Zohran Mamdani On His 1 Billion Public Safety Plan To Hire Social

Updated on: September 7, 2025 / 2:52 PM EDT / CBS New York Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic socialist and the presumed frontrunner in New York City's mayoral race, has big plans to overhaul America's largest city and revamp the NYPD's responsibilities if he wins in November. Mamdani, who appeared with Sen. Bernie Sanders at a town hall in Brooklyn over the weekend and recently challenged President Trump to a debate, has made major promises to make city buses free, expand universal child care and freeze... The 33-year-old state assemblyman from Queens is also vowing to spend $1 billion to create the city Department of Community Safety, which he says would have social workers respond first, instead of NYPD officers,... Mamdani laid out his, perhaps controversial, public safety plan to rely on mental health workers first instead of the NYPD in situations involving emotionally disturbed individuals -- like homeless people on the subways --...

Lefty mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani wants to spend $1.1 billion on a new department overseeing mental health calls instead of the NYPD — a proposal panned as “another pie in the sky idea” by... The democratic socialist state assemblyman from Queens unveiled a 17-page public safety plan that did not call to hire more police officers, as other mayoral candidates have proposed. Instead, Mamdani wants to create a new Department of Community Safety focused on increasing mental health outreach teams in the subways and beefing up “gun violence interrupter” programs in neighborhoods to drive down crime. Mamdani, who has backed the “defund the police” movement, insisted that cops are being relied on too often to “deal with the failures of the social safety net.”“A reliance that is preventing them from... “This is part of the reason why so many crimes are left unresolved in our city.” Law enforcement and public safety experts slammed the plan as unrealistic and claimed cops would eventually be forced to clean up the mess.

Zohran Mamdani speaks after winning the mayoral election, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura) NEW YORK — With Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a self-described Democratic Socialist, now elected as New York City’s next mayor, one of the biggest questions facing officers is how his leadership will affect the nation’s... Once an outspoken critic of the NYPD, the 34-year-old softened his tone during the campaign and pledged to keep Commissioner Jessica Tisch in place. His public safety platform differs from the approach taken under Mayor Eric Adams, proposing changes to how the department coordinates with City Hall.

Here’s what his record and proposals indicate about what’s ahead for the NYPD. Mamdani announced during an October debate that he intended to retain Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. According to CNN, he made the announcement publicly before ever speaking to Tisch directly, telling the network, “I haven’t had a private conversation with her on that.” Zohran Mamdani, the most left-leaning candidate in this summer’s mayoral primary, proposed Tuesday to launch a new city agency that would be tasked with using nonpolice emergency responses to combat problems such as mental... The agency would be called the Department of Community Safety and have an annual budget of $1.1 billion, according to a public safety plan rolled out by Mamdani, an assemblyman representing western Queens whose... Setting himself apart from many other candidates in the June 24 Democratic mayoral primary, Mamdani, a socialist, isn’t proposing to hire more NYPD officers as part of his public safety plan.

That drew pushback from several fellow mayoral candidates, who have called for beefing up the ranks of the NYPD, which is seeing its lowest head count in decades amid high retirement rates, low retention... Mamdani’s blueprint argues more cops won’t be necessary, though, as his newly envisioned agency would absorb certain responsibilities currently in the NYPD’s wheelhouse, including responding to mental health emergencies. That will, in turn, free up officers — who have “a critical role to play” — to focus on more pressing police work, the plan maintains. Our journalism is only possible with support from you, our readers. The news mainstream media just doesn’t cover. Racial justice journalism since 1909.

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Can a new dog learn old tricks? Surging mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani hoped so when he announced his ambitious public safety plan last Tuesday, April 1. His vision centers around establishing a new branch of New York City government called the Department of Community Safety, which would enlist civilian social services to handle certain responsibilities — like responding to mental... At an event held at Columbia University, the Democratic candidate for New York City mayor conducted his first-ever extended interview on crime with NY1’s Errol Louis. On Monday, Sept. 8, in the first of a series of sit-downs with New York City mayoral candidates, Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani took questions at a Vital City event co-sponsored by Columbia Journalism School.

Mamdani was quizzed on his public safety philosophy and proposals by Errol Louis, Spectrum News NY1 political anchor and Vital City contributing writer. What follows is a complete, unedited transcript. Errol Louis: I’m Errol Louis, the political anchor at Spectrum News NY1. I’m also a contributor to Vital City, and if you haven’t already subscribed, you should look at everything they’ve got going on on that website at vitalcitynyc.org. We have only a short amount of time, so I’d like to jump right into it by inviting today’s conversation partner, Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, to have a seat. Let’s hop right into it.

Good to see you. Errol Louis: There are only 57 days between now and the election. I’m sure that might have occurred to you today. But then there are only 58 days after that between November 4 and January 1, so we’ve got 115 days. You won’t, if you are successful, won’t even have two months to organize a government if you should win. Even understanding that you’re still in the middle of a campaign and that’s your primary focus, I’d like to ask you about some of these questions about how you would plan to govern.

Have you formed a transition committee?

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