The mayor and NYPD officials (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

February 3, 2021 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Balancing Police Reform and Fighting Crime

Richard Aborn of the Citizens Crime Commission of NYC joined the show to discuss police reform and keeping the city safe, including a new set of recommendations from his group.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think -- we're on Twitter @TweetBenMaxand ...

NYPD recruits (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

February 3, 2021 - Max & Murphy Podcast: The Police Reform Movement's Goals for 2021

Kesi Foster of Communities United for Police Reform Action Fund joined the show to discuss what's next for the police reform movement in New York City, especially the next city budget fight and the 2021 city elections.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think -- we're on Twitter @TweetBenMaxand ...

Mayor de Blasio & NYPD officials (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

When Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order in June mandating that localities set blueprints for broad police reform or risk losing state funding, he tasked mayors and other municipal leaders to engage the public and local legislatures in a collaborative reform process. Now, in response to delays and limited communication from Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, the New York City Council has signaled that it will move ahead with its own police reform agenda to meet

Mayor de Blasio with NYPD Commissioner Shea and officers (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

As the 2021 New York City elections unfold, voters will want to hear from candidates for Mayor, City Council, and other offices on a wide variety of issues. In this video brief, hosts Ben Max of Gotham Gazette and Jarrett Murphy of City Limits reset the discussion on policing and other aspects of the criminal justice system, and how it may factor into this year's races:

NYPD officers (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

As the new year begins and the 2021 mayoral primary unfolds, we need to know more about candidates’ plans for police. In 2020, New York City experienced enormous and persistent protests against police brutality, and the Department of Investigation released a report in December

Maya Wiley at her campaign launch (photo: Gotham Gazette)

Democratic mayoral candidate Maya Wiley released her first two detailed policy plans last month, and they focus on two pressing issues in New York City: preventing gun violence and evictions. While shootings and murders spiked in 2020 in New York City, as they did in many other cities across the country, residential evictions would have as well if not for preventative government measures — namely an eviction moratorium, which New York State recently extended through at least April for those who have

Top (l-r): Loree Sutton, Shaun Donovan, Kathryn Garcia, Carlos Menchaca, Eric Adams
Bottom (l-r): Dianne Morales, Scott Stringer, Joycelyn Taylor, Maya Wiley, Zach Iscol

The NYPD’s involvement when responding to mental health crises took center stage at a forum featuring ten of the 2021 Democratic mayoral candidates Thursday night.

The event, which was hosted by Citizen Action of New York, a grassroots nonprofit advocacy group, and a consortium it is part of that seeks to reform mental health and other

Mayo de Blasio & NYPD Commissioner Shea (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

This past Wednesday, December 2, marked one year since Dermot Shea was sworn in as the 44th commissioner of the New York Police Department, the third commissioner to serve in the role under Mayor Bill de Blasio. Shea’s first year in the top-cop job has been tumultuous and punctuated with controversy; a trial by fire in unprecedented times, and he often came up short, as judged by critics on both his left and his right and those simply frustrated by police brutality and rising

google view entrance of tow pound

As a state-imposed deadline approaches for relocating a massive NYPD tow pound at Pier 76 in Manhattan, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration has requested the state waive fines that would be imposed if it fails to complete the task while the city continues to look at alternate sites for towing operations in the borough. The city may even have found a target Manhattan site owned by the state.

In the state budget this year, Governor Andrew Cuomo pushed through a provision that requires the NYPD to vacate its 250,000-square-foot tow

The mayor and top NYPD officials at a community center (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

Over the last several weeks, the New York City Police Department convened and broadcasted eight “police reform and reinvention listening sessions” in response to Governor Cuomo’s June Executive Order 203 requiring local police agencies to develop a plan that “reinvents and modernizes police strategies.” These sessions were a sham.

Arriving on the heels of the Defund NYPD movement, the City is choosing what, when, and how to listen. The call to “Defund the NYPD,” for example,

Jennifer Jones Austin at NYPD headquarters (photo: @FPWA)

October 21, 2020 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Jennifer Jones Austin on Police and Prison Reform

Jennifer Jones Austin, longtime CEO of FPWA, joined the show to discuss FPWA's anti-poverty work and her roles on an NYPD reform commission and as chair of the New York City Board of Correction.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think -- we're on Twitter @TweetBenMaxand ...

NYPD Commissioner Shea, Mayor de Blasio, other police officials (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

As an international non-governmental organization, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports on human rights abuses in every part of the world. Recently, its work brought it to New York City and more specifically, the Bronx. In a newly released report, HRW documented rampant police violence during a summer protest against police brutality, revealing that the NYPD’s

NYPD officers at a precinct (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)

While there's widespread agreement today about the need to change or improve policing in our country, we fall far short of a consensus about the particular reforms needed. Should the changes leave the basic institutions of policing intact or should they be far-reaching? Should we dismantle current law enforcement structures and replace them with new entities? Or more generously fund existing agencies for promoting safety and justice?

Advocates' analysis is that abusive practices, from

Mayor de Blasio & NYPD officers (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

An external study of the NYPD’s neighborhood policing program, which Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYPD leadership have promised for years, has been delayed because of the pandemic, according to the company conducting the review. The results of the study, which is supposed to provide empirical support for one of de Blasio’s signature initiatives that he regularly credits for what he says are improved police-community relations, were originally due in mid-2021 and it’s

NYPD response (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)

The police must stop killing people of color. The police must stop killing people experiencing mental health crises. The police must stop killing people of color experiencing mental health crises. And the police must stop the cover-ups. 

Daniel Prude, a Black man experiencing a mental health crisis, should never have been asphyxiated in the middle of the street on a snowy night, naked, begging and praying for help, held down and “hooded” with a bag over his head by seven Rochester police officers.

State Senator Roxanne Persaud (photo: @SenatorPersaud)

Coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic devastation, crime, particularly gun violence, has increased across New York City, a trend that began even before the coronavirus outbreak but has worsened since. The spike in shootings and murders has been particularly large in sections of Brooklyn. The 19th State Senate District, covering southeastern parts of the borough, including Canarsie, East New York, Brownsville, and

New NYPD officers are sworn in (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

In the wake of the killing of George Floyd and other Black Americans at the hands of law enforcement, the Qualified Immunity Doctrine has come under increased scrutiny from activists and elected officials. Simply put, when applied to police officers, qualified immunity means that officers can rarely be subject to civil lawsuits in their individual capacities over allegations of excessive force, brutality, or other misconduct while on the job. In other words, they

NYPD officers; the department remains under multiple investigations (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayor's Office)

The New York City Department of Investigation (DOI) and Law Department have missed the August 31 benchmark set by Mayor Bill de Blasio to submit a final report in their joint investigation into the NYPD's response to summer protests that broke out in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.

Officers' frequently violent engagement with demonstrators marching against police racism and brutality led to hundreds of allegations

Mayor de Blasio and top NYPD officials (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

In mid-April, Mayor Bill de Blasio took a victory lap as the city’s daily jail population fell below 4,000 for the first time in nearly 75 years. It was a marked drop of almost 1,500 since the city went into lockdown because of the coronavirus pandemic, and was a result of several factors, including measures the mayor took to release hundreds of detainees whose health was at risk. But the jail population has slowly begun to increase, reaching 4,160 on September 1, as the

Mayor de Blasio reviews NYPD video (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

In June, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a new policy for automatically publishing body camera footage within 30 days when police officers kill or seriously injure someone. The step, he said, would give the public more assurances that they would actually see video captured in serious cases of police force, an implicit but often unrealized aim of the transparency program. But more than two months since the policy was implemented, old questions remain about who controls what footage is

Protesters demanded a $1 billion cut to the NYPD budget (photo: @VOCALNewYork)

The New York City Council and Mayor Bill de Blasio crafted an $88.2 billion budget for the current fiscal year in what was one of the most contentious budget negotiations in years, coming amid a pandemic-caused recession and a resurgent racial justice movement that sought to “Defund the NYPD” and redirect some of its massive resources to social services in communities of color. But the budget process showed major divisions in the City Council, where several of the notable ‘yes’ votes on the

Mayor de Blasio & NYPD Commissioner Shea (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

As New York City continues to see an increase in gun violence, concentrated largely in Brooklyn and the Bronx, Mayor Bill de Blasio and his police department have gone with a familiar playbook of shifting resources to hot spots, holding gun buy-backs, and coordinating with community groups that seek to prevent shootings in vulnerable neighborhoods. But as shootings and murders have jumped by especially large numbers amid the pandemic, its resulting mass unemployment, and a

Mayor de Blasio and police officials (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

Stephen Sigmund recently wrote an op-ed published by Gotham Gazette calling on New York’s young progressive activists to tread carefully in their pursuit of radical transformation or abolition of the NYPD, lest these reforms bring forth a repeat of the era of mass violent crime and urban decay that they are a bit too young to remember. I was glad to read this piece, because while I vehemently disagree with its

NYPD officers (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography)

Mayor de Blasio and the NYPD (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)