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Q&A

Joseph questions NYPD on youth arrests and school collaboration

New York City Council · Jun 1, 2026 · starts 1:59:44 · 2 min 42 sec

Councilmember Joseph asks about youth arrests for major felonies and collaboration with other agencies. Staff report school arrests are down 4.8% this year, and describe monthly meetings with DOE partners and quarterly advocate meetings.

Rita C. Joseph

Thank you.

Rita C. Joseph

Hi, Commissioner.

Rita C. Joseph

Always good to see you.

Rita C. Joseph

I'm right here.

Linda Lee

Hello.

Rita C. Joseph

Hello.

Rita C. Joseph

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Rita C. Joseph

Youth arrests for major felonies have increased in each of the last fiscal years.

Rita C. Joseph

At the same time, major felony crimes in schools relatively flat over the past year.

Rita C. Joseph

period.

Rita C. Joseph

How can we improve those stats?

Rita C. Joseph

You know how I feel about that.

Rita C. Joseph

And what other agencies and programs can NYPD reach I believe would be great partners?

Jessica Tisch

Hold on, I have two people.

Jessica Tisch

He's explaining to me the first part of your question.

Jessica Tisch

Okay, sorry.

Jessica Tisch

What's the second part of the question?

Rita C. Joseph

How are you working with other agencies to make sure we're bringing down the numbers among young people that we're seeing in these cases?

Jessica Tisch

Alex is going to answer the first part of the question.

Jessica Tisch

After he explained the question, all right.

Unidentified speaker

So I can answer the first part.

Unidentified speaker

Sorry, there's lots of different things going on at once.

Unidentified speaker

All right, so arrests in schools are actually down.

Unidentified speaker

So this year they're down 4.8%.

Unidentified speaker

So we're seeing both less crime and less arrests in schools at the same time.

Rita C. Joseph

But how are you also working in collaboration with schools?

Rita C. Joseph

For example, I knew before there was a division working on school.

Rita C. Joseph

There was a drone for subway surfing.

Rita C. Joseph

We lost a young person at 14 years old to subway surfing.

Rita C. Joseph

The last hearing that I had here with transportation and YPD and New York City Public Schools as interagency, these are conversations that all agencies should be having.

Rita C. Joseph

So where are we on that in terms of collaboration and working?

Rita C. Joseph

On all of things.

Jessica Tisch

Collaboration with DOE.

Jessica Tisch

I hope if you ask them, they will say the same thing.

Jessica Tisch

But from our perspective, the collaboration with DOE specifically has never been better.

Jessica Tisch

I'll let Tanya speak about the work that we're doing with DOE.

Jessica Tisch

And then I want to speak a little bit about the work we're doing with them with Subway Surfing.

Jessica Tisch

Go ahead.

Unidentified speaker

How are you doing?

Rita C. Joseph

I'm good.

Unidentified speaker

So.

Unidentified speaker

We take arrests.

Unidentified speaker

We work with our DOE partners really well.

Jessica Tisch

Oh, you facilitated that whole thing.

Jessica Tisch

You had the first meeting.

Unidentified speaker

Yes.

Unidentified speaker

65% of incidents that occur in schools now are mitigated by DOE.

Unidentified speaker

We meet with our DOE partners on a monthly basis.

Unidentified speaker

We also meet with the advocates on a quarterly basis to try to work with the advocates in DOE to

Unidentified speaker

So we don't have to arrest and have DOE take on more of the incidents.

Rita C. Joseph

So you're working interagency, so you're working with Project Pivot, who's on the ground, which is the cure violence groups they have in schools.

Unidentified speaker

Yes, 351 schools, Project Pivot is it.

Unidentified speaker

We provide support in those schools during the times that Project Pivot is going on.