Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. One of Mayor Zohran Mamdani's key campaign promises is beginning to take shape. When he was a candidate, many of you know this, he talked about the need for what he called a Department of Community Safety. That's in addition to the NYPD. Here he is, back in June of last year, in the WNYC Democratic primary debate.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani: When I put together our proposal for the Department of Community Safety, it was built upon the many conversations I had with rank-and-file officers who had told me that they signed up to join the department to take on serious crimes, and yet what they were being asked to do is play the roles of mental health professionals and social workers. That is part of the reason why 65% of crimes in the first quarter of this year are still not solved. We need to ensure police can focus on those crimes, and we have mental health professionals and social workers to address and tackle, and resolve the mental health crisis and homelessness.

Brian Lehrer: The basic argument let the trained mental health professionals and social workers respond to some emergency situations and free up the NYPD to respond to more serious violent crime. That may be closer to materializing, at least in an early form. Last week, the mayor signed an executive order to establish an Office of Community Safety, office that's a lower-level thing than a full-fledged department. We'll talk about why the budget for it is also a lot smaller than what he was first talking about in the campaign.

We're going to talk about all of that now, and what this department or Office of Community Safety might actually do compared to what Mamdani said as a candidate on the campaign trail. One related thing that we'll also touch on, a big story you may have missed last week, is that NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch made changes to the way the police department publicly reports hate crimes. Some anti-crime advocates and hate crime experts have voiced disapproval over that change. We'll talk about both sides of that.

Also, remember that another thing that Mamdani's Department of Community Safety is supposed to do is tackle hate crimes and prevent them against members of any community that might be targeted by hate crimes better than the old system. We're going to get details on all of this now from our WNYC and Gothamist newsroom colleague Ben Feuerherd, who covers public safety and policing. Hey Ben, welcome back to the show.

Ben Feuerherd: Hey, thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, phones, and text thread open on this. Anything you want to say or ask about the Office of Community Safety as it's now been rolled out for the moment by Mayor Mamdani, or how hate crimes should be counted. 212-433-WNYC 212-433-9692 call or text. Ben, what does it mean that it's an office, not a Department of Community Safety?

Ben Feuerherd: Basically, what it means in practice is that he signed an executive order to create this office and install this new deputy mayor. It was not a bill passed by the city council to amend the city charter to enshrine a new department, a new city agency. Basically, in practice, it seems like the tasks of this office are going to be relatively broad. It puts all these existing programs, like the office to prevent gun violence, the office for prevention of hate crimes, as you mentioned, under one tent.

All those programs work with nonprofit groups in the city to curtail violence in the city as best they can. They might do things like visit hospitals after a shooting or to provide grief counseling, and at the same time communicate with people impacted by gun violence to prevent another shooting. They also work with victims, say victims of a hate crime or victims of domestic abuse, to provide some level of assistance there. Then, as you mentioned, the other piece of it is potentially shifting how city agencies respond to 911 calls to put mental health workers to respond to more 911 calls that are nonviolent and completely violent emergencies.

Brian Lehrer: Did the mayor's office give us anything new on how they would determine differently from in the past when a mental health crisis call does risk violence in a way that the NYPD should be deployed, maybe in addition to mental health workers, and when it doesn't?

Ben Feuerherd: I don't think they've explicitly given direct examples of that, at least since they announced this new office. Mamdani noted that this executive order gives the new deputy mayor policy power over the program B-HEARD, which is the program that allows mental health responders to respond to these 911 calls. It's certainly something that, based on his announcement, based on him highlighting that in his announcement, that it seems clear that that is going to expand in the city. He's been very clear about that during the campaign and during his time as mayor.

Brian Lehrer: The mayor can't wave his magic wand and create a department only in office, as you've explained, but he can create a new deputy mayor position, as you just referenced. I want to ask you about the new deputy mayor for Community Safety. Her name is Renita Francois. I see her background is in what they're calling strategic and operational experience, spanning major city agencies, nonprofit advocacy organizations, and think tanks. That's from the news release announcing her appointment. What can you tell us about the new Deputy Mayor, Renita Francois, and what her community safety bona fides might be?

Ben Feuerherd: It'll be her second stint in city government. She previously served in the de Blasio administration as the head of something called the Mayor's Action Plan for Neighborhood Safety. Mamdani noted that in his announcement, and said it was like a precursor to her current role. As you mentioned, she's someone with a long professional career of working with underserved communities, working in nonprofit spaces.

The people who work in those anti-violence groups that my colleagues and I spoke to were absolutely thrilled at this appointment of her. I think there was some question of whether the mayor would appoint someone with a public health background to lead this office, and the people we spoke to were happy it was Francois that she comes from an area that they're used to, that they find common ground with.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to get now to the related question of the change in the way the NYPD says it's going to count hate crimes in the city going forward. We invite your comments and questions on our text thread or on the phone, 212-433-WNYC 212-433-9692. My guest is Ben Feuerherd from our newsroom. The headline for one of your stories on this is "After 152% spike, NYPD changes how it reports hate crimes." Let's start with that 152% spike. What did that refer to?

Ben Feuerherd: The NYPD released the crime figures for January of this year, and it showed that compared to the same period last year, compared to January 2025, there was this dramatic jump in hate crimes, and that was, according to their figures, primarily driven in anti Semitic crimes. They said there were 58 reported this year compared to 23 in January of last year. The figures also showed that there was a jump in anti-Muslim hate crimes. There were seven reported in January of this year, compared to none, zero in the same period of last year.

Brian Lehrer: What is Commissioner Tisch proposing to change in the way the hate crimes are counted?

Ben Feuerherd: Prior to the release of figures in March for that referred to crime figures in February, they reported hate crimes that had been reported to the department and were still under review. Now they said earlier this month that they're no longer going to report those crimes that are under review. They're only going to report crimes that are confirmed by the department. Tisch was asked about this at a city council hearing, and she said the new reporting method is far more accurate, that the previous reporting method had no basis in reality, that they were wrong, they were confusing.

Then she noted that the difference between the two figures for February was a single crime. It seemed like she was pushing back on the notion that or she was saying that the previous reporting method was inaccurate. Then she said in actuality, the difference was only one crime between the two different figures.

Brian Lehrer: I understand why the NYPD or any branch of government might want to focus or make it clear to the public what allegations of anything are confirmed as opposed to just alleged. One criticism that I've heard of the way she's rolling it out that rings true, at least to me, is why not release both? If you release the allegations and there are so many more than those that ever get confirmed, then maybe you're exposing something about false claims. In any case, why not just release both allegations and confirmed reports of hate crimes?

Ben Feuerherd: I spoke to three experts, professors who study hate crimes for a living, and all three of them came to that same conclusion, that they would want the context of both the reported hate crimes and also those confirmed. They thought, for a variety of reasons, that releasing both would provide all sorts of context about who's reporting hate crimes, how the NYPD is investigating them, and how the hate crimes that are reported actually go from reported to confirmed.

Brian Lehrer: That sounds reasonable. Has the commissioner explained why they're not going to do that?

Ben Feuerherd: I think their position is just that they believe it's more accurate that by reporting those under review muddies what's actually happening in the city, and that by only reporting confirmed hate crimes is meaningful data, she called it in her response at the City Council.

Brian Lehrer: On the Office of Community Safety, how would it fight hate crimes differently from anything that came before?

Ben Feuerherd: I think that remains to be seen. Obviously, the Office of Community Safety will include the city office for combating hate crimes. I forget the exact title of it. It will fall under the new office, and they'll answer to the new deputy mayor. Yes, remains to be seen, I think of how that is going to shift, if at all, in the city.

Brian Lehrer: On the Office of Community Safety, listener writes, "Hi, my name is Noah. I'm a former investigator for the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which investigates low-level police misconduct. While I understand the motivation of creating the Office of Public Safety, I'm skeptical of the idea that it could solve the problem of mental health calls escalating into things that are worse. While we might not like it, a large part of de-escalating incidents involving emotionally disturbed people is the threat of force." What do you think the mayor would say to a text like that?

Ben Feuerherd: Some of his supporters have addressed that question, one of them, Alex Vitale, who's the Brooklyn College professor who is a long proponent of this. I think, would respond to say to tick off various incidents where the police used violence, whether necessary or not, while responding to these 911 calls, that by having police respond to certain 911 calls automatically escalates the situation because they're armed, because they're police officers.

Brian Lehrer: Another listener text, "What constitutes a reported hate crime? Does somebody reporting a spray-painted Free Palestine on a sidewalk count if it's 'reported' to the cops despite not being hateful and barely being a crime?"

Ben Feuerherd: I think that's a certainly good question, and it's one that these professors who I spoke to study that very thing of how police agencies around the country and in the city, how they determine what is a hate crime. The NYPD on their website cites legal language about how they define a hate crime, and it is a crime that's motivated substantially or wholly based on somebody's association with a group. I'm unsure how the NYPD navigates exactly that determining what's a hate crime.

Brian Lehrer: Most other crime statistics are based on crimes that have been confirmed, right? I guess in support of this change, one could ask, should that not be the standard even for hate crimes, or are hate crimes so different in nature that they deserve to be evaluated in some other way, like how many are even alleged?

Ben Feuerherd: Absolutely. And that's. One of the professors I talked to a guy, Brendan Lance, who studies hate crimes in Florida, said that prior to the shift he thought the NYPD did a good job of reporting hate crimes, that he thought by reporting those under review was extremely transparent by the department and that he said that agencies that report hate crimes well, that are transparent about it, it tends to look like they have a lot of hate crime happening in their jurisdictions. He was dismayed to see that the NYPD shift away from that, what he would view as a more transparent reporting process.

Brian Lehrer: Tracy in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with our police and public safety reporter Ben Feuerherd. Hi, Tracy.

Tracy: Hi. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good. What you got for us?

Tracy: I just wanted to call and say that I'm really in support of the Office of Community Safety. I also recommend that listeners check out that Alex Vitale interview on New York One. I feel like it's a really important step to develop practices and pipelines that can be expanded into an agency. This is precisely what people voted for when they voted for Zohran Mamdani, like an affordable city and not law and order crackdowns.

I think that the idea that access to health care, housing is how we as a society actually pursue safety is so important. I think that what they're doing is trying to remove crisis response from policing, which usually end up escalating a crisis. I would say that the threat of violence doesn't de-escalate, it does the opposite. I think that we saw this, particularly starkly, with the Chakraborty case in Queens.

I think that what we know is that criminalization is not the answer to crises of all kinds, and taking steps to develop new practices and facts on the ground is really going to help us remove criminalization from people's everyday lives. I think it's an incredible step. I want it to be a success because I want it to be expanded to the billion-dollar agency that I think it deserves.

Brian Lehrer: Tracy, what would you say to the people, like the texter I read from before, who said he's a former investigator for the Civilian Complaint Review Board, and that while we might not like it, as he wrote, a large part of de-escalating incidents involving emotionally disturbed people is the threat of force. You asserted that the threat of force usually escalates. I don't know if you have data to back that up. That guy who worked on the Civilian Complaint Review. It may be sometimes yes and sometimes no.

Tracy: What I have is personal experience of organizing with unhoused people and understanding that the threat of physical violence and criminalization, and jail time usually, add to someone's sense of emotional crisis, and that when, people approach others in crisis from a perspective of their humanity and without the power to incarcerate jail, harass, or even kill, that humanity is recognized. I would just say that I encourage people to check out research from other cities where 911 calls have been successfully diverted, and where we don't see civilian response workers be harmed.

Rather, we see situations actually de-escalated. We see people not have to enter the circular back and forth of criminalization and jail time just to be sent back into the same position that they were in when their crisis began. I think that this is a way of approaching crisis response, which also I think has to be paired with the broader, affordability promises that are about making an actually safe society, like housing and health care, and all of those things.

Brian Lehrer: Tracy, thank you. We appreciate your call. To the point, at the end of her call, Ben, will the Department of Community Safety be tasked with addressing any of those underlying drivers of unsafe conditions, or does that get left to the housing department, the minimum wage department, and other things?

Ben Feuerherd: I think we'll see as it scales up or as it scales up, as Mamdani probably hopes it will. Certainly, I think the offices that it's going to streamline under this one office will work in those spaces, like these nonprofit groups that do all sorts of outreach, community work, A, to prevent violence, but also to do all sorts of social work to improve or try to improve people's experiences in their communities.

Brian Lehrer: Let's see. Let me sneak in one more call here. It's Antwan in Brooklyn who says he was a principal investigator of some kind under Mayor de Blasio, relevant to this. Antwan, you're on WNYC, but we've got about 30 seconds for you. Hi there.

Antwan: Hi. This work has been and Renita headed this work in the Office of Neighborhood Safety, it's predicated on to--

Brian Lehrer: That's the new Deputy Mayor for Community Safety you're referring to. Go ahead.

Antwan: Yes. She headed an evaluative set of sprints and designs across the city to ask people in communities what they needed to feel safe and what they needed to thrive. That evaluation work has been scaffolded back into the offices, directly to your question. She has, through her leadership, created a long on-ramp to bring this administration into a place where these interventions sometimes intersect with criminal code, which is what police officers do but to also create a lane for people in the city who may be experiencing public safety issues and psychological safety issues, which I think are important distinction and the appropriate level of intervention for community safety. I think we're going to have to see what that evaluation brings about in this new management of the city, and I'm really excited about that.

Brian Lehrer: How much under Mayor de Blasio were you all trying to move in this direction already, and if so, why was the work incomplete?

Antwan: The work isn't incomplete. It's an evaluation. You're trying to find the drivers or interaction, evaluation, moving to research, which your reporter was talking about when he was talking to academics. They're much more interested in causality and relationships, and determination. In communities, they know what works. What we were scaffolding a lot of this work is also already bound in a paper and in a large community organizing paper throughout the city that I think operates under the radar of a lot of popular reporting.

No shade to anybody on the call, but a lot of the community work is at the grass top level. I think there's a long runway of exciting new interventions around psychological safety and public safety, and the distinction between those two areas and domains and criminal code behavior, which I think gives police the requisite ability to go do what some people think they do effectively, and allow communities to be self-determining co-partners.

Brian Lehrer: Antwan, thank you very much for your call. We're going to let that be the last word in this segment. We thank WNYC and Gothamist reporter Ben Feuerherd, who covers public safety and policing. Thanks for some time today, Ben.

Ben Feuerherd: Thanks so much.

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