PA Williams calls for collaboration over criminalization and joint safety efforts
Williams recounts the case of a pregnant woman who gave birth in handcuffs after being taken into custody, argues arrests alone cannot solve inequities, and calls for joint efforts between NYPD and community safety organizations beyond gun violence.
Officers have discretion to issue people summonses instead of taking them into custody, but there are many cases we have seen where they are not using it.
In May, a pregnant woman was taken into custody for drug possession and trespassing and ended up giving birth in a courtroom.
Witnesses stated that they gave birth in handcuffs, which is obviously unacceptable.
Though it's important for people to not only be safe, but to feel safe, we cannot just simply try to punish our way up to safety.
We know arrests alone do not solve long and transient inequities.
How the department approaches collaboration has a direct impact on our ability to achieve a citywide level of safety that we can all be proud of.
I do believe what we're doing on gun violence is a joint effort.
We're seeing a lot of fruits there.
I'd love to see some kind of joint efforts on the other things as well.
And I'm hoping we don't hear about bail and raised age because there are other counties that actually see declines are using the same laws.
And there are other spaces in the country that have even seen larger declines with similar laws.
So I'm looking forward to a robust conversation.
Thank you again.