NYC Mayor’s Race: How each candidate plans to approach policing and crime

In a heated race for City Hall, the packed field of candidates is all over the map in their varying approaches to policing.

Frontrunner and Democratic nominee Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani (D-Queens) has faced criticism for his previous support of efforts to defund the police, while former Gov. Andrew Cuomo has called for more NYPD officers to be hired — and Mayor Eric Adams has defended the work of his administration’s NYPD, led by Commissioner Jessica Tisch.

A survey published earlier this year by the Citizens’ Budget Commission found that though feelings of safety among New Yorkers have climbed since 2023, they remain lower than pre-pandemic levels. Crime rates have dropped significantly since the pandemic, yet feelings of unease remain, according to the survey, especially among residents of the Bronx and Black and Hispanic New Yorkers.

As public safety proves to be a top issue in the election and the political environment heats up in the wake of July’s devastating Midtown mass shooting, here is a rundown of where each major mayoral candidate stands on policing and the role of the NYPD.

Zohran Mamdani

Having made previous calls to “#DefundTheNYPD” in 2020, Mamdani has since backed away from his strong stance against the NYPD and policing more broadly. In the wake of the July 28 shooting in a Midtown office building, he said that such previous comments are “out of step” with his current mayoral bid.

“To be very clear, as I have been over the course of this campaign, I’m not defunding the police, I’m not running to defund the police,” Mamdani said on July 30 at his first public appearance since the shooting.

Mamdani said at the conference that he is in favor of dismantling the Strategic Response Group, the NYPD’s counterterrorism and protest response group formed in 2015. The SRG has been frequently deployed in response to mass protests in recent years and has faced criticism for its “violent” and “militarized” response methods.

“There is a need to ensure that every act we take is one that is actually delivering public safety,” Mamdani said at the July 28 conference. “And what we see right now, especially with regards to how we respond to protest, is not in line with that.”

Mamdani has been outspoken in his criticism of the NYPD, but has softened his stance over time. Photo by Lloyd Mitchell

Mamdani said at a Tuesday National Night Out Against Crime event in Brooklyn that, if he were elected mayor, he would work to end the NYPD practice of responding to mental health calls. Flanked by police officers, he said the city “must stop asking them to respond to nearly every single failure of the social safety net.”

The democratic socialist’s platform includes creating a “Department of Community Safety” to “prevent violence before it happens by prioritizing solutions which have been consistently shown to improve safety.” Mamdani hopes that by prioritizing the root causes of crime rather than focusing too heavily on enforcement, the city can more effectively reduce crime.

As mayor, Mamdani wants to “invest in citywide mental health programs and crisis response—including deploying dedicated outreach workers in 100 subway stations, providing medical services in vacant commercial units, and increasing Transit Ambassadors to assist New Yorkers on their journeys—expand evidence-based gun violence prevention programs, and increase funding to hate violence prevention programs by 800%.”

Though Mamdani continues to criticize Adams’ NYPD, if he were elected mayor, he said he would consider keeping Tisch, Adams’ pick for commissioner, in her current role.

Andrew Cuomo

Since losing the primary, Cuomo has doubled down on criticizing Mamdani’s views on policing.

Cuomo, in apparent opposition to Mamdani’s desire to dismantle the SRG, pitched a public safety vision on Monday that included adding 400 SRG officers to the police force over the course of four years in office.

“They are key to counter-terrorism, key to mass protests,” Cuomo said at the press conference Monday. “It’s only going to get worse, not better.”

In addition to expanding the SRG’s staff capacity, Cuomo hopes to expand its technological capabilities and “expand SRG’s drone and robotics capability for surveillance, bomb threat response, and disaster assessments.” The former governor also wants to provide SRG officers with more “lightweight riot gear and updated tactical vests.”

More broadly, Cuomo hopes to bring 5,000 new NYPD officers to the force, offer bonuses and incentives to officers to “boost morale, increase officer retention, and make the NYPD more competitive with other large city police forces’ salaries,” and crack down on “nuisance and quality of life crimes.”

Cuomo hopes to add thousands more officers to the NYPD force. Photo by Lloyd Mitchell

Cuomo’s campaign platform reads that safety will be the “first priority of the Cuomo Administration.”

Cuomo, seeking to “make the subways safe and to restore rider confidence,” also wants to increase NYPD presence on subway cars and platforms. He plans to crack down on fare evasion “through better infrastructure” and “increase outreach to homeless individuals on subways.”

Though Cuomo seeks to ramp up policing, he has said he is in favor of “precision policing” — a strategy credited to former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton that focuses on “specific crime hotspots and the small percentage of offenders responsible for the majority of crimes.”

“By concentrating resources in a hyper-local, data-driven way, law enforcement can deter criminal activity without over-policing entire communities,” Cuomo’s team wrote in its pitch for precision policing.

Police critics have criticized precision policing, arguing that it is a continuation of stop-and-frisk.

Eric Adams

In his time as mayor, Adams has touted his own prior experience as an NYPD officer, where he was a fierce advocate for Black officers, outspoken against police brutality, and an opponent of stop and frisk. Adams eventually became a captain before leaving the force.

Adams has made public safety a key tenet of his mayoralty, having entered office amid a pandemic-induced spike in crime.

Most recently, Adams has sought to increase public safety communications by partnering with the Citizen app — software that can send push notifications about safety and crime to New Yorkers who join.

The mayor is doubling down on his commitment to quality of life policing, which deploys specially-trained NYPD officers to address non-emergency issues like illegal mopeds and scooters, abandoned vehicles, homeless encampments, outdoor drug use, and persistent noise complaints.

Adams and Tisch have deployed Quality of Life Teams, or Q-Teams, to every NYPD precinct in Brooklyn following a successful pilot program that began in April. The city is planning to fully expand the division to each precinct and housing command across New York City’s five boroughs by Labor Day.

“No police department in America is coming close to what the NYPD is doing on guns under Mayor Adams leadership, not one,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a July press conference about confiscating illegal firearms. Photo by Dean Moses

The teams have drawn criticism from some who think the initiative is a return to stop-and-frisk policing — a concern that Tisch addressed at a press conference in June.

“Yes, we are addressing quality of life issues, but we are doing it for different reasons than we did a generation ago,” Tisch said. “Back then, this kind of enforcement was often used as a pretext to prevent more serious crime, and it was during a time when major crime was 75% higher than it is today. In 2025, this is not about preventing something worse. It’s about improving daily life.”

Stop-and-frisks have surged under the Adams administration, according to published reports. Following the 2020 disbanding of the controversial NYPD Anti-Crime Unit, which deployed plainclothes officers to investigate and stop crime, Adams introduced a new version of the plainclothes team called Neighborhood Safety Teams.

Adams is running his reelection campaign on “record not rhetoric,” seeking to tout his administration’s wins and slighting his competitors aiming to beat the incumbent. His campaign website lists his administration’s “public safety wins,” which include a drop in homicides in 2024, seizure of illegal guns, and the closure of illegal smoke shops.

Curtis Sliwa

Sliwa is running as the Republican nominee and polling in fourth place in most polls — though, by some accounts his popularity beats out that of Adams.

The Republican argues in his campaign platform that New York City is facing a “crisis of crime, lawlessness, and failed leadership.”

“Instead of standing up for victims, politicians have prioritized reckless policies that embolden criminals, tie the hands of law enforcement, and erode public safety,” Sliwa’s website reads.

Curtis Sliwa seeks to expand the NYPD’s police force and operations. Photo by Dean Moses

Sliwa also wants to expand the police force by hiring 7,000 additional cops and reinstate the Anti-Crime Unit and Conditions Teams to “proactively prevent violence.” Sliwa wants to expand the Gang Unit to “dismantle violent street gangs and fight against efforts to eliminate the gang database,” enhance “proactive and intrusive policing strategies to target illegal firearm carriers, repeat offenders, and violent criminals before crimes occur,” and reduce police response times.

The Republican’s exhaustive public safety platform includes initiatives to increase officer retention, increase officer pay, reinstate the Homeless Outreach Unit, reduce recidivism, strengthen narcotics enforcement, and crack down on retail theft. Sliwa has criticized the Adams administration for what he sees as weak law enforcement.