“What New Yorkers in crisis need is housing and wrap around services, which offer long-term stability instead of an endless, involuntary shuffle. Without any real support either inside or outside of psych institutions to address root causes, no one is getting any healthier or safer.”
“Statewide, crimes are down…Shootings are down. But it’s all about perception,” said Gov. Kathy Hochul at the end of February. According to Hochul, crime rates in New York are “not statistically significant, but psychologically significant.”
Psychological significance is how Hochul is justifying spending $144 million over the last three months to flood the subway with 1,000 additional cops. This is on top of the 750 National Guard troops who have been stationed in our subways since last spring, subjecting riders to random searches. And that’s to say nothing of the already extreme baseline level of police presence in New York’s transit system. There’s little evidence these tough-on-crime tactics actually increase safety, but as Hochul might say, safety isn’t the point. The appearance of safety is.
Optics are expensive. The NYPD is by far the country’s biggest and most expensive police department. Its operating budget costs New Yorkers over $6 billion each year, while pensions, misconduct judgements, and other expenses total another $5 billion. That means New Yorkers are paying over $11 billion per year for the NYPD. For decades, communities have been spending extravagantly on their own punishment instead of investing in life-affirming fundamentals like education, housing, jobs, and healthcare…