New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani never quite promised to reform the police.
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Mamdani → promise → police
For the city’s first democratic socialist mayor, changes to criminal policy would have made Mamdani a prime target for conservative backlash.
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Mamdani → make → backlash
It’s a well-worn playbook: He would be blamed for any level of crime in the city.
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He → ’ → city
The mayor and his allies, even among them advocates hoping he’d go further to curb police abuse, understood the threat well.
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he → hop → threat
Still, Mamdani had little trouble during his bombshell campaign convincing leftists that his sweeping vision for a socialist-governed metropolis included criminal policy reforms that would satiate them.
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that → have → them
He promised to eliminate some of the most notorious of the New York Police Department’s institutions — a widely criticized gang database and infamous Strategic Response Group, which responds to protests and whose officers have histories of higher complaint rates.
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officers → promise → rates
Mamdani outlined an ambitious vision to divert police away from responding to mental health crises, proposing an Office of Community Safety.
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Mamdani → outline → Safety
New data on how much the New York City is spending to pay for police misconduct, however, has heightened concerns among advocates that paltry rate of changes to policing under Mamdani could lead to even higher payouts in coming years.
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rate → spend → years
The first six months of the Mamdani administration saw $53 million in police misconduct settlements, according to an analysis of NYPD data by the public defense group Legal Aid Society.
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months → see → group
If the figures continue to grow at that rate under Mamdani, it will make 2026 the fourth year in a row that police misconduct settlements top $100 million.
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settlements → continue → million
The payouts under Mamdani so far cover conduct that took place under his predecessor Eric Adams’s administration, but criminal policy experts worry that, without major changes to policing, the new mayor will put the city on the hook for similar payouts in the future.
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mayor → cover → future
That’s especially true if he maintains an approach to policing that they say is not all that different from the policies he campaigned against.
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he → ’ → policies
“What is concerning is that if we don’t see the kind of shift in tactics away from the kind of NYPD activity that has been driving these misconduct complaints and settlements, we’re going to see these numbers continue to balloon absent a new course from the administration,” said Michael Sisitzky, assistant policy director at the New York Civil Liberties Union.
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Sisitzky → concern → Union
The settlements represent the kinds of abuses of aggressive enforcement of “quality of life” policing and the deployment of specialized units like the Strategic Response Group that characterized the Adams administration, Sisitzky added.
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Sisitzky → represent → administration
“Those have yet to really be reined in under the Mamdani administration,” he said.
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he → have → administration
“So, while he can’t be held directly responsible for all of the numbers reflected in this first tranche of data in terms of settlements payouts, we’re going to continue to see large volumes of complaints being filed, of settlements being reached, unless we see a change in tactics and a shift away from the kind of policing policies that drove these settlements in the first place.
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that → hold → place
Even as Mamdani made campaign promises on policing, he went out of his way not to bash the NYPD or offer too much specificity about addressing the department’s biggest issues.
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he → make → issues
During the election, that didn’t worry too many of his supporters.
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that → worry → supporters
Let him win first, many criminal justice advocates thought — and then they’d see what he could do.
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he → let → what
While, as mayor, Mamdani takes his biggest swings at the city’s billionaire class, the steps he has taken on criminal policy seem tailored to avoiding political pitfalls.
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he → take → pitfalls
Along the way, he has notched small victories.
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he → notch → victories
He made progress on police body cameras and cutting down on low-level cycling offenses.
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He → make → offenses
Pushing to close the jails on Rikers Island, he has opened alternatives to jails and shut down a vacant one.
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he → push → one
Though he ended his pause on sweeps of encampments for the unhoused, he ordered that they be led by homeless service workers.
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they → end → workers
And he installed the first permanent chair of the NYPD’s oversight body in six years.
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he → instal → years
Nine months into Mamdani’s first year in office, however, the NYPD itself has changed little.
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NYPD → change → little
Mamdani’s office declined to comment but provided background information on what it said were his criminal policy accomplishments, including a budget increase for a police oversight board.
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it → decline → board
One of the things reform advocates were mostly able to set aside during Mamdani’s campaign was his pledge to keep on Adams’s police commissioner, Jessica Tisch.
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advocates → set → commissioner
The daughter of a prominent New York family of billionaires, Tisch was first appointed by Adams.
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Tisch → appoint → Adams
With crime rates falling and her tenure at the NYPD winning plaudits from the likes of Donald Trump to the American Enterprise Institute, Mamdani pledged during his campaign to keep her on.
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Mamdani → fall → her
Widely viewed as a political play, the move alarmed many reformers, who voiced criticisms but held out hope that Mamdani’s proposals would at least start a long project of changing policing from the bottom up, despite Tisch’s perch at the top.
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proposals → view → top
With Tisch helming Mamdani’s NYPD, however, reformers’ fears have been borne out.
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fears → helm → NYPD
The department has continued to pursue what Tisch describes as “quality of life” crimes — just the kinds of crime Mamdani campaigned on diverting police away from — and what reform advocates like Sisitzky say is a continuation of the failed “broken windows” policing fads of 1980s and ’90s.
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advocates → continue → 1980s
The strategy’s inherent focus on the most visible issues like panhandling, public urination, and sleeping on the subway effectively criminalizes poverty while letting violent crime and its root causes go largely untouched.
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crime → sleep → poverty
“The main critique is: There’s been a lot of backtracking on promises without any kind of affirmative vision for what policing could look like in his administration,” said Amanda Jack, director of policy for criminal law reform at the Legal Aid Society.
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Jack → backtrack → Society
The NYPD’s focus on those “quality of life” offenses also looks little different from its approach under Adams.
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focus → look → Adams
Data from the NYPD’s first quarter under Mamdani “was a continuation of broken windows policing, and, in some cases, an expansion,” Sisitzky said.
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Sisitzky → break → cases
During his four years in office, Adams oversaw a surge in enforcement of low-level offenses.
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Adams → oversee → offenses
Mamdani’s first quarter in office saw more criminal summonses in that category than the first quarter of 2025 under Adams, temporarily driven by increased enforcement against people being in a park unauthorized or biking on the sidewalk.
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quarter → see → sidewalk
Toward the end of Mamdani’s first quarter, he announced that the NYPD would stop issuing criminal summonses for minor traffic offenses for cyclists.
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NYPD → announce → cyclists
…and 70 more, not listed.
The Aporia
