New York City Must Actually Invest In Black Communities—Right Now

In the wake of some of the most explosive protests that New York City has ever seen, there has been a call from the streets for a radical change in our government's relationship with the Black community. The lack of empathy towards Black people in America, coupled with past generational trauma, has brought on this current climate we see today. 

Over the last few weeks we have heard different suggested solutions to the present climate and state of the nation. And, like in past protests, we've heard calls for police reform. However, we need to discuss not only the police, but the alternatives to policing that can make our communities safer. 

This past weekend, Mayor Bill de Blasio, under pressure, announced a decrease in the NYPD budget with those funds to be diverted to youth and social services. That announcement, however, is lacking if we understand how the City's approach in helping some of the most overpoliced communities so far has been inadequate. 

I am a father who has lost two children, one to community violence and one to the criminal justice system. Since these painful losses, I have become an advocate for change. After my daughter's murder, I reached across the aisle to the mother of the young man convicted in her killing. We worked together in the community to heal the trauma. I also became a violence interrupter, community members who use their words and influence to stop violence, and helped to bring historic drops in shootings to America's largest public housing development through conflict resolution and mediation.

I am the son of a retired New York state court clerk. I was also formerly incarcerated. Today I work as a family advocate in NYS family court and also as a transformative mentor for young people through the Department of Probation. In those roles, I have seen credible messengers, community-based voices that steer people away from violence, help to bring down recidivism rates amongst young people in our programs. These were not police officers. In fact, they didn't have any badges at all. They used their lifetime experiences and unique standing in the community to reach justice-involved youth in ways police could never – and it worked. 

However, my experiences speak to the larger problem in our criminal justice system: our priorities. We put billions of taxpayer dollars into police budgets, and only pennies on those dollars to solutions like credible messengers. In New York City, for example, our police budget is almost $6 billion dollars a year. Meanwhile, the city's only non-police anti-violence model, the Crisis Management System (sometimes referred to as Cure Violence), last year received just under $40 million dollars a year, less than 1 percent of the NYPD's budget, to reduce crime across the five boroughs. Mayor de Blasio's announcement on Wednesday that he would add $10 million to the program is a drop in the bucket. 

The Cure Violence model is woefully underfunded but it is also not the only anti-violence solution. Other community-based individuals and organizations not under Cure Violence could be just as effective but receive little to no resources. We need to think bigger and open new doors. We need solutions that collaborate with and complement one another. For example, a violence interrupter may be able to deter violence (research supports this), however, if we want our community members to avoid harmful behaviors, we need to present them with long term sustainable skills that lead to employment and opportunities for entrepreneurship.

We need to connect this moment to institutionalized poverty.

The options today available for members of communities in marginalized neighborhoods are few and far between. We need to be able to connect people to well-paying, unionized jobs – something today severely lacking in anti-violence models. We also need to help advance their education. Unions and institutions of higher learning can be a part of that effort but they need to coordinate this through community voices, not City Hall. Credible messengers, for example, are uniquely situated to do this work because of their ability to outreach to those that historically don't trust the system. This is extremely vital because an initiative is only as successful as its outreach.

In addition, we need to work expeditiously on the mental health aspect of healing community trauma that is brought on by poverty, violence and policing. We also need new reentry services, efforts to help people who have been recently incarcerated, and more funds for those that currently exist. New and existing programs should be enhanced to reach a larger population and coordinate with anti-violence workers in the community. 

All of these issues are key components that are essential to addressing the disease I call social poverty. They speak not only to a community's safety, but to their ability to thrive. As some elected officials are calling for a $1 billion cut to the police budget, these dollars could be diverted to begin to address these needs – $250 million towards mental health, sustainable employment/entrepreneurship, education and re-entry each is a start.   

Public safety is not only answered by what police do, but by what opportunities are bestowed upon the communities they patrol. 

America has historically sought to arrest and prosecute its way through community issues that could be dealt with by understanding the history of this nation, our states & our community. Frustration comes from a lot of these things being ignored in impoverished communities: education, finances and health services. COVID-19 has exposed these inequities. So what will the city do beyond policing? We should build a comprehensive plan that addresses these shortfalls and provide the community with a say in how it defines the safety of its own neighborhoods.