NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani took a formal step toward reshaping how New York City handles public safety, creating a new Office of Community Safety that he says will help reduce the city’s reliance on police for some mental health and crisis-related calls.
Mamdani signed an executive order on March 19 to create the Office of Community Safety and appointed Renita Francois as deputy mayor of community safety.
The new office is designed as the first step toward a broader Department of Community Safety, a campaign promise Mamdani says will take a “whole-of-government” approach to crime prevention — one that places greater emphasis on mental health response, violence prevention and social services.
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“For too long, we have approached crime and safety by placing only ever-expanding expectations on the police department,” Mamdani said during a press conference announcing the initiative. “We have asked them to address every failure of our social safety net.”
What the new office will do
The Office of Community Safety will consolidate several existing city functions under one umbrella, including:
- Crime victim services
- Gun violence prevention
- Domestic and gender-based violence prevention
- Hate crime prevention
- Community mental health programs
It will also coordinate crisis response efforts, including the city’s B-HEARD program — a civilian-led response model for certain mental health calls.
Mamdani outlined three main divisions within the office:
- Neighborhood safety, focused on violence prevention and victim support
- Community mental health, overseeing crisis response and long-term care strategies
- Strategic initiatives aimed at developing new public health-based safety approaches
The office will be led by a commissioner reporting to Francois, who will oversee citywide strategy and coordination across agencies.
Potential impact on NYPD response
While the mayor did not provide specific numbers on how many calls could shift away from police, he pointed to the scale of non-criminal incidents currently handled by officers — including roughly 200,000 mental health-related calls annually.
He said the goal is to expand alternatives so that “their only option is not simply a police response.”
Programs like B-HEARD already triage certain 911 calls to civilian teams, but Mamdani said those efforts have been “underfunded and under supported.” The new structure is intended to expand capacity and allow more calls to be diverted when appropriate.
At the same time, the administration is framing the shift as a way to refocus police work — not eliminate it.
“Keeping New Yorkers safe requires more than one approach,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in a statement. “It means making sure people have access to the resources and services they need … while our officers remain focused on the work they are trained to do.”
A phased approach
City officials emphasized that the March 19 announcement is only the beginning.
The Office of Community Safety will first conduct an assessment of existing programs and identify which initiatives can be expanded. Plans for staffing, budget and operational scope — including how many calls could ultimately be handled outside of police — were not revealed.
“This is the start,” Mamdani said. “New Yorkers cannot afford to wait for city government to finally take seriously these kinds of crises.”
Francois, who previously led the Mayor’s Action Plan for Neighborhood Safety under Mayor Bill de Blasio, said the effort will focus on coordination and long-term investment.
“We have a ton of expertise, programs and resources,” she said. “Our responsibility is to take these disparate programs and create a cohesive strategy.”
Broader shift in public safety strategy
The administration is positioning the new office as part of a broader shift toward addressing what officials describe as the root causes of crime — including poverty, mental health challenges and lack of access to services.
Mamdani said the current system relies too heavily on a “patchwork of programs” and places unrealistic demands on police.
“We must instead pursue a whole-of-government model. One where our strategies are centralized and implemented with coordination and at scale and one which a deputy mayor oversee,” he said.
Is shifting some crisis-response duties away from police a smart move — or a risk to public safety?
Police1 readers respond:
- It will work until one of the civilian workers is stabbed, shot, or beaten to death. Then those workers who are anti police will want an officer to go on every mental health call with them.
- Sounds like another way to steal money from tax payers.
- Good luck with that!
- The money would be better spent training the cops the correct way to render a person to a no threat posture. There was a team a while back that showed they could do this if trained correctly. That will help. Trying to talk someone down when they are not rational is dangerous for everyone.
- They (mental health threats) need to be locked up and medicated. It’s the only way to truly protect the innocent.
