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 is how his leadership will affect correctional officers.
His public safety platform proposes changes to how the city coordinates prevention and enforcement. It also outlines a continued commitment to closing Rikers Island and addressing longstanding challenges within the city’s correctional system.
Here’s what his proposals indicate about what’s ahead for New York City’s correctional system.
The Department of Community Safety
A central component of Mamdani’s agenda is the creation of a Department of Community Safety (DCS) — a new civilian agency with a proposed $1.1 billion budget, according to a plan released by his campaign. About $605 million would come from existing programs moved under the department and $455 million would be new funding, generated through efficiencies and reallocated resources.
Mamdani says the department’s mission is to “prevent violence before it happens” by addressing root causes such as poverty, mental illness, housing instability and inequality. The DCS, he says, will take a public health approach to crime prevention, prioritizing “prevention-first, community-based solutions.”
The DCS would oversee and expand several major initiatives:
- Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division (B-HEARD): Moved under DCS and expanded citywide, with peer counselors on every team, trauma-informed training, and 24/7 service.
- Community Mental Health Navigators: New neighborhood-based outposts connecting residents to care and reducing 911 mental-health calls.
- Transit outreach: Teams of peers, EMTs and mental health professionals stationed in 100 subway stations to engage people experiencing homelessness or crisis, replacing police-led outreach.
- Gun violence prevention: A 275% funding increase for the city’s Crisis Management System, expanding “violence interrupter” and hospital-based programs modeled on Cure Violence.
- Victim and hate-violence services: Expanded funding for Safe Horizon, Family Justice Centers and anti-hate education programs.
The department would also coordinate across city agencies, hosting quarterly safety summits to review progress and share best practices — a “whole-of-government” approach, according to the proposal.
Rikers closure
Mamdani supports the law requiring New York City to close Rikers Island and replace it with four borough-based jails. During the final mayoral debate before early voting, Mamdani said he would “do everything in my power to try and meet that deadline” and added, “We have to close Rikers Island. Rikers Island is a stain on the history of this city.”
The plan faces major obstacles. Construction is years behind schedule, and projected costs have doubled — from an original $8 billion to about $16 billion — while Rikers still holds roughly 7,100 detainees, nearly twice the capacity of the four replacement jails combined, the Queens Daily Eagle reported.
A federal judge has warned she may soon strip elements of control over the jail complex from the city and appoint a third-party receiver because of persistent safety and management failures, according to the Queens Daily Eagle.
According to the plan released by his campaign, the Rikers closure is part of a broader housing and mental health strategy. The plan states that incarceration has become the city’s default response to homelessness and mental illness — and that addressing those crises outside of the jail system would make New York safer.
According to the plan, more than 2,500 people held on Rikers each year need supportive housing, which the city has failed to provide. The proposal estimates that it costs $1.4 billion annually to incarcerate those individuals — compared with $108 million to house them, or less than 8% of jail expenses. Mamdani says that expanding supportive housing, paired with sustained treatment and outreach, would “break cycles of homelessness” and reduce reliance on incarceration.
The DCS would direct outreach teams and housing navigators to connect individuals experiencing homelessness or mental health crises to long-term housing options, emphasizing that “communities are safer when everyone has a home.” His plan also commits to freezing rent for rent-stabilized units and expanding rental assistance programs as part of a “housing-first” safety strategy.
Next steps
On Jan. 1, Mamdani’s administration is set to begin with an emphasis on prevention-based public safety programs and coordination between police and civilian agencies. How those efforts will align with the city’s correctional reform goals — including the closure of Rikers Island — remains to be seen.
In your view, what are the biggest challenges the corrections will face under Mamdani’s prevention-first public safety strategy?
