Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

Opinion

Hey New York, Let’s Have a (Vaccine) Party


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A vaccine block party in Rochester (photo: Rachel Barnhart)


On a recent Saturday in Rochester, New York, dozens of people lined up to get vaccinated against COVID-19 at a neighborhood festival. The event featured the opening of a new playground, free lunch from food trucks, and $100 gift cards for receiving a first dose of the vaccine. To celebrate the approval of child vaccines and of boosters, we can have national and state Block Party Weekends for children and their caregivers. These fun events can play a key role in reaching the one-third of Americans who remain unvaccinated. 

State and local governments should scale up family-friendly block parties. To do so, governments need to disperse American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to community organizations with proven track records of distributing vaccinations. The effort must center those who face structural barriers to traditional vaccine delivery strategies, but are often willing to get vaccinated. Bringing vaccines directly to people in the community and offering incentives to get vaccinated helps support everyone. 

When delta hit, it exposed the fact that Rochester, a majority Black and Latino city where one in three residents lives in poverty, had a vaccination rate below 50%. Meanwhile, affluent, white suburbs reached vaccination rates topping 70%. While many people worked hard to vaccinate city residents, it was clear we needed to try new strategies. 

Organizing a block party in Lowell, Massachusetts helped Dr. Hannah Tello vaccinate up to 10 times more people than would typically show up to a community clinic. Replicating this approach in Rochester, Connected Communities added a vaccination clinic to its “Fall Extravaganza” celebrating the opening of a new adventure course for children. Connected Communities lined up food trucks to serve free lunches, ran ads on the top city radio station, and placed lawn signs around the neighborhood. The total budget was about $9,000, funded through nonprofit grants. 

Community clinics had been vaccinating a dozen or so people at a time, but the Fall Extravaganza vaccinated 76 people in three hours, 74 of them first doses. People arrived by car, bike and foot. Seniors had questions about how the vaccine interacts with their medication. A few people expressed fear of needles. Many said the $100 incentive got their attention and encouraged them to show up and get their questions answered. People said they heard about the festival from the lawn signs and radio ads, not from the internet. Everyone enjoyed food and music after getting vaccinated.

The Fall Extravaganza hit on the right formula: $100 incentives, marketing, fun, and accessibility. Community groups that are most familiar with the people they serve should be able to readily access ARPA dollars to put on block parties and festivals that feature vaccination clinics. Not only do these events provide life-saving vaccines, they build community and offer healthy and safe activities. Despite the proven success, too many localities in New York are relying on failed approaches to vaccination. 

Governments should make $100 incentives available in under-vaccinated communities. Though President Joe Biden encouraged using ARPA funds for $100 vaccination incentives back in July, many state and local governments were skeptical. Rochester area leaders instead used the United Way to privately fund $100 incentives over a two-week period in September, which ensured their availability at the Fall Extravaganza. The incentives worked so well to increase vaccine uptake, the benefit will now go through November 23, this time using federal funding. 

In contrast, New York City acted quickly on $100 incentives, vaccinating 80,000 people in the first few weeks the incentive was offered back in August. New York City continues to offer $100 vaccination incentives today. But even incentives are not enough, as the city continues to see disparities in vaccine uptake. The block party model further breaks down barriers to vaccination.

We’ve heard objections to “paying people to do the right thing.” But poor communities -- rural and urban -- have been let down in many ways by our government, which has largely failed to protect them from covid. Offering people money and providing block parties won’t fix the damage that has been done, but it will improve and save lives. The more people that are vaccinated, the safer we all become.

Public health and joy go hand in hand. As we head into winter in New York, covid will certainly come for those who remain unprotected. They deserve our best efforts to reach them quickly — and our thank you. 

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Dr. Julia Raifman is an assistant professor at Boston University School of Public Health. Rachel Barnhart is a Monroe County Legislator in Rochester. On Twitter @JuliaRaifman and @RachBarnhart.

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It’s Time for New York to Pass the Adult Survivors Act


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State legislators and survivors of abuse discussing the Child Victims Act (photo: NY Senate)


Last week, advocates rallied in Albany to call on the State Assembly to pass the Adult Survivors Act, a landmark law that would create a lookback period allowing the adult victims of sexual assault and abuse whose claims are now time-barred to pursue those claims in court.

The advocates are right: Passing the Adult Survivors Act is absolutely essential if we are to provide justice to the countless people, mostly women, in New York State who have been assaulted and abused.

The Adult Survivors Act was passed unanimously by the State Senate back in June. However, the Assembly, for reasons that remain unclear, failed to even bring it to a vote at that time. It is imperative that the Assembly does so now.

The Adult Survivors Act is modelled on the Child Victims Act, which created a lookback window for survivors of sexual assault who were under the age of 18 at the time of the assault. The Child Victims Act resulted in over 9,000 lawsuits and has been incredibly effective at holding institutions accountable for long-ago abuse of children.

To understand the importance of the Adult Survivors Act it is worth looking at the details of the Child Victims Act. In February 2019, New York State passed the Child Victims Act, extending the statute of limitations for survivors of child sexual abuse in criminal and civil cases in New York.

Previously, in criminal cases, the statute of limitations for felony offenses ended when the survivor turned 23 years old; now, the Child Victims Act increases the statute of limitations until the survivor turns 28. For misdemeanor offenses, the statute of limitations had ended when the survivor turned 20, but has now been increased to 25 years of age.

In civil cases, prior to the Child Victims Act, the victims of child sexual abuse had only a short window of years, after turning 18, to bring a civil lawsuit against their abuser. The Child Victims Act created a “lookback window” for those cases as well, allowing any victim of sexual abuse whose claim was previously time-barred to bring an action up until August 14, 2020. That window was later extended to August 14, 2021. For claims that have not yet expired, the survivor now has until they turn 55 to file a claim.

The Child Victims Act allowed survivors of sexual abuse to hold powerful institutions liable for abuse that they tolerated for years. It helped more than 9,000 survivors seek justice for the wrongs committed against them. We’ve seen that first-hand. We’ve represented survivors of child sexual abuse and understand how empowering it can be to assert a claim and confront an abuser and finally get justice.

So why do we need the Adult Survivors Act? The Child Victims Act only applied to cases of abuse where the victim was under 18 years of age. The Adult Survivors Act would create a similar one-year lookback window for survivors of sexual abuse who are over 18 and whose claims are presently time-barred.

For civil cases, right now, adult survivors of sexual abuse generally have three years to file a claim. For criminal cases, the statute of limitation is generally five years for felonies, and two years for misdemeanors – some of which can be quite serious.

There has been some progress: In September 2019, the New York Legislature extended the limitations period for some rape and sexual assault cases. That was good news, but the 2019 Law did not extend all limitations periods and, more important, it did not create a lookback window. Therefore, sexual assault claims involving adult survivors that were time-barred in 2019 remain time-barred. Only the Adult Survivors Act will fix this problem.

The Adult Survivors Act should be seen as a necessary companion bill to the Child Victims Act. Given the historical stigma attached to sexual assault, as well as the career threat that reporting assault by a superior at work can entail, it is no surprise that many sexual assault survivors did not report their assaults at the time they occurred or in the years immediately following. With time, however, some survivors are able to come forward. Unfortunately, by the time they do so, the statute of limitations has often passed, and so legal redress is unavailable.

The Adult Survivors Act, by creating a lookback window, would solve this problem. Like the Child Victims Act, it would allow survivors to finally hold powerful institutions and individuals accountable for their conduct.

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Lesley Brovner and Mark Peters are the founding partners of the law firm Peters Brovner and have represented multiple victims of sexual assault.

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Governor Hochul, Now’s the Time to Give Domestic Violence Survivors Real Rental Support


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Ready for a bill-signing (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Office of the Governor)


Even before the pandemic, domestic violence was a leading cause of family homelessness in New York City, where a majority of shelter residents are single women of color and their children. In large part, this is because for single mothers, the city’s sky-high housing costs have been a major barrier to fleeing to safety. While New York State offers rental assistance to domestic violence survivors in shelter or at risk of losing their housing through the Family Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement (FHEPS) program, rental assistance levels are set so far below market rates that vouchers tend to go unused for years.

Currently there is not a single neighborhood in New York City where the median rent for a two-bedroom apartment is affordable with the existing voucher. As a result, thousands of families have been left behind by this failing program. 

COVID-19 has only intensified financial insecurity for many low-income households and deeply exacerbated the challenges facing survivors. Meanwhile, the increased isolation and stress due to the pandemic made even more women at risk of domestic violence. 

Now many of these families are facing their second covid winter with these twin emergencies that force them into an impossible choice – staying with their abusers or leaving and becoming homeless. 

New York State has an opportunity right now to change that and help mothers and children across the state access the housing they need to stay safe. In June, state legislators passed a bill (S6573/A8009) to permanently raise the FHEPS rent cap to Fair Market Rent (FMR) and ensure more recipients can utilize their vouchers to increase housing support for families leaving an abusive home so they can afford the ever-increasing rent and have a safe place of their own.*

The FHEPS program provides support to families with minor children who receive cash assistance and allows them to relocate to housing away from their abusers and bypass the shelter system. Months later it still awaits the governor’s signature.

We are urging Governor Kathy Hochul to make a meaningful difference in the lives of survivors by signing the bill into law. While Domestic Violence Awareness Month has come to an end, it is essential that we send survivors a message that their stability and safety is important and we will support them by ensuring that leaving an abusive partner doesn’t mean they must become homeless. However, without the supplemental housing raise to Fair Market Rate, these families risk homelessness or will be stuck in the shelter system without a permanent way out.

The voucher program also contains unique eligibility guidelines intended to address the needs of domestic violence survivors who are unemployed. Many survivors are prohibited from working by their abusive partner and many others are forced to quit their jobs when they flee their abuser. This makes the housing voucher, which does not require an abuse survivor to work, a critical resource for the many survivors who don’t have additional income. By raising the supplement amount to fair market rent, the state will provide much-needed rent relief to address housing stability for thousands of women and children, not just during the pandemic, but long-term. 

Over 100 organizations this year worked together to get the higher rent supplement passed in Albany. With Governor Hochul’s signature, this change has the potential to profoundly reduce homelessness in New York State and provide a lifeline to survivors of abuse who would not be able to escape without housing support. 

The pandemic has taught us that we are only as safe as the most vulnerable among us. It is a

moral and public health imperative that we ensure all New Yorkers have a stable roof overhead

and that we work to stem the homelessness crisis. 

Governor, we applaud your clear-sighted leadership amid the COVID-19 crisis. Now thousands of families urgently need you to help them get the meaningful rent assistance that will enable them to build a safe and healthy life in a home of their own. Sign this bill without delay.

*Note: Even as Mayor de Blasio and Commissioner Banks recently released new regulations for CtiyFHEPS that raise rent levels for the city program, which primarily serves working households who reside in shelters and allows them to renew assistance if they earn up to 80% of AMI, the changes we seek to the state program would prevent homelessness entirely for families fleeing domestic violence and parents with children facing eviction who receive public assistance. The state can and must step up to do its part to ensure that these families, who are not eligible for the city program, can achieve housing stability and avoid homelessness.

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Catherine Trapani is the Executive Director of Homeless Services United. Liz Roberts is CEO of Safe Horizon. On Twitter @HSUNYC and @LizRobertsSH.

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Exercising Mental Fitness as We Move Forward with Our Covid Recovery


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New York City (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


In Southern California, three generations of a family gathered their separate households under one roof to weather the pandemic -- and liked it so much they decided to make it permanent. On the Upper West Side of Manhattan, students organized to buy groceries and essentials for the housebound. And as the virus surged, a nationwide Brides’ magazine survey of engaged couples showed that 82% found the pandemic only made them keener to wed.

COVID-19, this nation’s deadliest pandemic, has taken the lives of over 700,000 Americans and about 4.5 million people worldwide. Everyone has been through some struggle – illness, grief over unimaginable loss, or the miasma of uncertainty about jobs, education, and daily routines. Amid tragedy and challenges, though, people have shown remarkable kindness. They have also forged new bonds, gained fresh insights into what it means to be there for others, and re-examined life priorities. 

A Pew research survey of what it called the pandemic’s silver linings and struggles showed the clarity that came from being thrown together or living apart from loved ones and friends, and losing the underpinnings of everyday life, from office work to entertainment. The renowned economist Paul Krugman has even theorized that workers are quitting jobs at record rates in part because the pandemic has made them rethink their lives. 

As we negotiate re-entry into work, school, socializing, and public spaces, plenty of us are dusting off that saying attributed to Winston Churchill: never let a good crisis go to waste. As an advocate for mental wellbeing, I do indeed believe that we can use these difficult days to foster personal growth and improve mental fitness.

By mental fitness I mean not just getting by or holding on. Rather, I define mental fitness as actively taking steps to achieve and maintain a state of wellbeing. Wellbeing means being more intentional: naming what we think, feel, and believe, and managing our emotions and behavior. We will all have ups and downs, but the more mentally fit we are, the more likely we are to weather a major life crisis or even a global pandemic.

Our level of mental fitness indicates whether we are able to draw on coping strategies that do not involve substance misuse, withdrawal, or hurting ourselves or others. The same way we work on toning our arms and legs and increasing our strength, we can learn exercises and practice skills that help us maintain mental fitness.   

Here in New York City, in mid-August we launched Mental Health for All, the first-ever comprehensive website and public education campaign to connect New Yorkers to mental health resources. This fall, we set out to make certain that our more than 300,000 city employees know that their city is here for them as we muster through this landscape of booster shots, break-through cases, and return to full-time in the office. 

There are many apps and online tools to manage health and wellbeing, including this app library assembled by our city that can be used by anyone. It includes “Happify,” which uses evidence-based, game-like tools.

What are some steps anyone can take? Establish daily wellness practices: exercise, connect with friends, journal, practice yoga or meditation. 

If you have a family, sticking to a routine and regularly scheduled “family meetings” to discuss problems and feelings can go a long way. Ascertain what you can control when a crisis strikes. Ask your children (and yourself) what you are feeling, why you feel that way, and what can you do to manage the feeling in a healthy way. 

Children, especially, ask questions that are profound in their simplicity: why did grandma die? How do I know that covid will not get me? What do I do when I feel afraid or angry?

As a big proponent of social emotional learning (SEL), I urge parents to practice SEL skills at home. SEL is a proven educational approach used in schools nationwide, including New York City. Students learn to identify their emotions, manage feelings, build relationships, and resolve conflicts. Those skills improve behavior and academic success and can be used in every area of life. 

We can model SEL skills for our children and other young people. It can be as simple as saying, “I am feeling sad today, so I plan to listen to some of my favorite music and then go for a run.”  

While I encourage everyone to reach out for professional help when problems are overwhelming or they cannot function, let us remember that we need not wait until we need help to focus on our mental health. Good mental health is always important. 

This pandemic has no clear ending, but we do not have to put our lives on hold. We have the power to get our hearts and minds in better shape and keep on growing.

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Chirlane McCray is the First Lady of New York City. On Twitter @NYCFirstLady.

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Latino Vote '21: A Closer Look at the 2021 Democratic Primary


Gotham Gazette New York City Latinos and the 2021 Democratic Primary: A Closer Look

Voting (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


Four years ago I participated in a forum on the theme of Latino politics and voting participation in New York hosted by the Rev. Ray Rivera of the Latino Pastoral Action Center in the Bronx. The forum was based largely on two columns I had recently written here at Gotham Gazette — “Latinos and the 2017 New York City Elections” and “The Future of Latino Politics in New York City.”

I was the new kid on the block, the “new” Latino political analyst thrust on this panel with two legendary figures: the late Angelo Falcon, the first Puerto Rican political analyst to grace our city, and Juan Cartagena, another pivotal leader and the past head of the renowned LatinoJustice.

I came armed with the most up-to-date political data and the analytical tools gained from years of employing political targeting methods. I came gleeful about the future of Latino politics in New York: Latinos could no longer be taken for granted or ignored. The moment we had predicted decades earlier, of increased Latino electoral participation and increased power, was right around the corner. The sleeping giant had finally awakened.

Falcon, a seasoned observer who had studied Latino voting patterns and trends since I was in elementary school, gently and diplomatically put me in my place. “I am not as optimistic about the future of Latino politics as my colleague Eli,” he said.

Falcon was right.

Looking back at this most recent primary in New York City, the consequential June 2021 elections, armed with more data and perspective, it’s true that:

The primary attracted the second highest Latino voter turnout rate in any primary in New York City.

This was the largest overall Latino voter turnout in a municipal election.

Latinos were a pivotal voting bloc for Eric Adams’ primary victory, with, for example, the Brooklyn borough president garnering close to 50% of the vote in the highest Latino election districts in the Bronx despite the very crowded and competitive field of candidates.

But that’s where the good ends and Falcon’s past skepticism comes in. My projection that Latinos would make up close to a quarter of the Democratic primary electorate fell well short. True, Latinos compose a quarter of all registered Democratic voters (a total of 3,444,859 Democrats) in New York City, but Latinos were only 15% of the roughly 935,294 Democratic voters in that June primary.

In the June 2020 and September 2018 primaries, Latinos made up a little over 20% of the Democratic electorate. These were potential signs of an awakened Latino electorate. But my hopes for this potential came crashing down this year.

More troubling is the fact that only 17% of the 864,511 registered Democratic Latino voters in New York City went to the polls this past June. The Bronx has the highest number of Latino Democratic voters with 283,573 but had the lowest turnout rate, 14%, among Latinos in all the boroughs.

Meanwhile, 20% of Manhattan Latinos went to the polls, the highest among Latinos in all boroughs, and 17% of Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island Latinos went to the polls.

Though this incoming City Council class will have the highest number of Latino representatives at 14 of the 51-seat legislative body, Latinos could have potentially won at least two more seats (in districts 25 and 32) had more Latinos voted. Could a higher turnout among Latinos also have kept a Latino helming Borough Hall in the Bronx, the only borough in the city that is majority Latino? Perhaps.

The biggest hindrance for Latino political representation and power in New York City are Latinos themselves.

What can Latino political and community leaders do about this? Let’s begin by taking opportunities like the annual November SOMOS conference in Puerto Rico to strategize how to mobilize Latino voters across the city.

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Eli Valentin is an adjunct lecturer at Union Theological Seminary. He writes regular columns for Gotham Gazette, largely focused on Latino politics in New York City, and is a frequent guest political analyst at Univision NY. On Twitter @EliValentinNY.

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The Big, Bold Idea of Smaller Class Sizes


Gotham Gazette The Big, Bold Idea of Smaller Class Sizes

Students (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


This week, the City Council heard debate about a bill that would require the New York City Department of Education to cap how many people it can squeeze into our classrooms. The purpose is to ensure better ventilation and reduce the possibility of viral spread — a health safeguard in the era of COVID-19.

The end result would be fewer students in each classroom — a reduction in class size that New York City students, families, and educators have been promised for years.

The DOE doesn’t want to do it. Officials spent the first three hours of the City Council hearing explaining why New York City can’t possibly make this happen.

Brooklyn Council Member Mark Treyger, chair of the education committee and a former high school teacher, noted that the DOE is capable of doing big things — like creating pre-K and 3-K grades — when it wants to.

“Why are we not applying the same big thinking, bold ideas, ambitious energy, towards the issue of class size reduction?” Treyger asked.

Good question!

I have been a teacher in the South Bronx for 18 years. I speak from experience when I say my students receive better instruction when classes are smaller.

Teaching is a profession that requires more than just a quick data touchpoint for success.  Understanding your students is more than the answer on a multiple-choice test.  

I can think of a time when one of my students came in and clearly wasn't his normal self. It was a small class, so after I finished teaching, it was much easier to take a moment to speak with him one-on-one. It was in that exchange that he shared what was happening to his family, and I was able to get them the individualized support they needed to make sure they had enough food on the table and a safe place to sleep. When that was done, the child could better focus on what was going on in class.  

If there had been just one or two more students in the room, I cannot guarantee I would have had the ability to have that conversation. In the end, having a smaller class that year helped more than just my students' academics — it helped a family get the services it needed. This is just one example of how smaller classes allow for individualized attention.

New York City classes are larger than the classes in surrounding communities. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the average class size for an elementary school classroom is just 20 students. Yet New York City Department of Education lawyers would cram 28 students in a kindergarten classroom, and up to 32 in grades 1-5.

Middle school and high school classes are more overcrowded. The statewide average for middle school is just 17, while in New York City, our classrooms are packed with up to 33 students. In high schools, statewide the average is 22, while the DOE lawyers would have our students in classes of 34.

And the DOE lawyers and some politicians have proposed even larger class sizes going forward, sometimes claiming there could be as many as 400 students in the same online class using technology.

So why do the districts that are outperforming city schools invest in smaller class sizes? Well, if you have 45-minute periods five days a week with 30 students in the class, you do the math. Fewer students means more individualized attention.

Research across the country has shown that the number of students in a class impacts the quality of education a student receives. Smaller class sizes directly correlate with increased student performance and everyone can have a better school experience.

What DOE officials don’t seem to understand is that our students are more than just test scores and data points. They are more than just an expenditure to be reduced. They are humans who deserve a quality education.  

The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) has been the driving force behind reducing class sizes and increasing all students' access to a quality education. In 1964, the union forwent raises in order to get contractual class-size caps. These caps were designed to give each and every student in the New York City public schools the foundation for success. It was an agreement between the city and the UFT with the well-being of students at its heart. Before these class-size caps were in place, classes could balloon to more than 40 children with one teacher.

But we need more. We need the City Council’s proposed legislation, especially in a time when the health and safety of our city’s children rely on the ability to socially distance in a classroom.

This legislation would raise the minimum per person classroom space to 35-square-feet per student from the current 20-square-feet for grades 1–12. Pre-K and kindergarten classes already have a 35-square-foot standard.

Under the new guidelines, the maximum number of students in a 500-square-foot classroom would be 14; in a 750-square-foot room, the total would be 21, bringing the city in line with the levels of safe staffing that the rest of New York State has already recognized.

The DOE would have three school years to implement these changes. The Independent Budget Office estimated that 58% of the city’s schools could implement the change immediately. In other schools, it would obviously take time and an investment in building or leasing additional space. Other tools can also be used.

 As Council Member Treyger stressed: the DOE can take on big jobs when it has to.

We need the City Council to pass this legislation. We have waited many years for a series of mayors and schools chancellors to make good on the promise of smaller class sizes. We cannot wait for an administration with a moral compass to do the right thing.

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Bill Woodruff has been teaching in the South Bronx for 18 years. In addition, he serves as the District 7 Representative for the United Federation of Teachers and is a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Rewriting the History of 2020 Crime


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NYPD Commissioner Shea & Mayor de Blasio (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


We’re seeing history rewritten before our eyes, the heartbreaking death toll of 2020 turned into another political talking point. This time, it’s not COVID-19 fatalities, but the grotesque murders and other violent crimes that impacted so many last year. But while those crimes are all too painfully real, the narrative around this once-in-a-lifetime crime spike is completely fake, and it’s an insult to the memory of those we lost.

Even before this alarmism took center stage at the New York City mayoral debate, we saw it on the front page. When the FBI released its 2020 crime statistics, a cavalcade of alarmist commentators took to the air, peddling police propaganda to explain the murder spike. It’s true that there is a real spike: unprecedented gun sales and record socio-economic instability from COVID-19 pushed murder rates in nearly every city and town up, way up.

But that’s where many commentators go off the rail. It wasn’t just conservative voices like The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board channeling fringe theories that blame the crime increase on Black Lives Matter protesters, but those baseless claims were even published in the The New York Times. In Vox, headlines ran claiming “Murders are spiking. Police should be part of the solution,” while the Washington Post opinion section rejoined, “What’s to blame for the murder spike? Certainly anti-police fervor didn’t help.” 

But if you’re hoping for concrete evidence, something proving that the once-in-a-generation revolt against police murders was perversely responsible for a crime spike, you’d be left wanting. There’s nothing, and even though every freshman stats student knows that “correlation doesn’t prove causation,” that simply because events happen at the same time, they aren’t necessarily connected, that’s what the entire argument comes down to.

But the pseudoscience gets even worse. A panoply of police pundits, editorial boards, and city officials have promoted police disinformation, including equally baseless attacks on basic civil rights protections like bail reform. It is not an exaggeration to label this truly disinformation, and it can be deadly. These baseless bail claims have led to a reactionary rejection of pre-trial release for thousands of Americans, forcing thousands to endure appalling and unsanitary conditions in the middle of a pandemic, effectively sentencing some to death for a minor infraction and the ultimate American comorbidity: poverty.

But while we may only recently have received the 2020 data from the FBI, we already have data from individual cities like New York. And here the takeaway is clear: the crime wave crested and receded. Murders were down in August nearly 10% from a year before, and shootings more than 30% lower. But the broader picture is even better.

According to the NYPD, “the number of overall index crimes reported in the city through the end of August is the lowest tally for the first eight months of any calendar year since the start of the modern CompStat era nearly three decades ago.” The Oakland and Chicago Police Departments have both reported a 7% decline in overall crime between 2020 and 2021. The Hartford Police Department reports a 14% decline in overall crime during the same time period. The numbers remain higher than in 2019, as does the lingering impact of the pandemic, but the downward trajectory is clear.

One cannot look at crime data without acknowledging that it is not objective, it is not foolproof, and it certainly isn’t apolitical. Officers and police leadership wield tremendous power to shape our official crime data, and the political narrative that flows from it. Some types of crime, such as homicide, are harder to manipulate, but others can be readily reclassified. With a few edits, a felony burglary is reclassified as misdemeanor trespassing. Simple assault can be classified as armed robbery. And so on.

Whatever the reality of pandemic era policing, we know that the truth may not always show up on paper. But all too often we take FBI data as gospel, as objective, the true federal measure of crime in America. It’s nothing of the sort. And NYPD data can be even more of a political cudgel, with facts selectively collected and reported to support the NYPD’s narrative of the day.

By amassing crime reports from thousands of police agencies across the country, with almost no quality control for what those jurisdictions report, the FBI is able to compile what statisticians would technically call a giant mess. Of course, that data can be valuable, along with records at the state and local levels, but it’s also profoundly flawed. More importantly, the police departments that often offer the initial interpretation of what those statistics mean are truly ill-equipped experts for the tasks. Not only do they have an irresolvable conflict of interest on how crime data is reported, but they frequently don’t have the sociological tools needed to meaningfully address the true drivers of crime. 

Since crime data is our main measure of whether the police are doing a “good job,” every officer, precinct commander, and commissioner has incentives to massage the metrics by which they are measured. It’s a tension so well known that it even became a major plot line of the seminal policing show The Wire, as police leaders faced pressure to “Juke The Stats” and change the crime rates reported in their neighborhoods.

Even worse, many departments have zero credibility on this public policy debate. We heard throughout the pandemic that civil rights protections like bail reform were responsible for rising crime, for example when New York City Police Commissioner Dermot Shea wrote a New York Times opinion piece entitled “New York’s New Bail Laws Harm Public Safety,” only to see the claim evaporate when arrest data was examined, and the public could see just how rarely serious crimes were committed by those awaiting trial. Shea recently had to acknowledge his lies at a state legislative hearing.

Last year’s murder rate disrupted years of work; the generational change needed to dismantle mass incarceration. But now that the worst of the crisis is behind us, we can’t let the history of this moment be rewritten. We can’t let the police narrative take center stage. And we can’t treat it as an open question just what drove the recent murder spike. To be as blunt as possible: It was the pandemic, stupid.

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Albert Fox Cahn is the founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.), a New York–based civil rights and privacy group, and a visiting fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project. Nina Loshkajian is a D.A.T.A. Law Fellow at S.T.O.P. and a graduate of New York University School of Law. On Twitter @FoxCahn and @ninaloshkajian.

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The Micromobility Revolution Can Work For Everyone; Here’s How


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E-Scooters (photo: NYC DOT)


There’s a revolution going on in the streets of American cities. And it’s driving lots of people crazy.

From coast to coast, in cities large and small, we’re seeing an explosion of new types of electric-powered vehicles. There are e-bikes, of course, including cargo bikes. But there are also electric scooters, electric mopeds, electric skateboards, even electric unicycles. All of these micromobility devices — so called because they are smaller than the humans riding them — represent an exciting new frontier in urban transportation. There are more new vehicles coming to the streets near you very soon, including a variety of electric cargo-delivery bikes and even small, low-speed autonomous vehicles that could be used as taxis or for deliveries. 

Clean, quiet, and lightweight, these innovations provide individual users and businesses with the flexibility and freedom of a personal vehicle without subjecting everybody else to the noise and fumes of internal combustion engines. They will be instrumental in meeting the carbon-reduction goals we will all need to embrace in coming years. They also put a lot less wear and tear on our streets and combine easily with public transit, gracefully solving the “last mile problem” that persists in communities around the country.

The only issue is that we don’t really have anywhere for them to go.

E-scooters, e-skateboards, and the like shouldn’t be on sidewalks, where they inconvenience and endanger pedestrians. They also shouldn’t be jockeying for position with trucks, buses, SUVs, and cars in conventional traffic lanes, where their operators are at risk of injury or even death. The obvious place for them to operate is bike lanes — except that the bike lanes we have are too narrow, too unprotected, and too fragmented to make a real transportation network. People who ride traditional bikes are understandably skeptical and nervous about sharing the scant resources they have with vehicles that have electric motors and can travel at higher speeds.

There’s an opportunity here, however, for cities and vehicle manufacturers to partner in creating new facilities that would accommodate a host of small, nimble vehicles, both innovative and traditional. Let’s call them New Mobility Lanes.

New Mobility Lanes would be expanded and enhanced versions of existing bike lanes, designed to accommodate multiple types of relatively slow (10 to 15 miles per hour), lightweight vehicles, including conventional bicycles. Such lanes would be 10 or 11 feet wide, ample to permit safe passing, and protected by physical barriers from incursions by prohibited vehicles. They should extend throughout the city in a robust network that takes users where they want and need to go. 

In order for these new lanes to be safe and pleasant for a wide range of users, the types of vehicles that can enter should be regulated. Cities could require limits on heights, weights, and widths; safety features to reduce the risk of collisions with cyclists and pedestrians; and automated data feeds that would monitor and fine illegal maneuvers. Most importantly, so that e-vehicles mix well with conventional bikes, local authorities could mandate speed regulators to ensure that vehicles with electric motors never go faster than, say, 10 to 15 miles per hour. (That limit might frustrate individual users, but any faster would be unsafe in this context, and the resulting order would pay off for everyone in the end.) Geofencing could prevent e-vehicles from driving on the sidewalk. Cities could also determine how much noise such vehicles could make, and require them to be zero-emission. 

By expanding the capacity of what have been simply “bike lanes” up until now and building out  comprehensive networks of New Mobility Lanes, cities could enlist new constituencies in advocating for their implementation. Drivers understand that trucks are a significant aspect of congestion, so the prospect of moving cargo into small vehicles in a separate lane may appeal to them. Although e-scooters are too new to offer really good data, there is evidence from other cities that they replace car and taxi trips more than they replace cycling trips, suggesting they may draw in yet more users for the new lanes. And the prospect of enclosed, powered, slow-speed vehicles in those lanes could expand their appeal to include many who would never consider themselves cyclists.

In fact, the biggest value of New Mobility Lanes might actually be that they would create a template for the new class of autonomous vehicles that is already coming into being. If AVs are designed to operate on regular streets, cities will have little control over them. But building a widespread network of low-speed lanes with strict specifications on what kind of vehicles can use them would incentivize AV manufacturers to conform to those standards. The result would be mobility innovations that are designed for steady, slow movement rather than speeding and stopping — human-friendly vehicles built to move with the city, not against it.

***
Rohit T. Aggarwala is senior urban tech fellow at Cornell Tech’s Urban Tech Hub. On Twitter @Rit_Aggarwala.

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My Struggle with Breast Cancer Made Me a Better Candidate


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Lynn Schulman, right, the author (photo: Schulman 2021)


Last October, I got scary news. It was during an annual screening (and ironically, during Breast Cancer Awareness Month). At first, I was told there was a suspicious spot and it was probably nothing.

But subsequent tests and procedures revealed that the spot was actually a small, malignant tumor.

I was stunned.

But still, I wasn’t about to let a diagnosis derail my dream of serving my community as an elected official. As any woman will tell you, our success often means keeping our health concerns private — to suffer in silence — so that men do not think we aren’t up for whatever job we pursue. 

Breast cancer merged my professional work with my personal life. For decades, I fought to bring health care equity and access to all New Yorkers. That’s been true from my time as an AIDS activist to my recent position on the City Council staff where I have focused on health policy.

And now, as a City Council candidate, health care has been the central focus of my campaign. 

I had successful surgery and subsequent radiation treatment, and kept working and campaigning. I am now happy to share that I’m cancer free and just passed my six-month check-up with flying colors.

All things considered, I was lucky because I had health insurance. I was able to get an annual screening and access to treatment from great health-care professionals at every level.

During the COVID-19 era, many women were not as fortunate, pushed to the side as the pandemic overtook our public health resources.

Mammograms were down around 84-90% at the height of the pandemic. Then, when women eventually were able to get their screenings as services were restored, several found out the bill was exorbitant instead of free as it is supposed to be under the Affordable Care Act. 

Additionally, during my many medical visits, other breast cancer patients shared that their surgeries were considered elective — meaning they were delayed because of covid protocols.  As a result, these poor women were given medications to keep their tumors at bay until their surgeries became more accessible.

Like many women with my type of breast cancer diagnosis, I have to take an aromatase inhibitor, a pill the size of a pin, every day for the next five years, to prevent the cancer from returning. The medication has several side effects, some short-term and some long-term.  

For me, they are tolerable. But for a lot of women, the side effects are severe, and many of them choose to risk the possibility of getting cancer rather than alter their quality of life. Not having more treatment options is another deficiency of our health-care system, where money is invested in research that is lucrative, not necessarily life-affirming.

We can’t be caught again in a position where women’s health takes a back seat. That means transforming the citywide health system that makes my experience the one that every woman should expect and have the right to. We need a health-care system that provides equal treatment, especially for women, regardless of who they are or where they live.

Fortunately, the next New York City Council is well-positioned to tackle these issues. In January, the first majority-female Council in history will be sworn in. 

It will be incumbent on all of the women Council members to lead and to leverage the unique opportunity we will have as a majority to advance the trajectory of women’s health care — and for our male colleagues to join us. Our health is part and parcel with our city’s ability to thrive. 

COVID-19 revealed the serious racial and economic inequities in our city’s health-care system and how isolating the system can be, especially during a pandemic. Our goal must be to make sure each of our city’s neighborhoods have the appropriate health-care and mental health facilities. 

So while battling breast cancer wasn’t part of my plan, it was another stark reminder of the constant struggles many women face and what city government should be doing to make our lives better. Life here is already difficult, access to quality health care shouldn’t be an added burden.

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Lynn Schulman is the Democratic nominee for the New York City Council in Queens’ District 29. On Twitter @Schulman2021.

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How New York City Ended Mass Incarceration for 30 Days and Could Do It Again


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Mayor de Blasio on Rikers Island (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


Just over a year ago, the city of New York did something special, a monumental achievement not seen since the end of World War II. In May of 2020, for the first time since 1946, the average daily population (ADP) of city jails dropped below 4,000.

A combination that included the plan toward a reduced-capacity borough-based jail system, significant bail reform taking accused people’s ability to pay into account, and transitional housing facilities like the ones we at Exodus set up in empty hotels across the boroughs to process people as they were released from city jails, came together to achieve what Mayor Bill de Blasio had just two years earlier said was “noble” but untenable.

This was great news for New Yorkers. Unfortunately, just a month later the population at Rikers Island began creeping up again and now, a year later, swelled to 5,574 people as of October 5.

This is not, like some media and organizations say, due to rising crime - it’s a directly traceable result of a shift away from the policies that made closing Rikers a possibility, back to the policies that in one year have brought Rikers Island to the humanitarian crisis it currently is. After backlash to bail reform by conservative politicians and media, some of the reform measures were rolled back in June 2020 and judges and district attorneys began again detaining people pre-trial indefinitely on Rikers Island. As people and organizations from some communities expressed displeasure at the idea of a correctional facility possibly being built near their neighborhood, the borough-based plan for closing Rikers Island experienced its own backlash. And transitional communities like ours at Exodus continued working with the people who’ve been released while struggling to get the city to commit to issuing vouchers to make it possible for our people to secure permanent housing.

This is all to say, we need to stop, rest, and reassess. New York City was able to significantly reduce the jail population through making serious investments in expanding supervised release, housing, and other alternatives to incarceration that protected vulnerable New Yorkers at the peak of the COVID-19 crisis. With the current crisis in city jails claiming the lives of 14 of our neighbors this year alone, we must renew and increase our investments in these critical programs and the providers who care for our communities. 

Two absolute necessities to reclaim our communities are: to have a robust investment in alternatives to detention (ATD’s) and to shift the Department of Correction’s investment toward more programs inside the city correctional facilities, which are sorely needed after 18 months of not being allowed on Rikers Island because of the pandemic.

ATDs provide a higher level of services to people to stabilize their lives and ensure they show up to their court date while diverting them from pretrial detention. Examples of this include Fountain House, which provides services, employment, and educational programs to people living with Serious Mental Illness (SMI). Fountain House reports to have a less than 5% recidivism rate for participants with a history of incarceration and justice involvement.

Over 80% of the women on Rikers Island have a Brad H. designation, meaning they have mental health diagnoses requiring the city to provide special discharge planning services to them. There are still so many women on Rikers Island that we have the resources to provide for outside of jails (or the state prisons where they may be moved temporarily).

Judges must actively start moving to release these people and allow our communities to support this. Exodus recently opened its seventh hotel, located in Downtown Brooklyn, to provide housing for justice-involved New Yorkers, supporting both city and state reentry efforts. The primary goal of community-based hotel housing like ours is to prepare people to transition into permanent housing, challenge discriminatory housing policies, and support impacted communities. We are doing our part in this community task.

Current city Correction Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi has, since assuming the role this summer, made a priority of bringing back educational, vocational, and therapeutic programming to Rikers, fast-tracking the process of obtaining and renewing IDs and working with organizations and coalitions that had a presence there before the pandemic. In the past two months, Exodus staff have been able to navigate services on Rikers Island to ensure people we work with who are being presented for court have access to care packages including essential items they have been denied for much of the past year, such as toilet paper, masks, and hand sanitizer.

We found the way, for those 30 days in April 2020, toward closing Rikers and a post-Rikers way of doing justice and healing communities. Since then we’ve lost our way, and our neighbors are dying in a penal colony that most of us agree should be part of our dark history, not our present. Here are some urgent actions the city must take if we are to find our way back:

Continue to support the Commission on Community Reinvestment established by Local Law 193, and adhere to their recommendations, including baselining in the city budget funding to convene and support the commission through 2027. The Commission on Community Reinvestment was established as a part of the Close Rikers plan but experienced delays because of COVID-19. As of August 2021, the commission had hosted its first town hall and established four subcommittees, led by directly impacted advocates & service providers.

Reduce the DOC workforce to free up to $1 billion per year for community investment to prevent incarceration. This would also allow the Mayor’s Office to shift the administration of services and programming for people in custody away from DOC’s authority to community service providers.

Take steps to proactively meet mental health needs, including stable housing, to prevent people from interacting with the criminal justice system. And support them with permanent housing solutions.

People incarcerated on Rikers Island are our mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, cousins, and neighbors. They are our community. And, as a society, we can and must do much better for our loved ones. We can decarcerate to under 4,000 people again and go even further.

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Kandra Clark is Vice President of Policy and Strategy at Exodus Transitional Community. She oversees Exodus’s policy and advocacy efforts, including supporting the closure of Rikers Island and the transformation of our justice system. On Twitter @KandraClark17 & @etcnyorg.

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