meet their basic needs, the entire city becomes safer. But the incoming mayor cannot avoid inheriting a public safety infrastructure that, for several years now, has doubled down on punitive responses that have devastated Black, Latine, and other working class neighborhoods across the city. 

The number of people incarcerated on Rikers Island still hovers over 7,000 while NYPD arrests continue to climb under current NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch. In the first two months of last year alone, for example, the number of people put through the system for minor drug possession spiked by 59 percent, while the number of people held to arraignment on noncriminal violations jumped by 188 percent.

Read the full article on: Opinion: A Safer New York Starts With Community, Not Incarceration