NYC Budget Justice

The Root Institute 2021: Defund, Abolish or Reform? What to Do About Police and Prisons

09/21/2021
The Root

Say what you want, but here’s what we know to be true: the current state of over-policing in our communities combined with the prison industrial complex have created an existential crisis that needs to be sorted out, sorted through and resolved. The two women Michael Harriot spoke with in this episode of The Root Institute are unapologetic about their stances on this subject.

People Are Mad as Hell About the NYPD’s Plan to Hire ‘Precinct Greeters’

“We are trying to defund you people. Stop coming up with fake jobs. Learn how to talk to people like decent human beings.”
10/07/2021
Vice

NYPD brass and Mayor Bill de Blasio announced last week that they’re taking a page out of the Walmart playbook: hiring brand-new “greeters” at all 77 police precincts in the city, who will have the sole responsibility of welcoming people and guiding them to the right offices and officers for the services or paperwork they need.

CPR Members Testify at Sept. '21 City Council Hearing on Reducing The Responsibilities of The NYPD

Monday, September 27, 2021 – CPR members testified at the New York City Council Oversight Hearing of the Committee on Public Safety to examine reducing the responsibilities of the NYPD and related policies and practices. Among those that testified were representatives from the NYPD, District Attorneys, public defender offices, advocates, and members of the public.

CPR staff and CPR member testimony at the hearing which included advocates, legal experts, and directly impacted communities called for: 

‘Our Message Is Clear: Defund the Police, Invest in Our Communities’

Activists and community members gathered over the weekend to unveil five new community murals advocating the defunding of the NYPD
06/08/2021
BK Reader

Carl Stubbs put it simply: “I wonder what my life would be like if the money used to arrest me and lock me up was instead used to support my education and help me get a job?”

Stubbs, who has been affected by and fighting mass incarceration “my whole life,” posed the rhetorical question over the weekend to a crowd gathered for the unveiling of five community murals demanding a defunding of the NYPD.

First arrested at age 12, Stubbs said he spent the next 20 years “going in and out of jail, mostly committing crimes because I couldn’t find a job.”