Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks alongside Gov. Kathy Hochul and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch at One Police Plaza, Jan. 6, 2026.
Photograph by Lloyd Mitchell
Mayor Zohran Mamdani is anticipated to signal an govt order Thursday afternoon creating a brand new Workplace of Group Security — the primary formal step towards fulfilling considered one of his core marketing campaign guarantees, in response to a replica of the order reviewed by New York News.
Mamdani made the creation of a Division of Group Security a central marketing campaign promise, pitching it as a strategy to scale back the town’s reliance on police in responding to psychological well being emergencies and different non-criminal crises. Stress on the administration to maneuver quicker intensified after the Jan. 25 police taking pictures of Jabez Chakraborty, a 22-year-old Queens man whose household had sought assist throughout a psychological well being disaster.
Firstly, Mamdani’s group security company can be an workplace, not a full-fledged division, inside metropolis authorities. Laws can be required to create a group security division; final 12 months, Brooklyn Metropolis Council Member Lincoln Restler launched a invoice to determine a Division of Group Security. A brand new model of that invoice stays beneath overview.
The event was first reported by The New York Instances, which acknowledged that Mamdani pursued the workplace by govt order relatively than attempting to create a full company by laws as a result of a mayoral workplace is less complicated to determine instantly. Efforts to create a everlasting division by the Metropolis Constitution or Metropolis Council laws have been seen by the administration as harder politically and procedurally, in response to the Instances report.
New York News requested a remark from the Mayor’s workplace on the Instances report and is awaiting a response.
Thursday’s govt order from Mamdani would create the Workplace of Group Security throughout the Mayor’s Workplace, to be led by a commissioner appointed by the mayor. This commissioner will then report on to the deputy mayor for group security. It could take impact instantly upon signing.
As of midday Thursday, the Mamdani administration has but to announce who will function commissioner and deputy mayor. The Authorized Support Society indicated that Renita Francois can be the deputy mayor for group security; Francois is the chief technique officer at Tides Advocacy, a nonprofit group that helps progressive efforts towards social justice and environmental enhancements.
What’s going to the Workplace of Group Security do?
Underneath the directive, the Workplace of Group Security can be tasked with creating citywide group security methods, coordinating psychological well being disaster response applications — together with B-HEARD — and reviewing group safety-related applications throughout metropolis authorities.
It could even be empowered to convene interagency committees, request information and briefings from companies, and suggest whether or not sure public security applications needs to be transferred beneath its management.
The workplace would additionally acquire a task in metropolis budgeting and operations. The order authorizes it to overview company finances requests associated to group security and make funding suggestions to the primary deputy mayor, whereas giving the commissioner authority to execute contracts and different agreements tied to the workplace’s work.
All mayoral companies can be required to cooperate with the workplace and supply data related to its mission, to the extent permitted by regulation.
The order would additionally place a number of current metropolis entities beneath the brand new construction, together with the Workplace of Crime Sufferer Companies, the Workplace of Gun Violence Prevention, the Workplace to Finish Home and Gender-Primarily based Violence, the Workplace for the Prevention of Hate Crimes and the Workplace of Group Psychological Well being.
Prior govt orders would even be amended to fold these places of work into the brand new group security framework and rework the town’s gun violence prevention construction. Underneath the order, the Gun Violence Prevention Activity Pressure can be co-chaired by the commissioner of group security and a group consultant appointed by the mayor.
On psychological well being response, the order says the brand new workplace would coordinate citywide disaster response coverage and oversee implementation metrics for applications together with B-HEARD, whereas leaving this system itself beneath the operational management of NYC Well being + Hospitals and the Hearth Division.
Response to group security workplace creation
The Authorized Support Society praised the transfer in a press release, calling it “a critical step toward reforming a system that has long relied too heavily on criminalization and incarceration to respond to New Yorkers in crisis.”
The group mentioned New Yorkers experiencing homelessness, psychological well being challenges, and substance misuse are too typically met by police as a substitute of assist providers, and mentioned the brand new workplace ought to lead “the long overdue work” of diverting disaster responses away from NYPD officers and towards peer-led groups with experience in psychological well being, substance use, and housing entry.
Authorized Support additionally welcomed the reported appointment of Renita Francois as deputy mayor for group security, saying it appeared ahead to working with the administration “to achieve a more humane and effective approach to public safety.”
As written, the manager order would create a mayoral workplace relatively than a full metropolis division. However by centralizing oversight of violence prevention, sufferer providers, psychological well being coverage, and disaster response inside Metropolis Corridor, it will give Mamdani a proper construction from which to start constructing the broader Division of Group Security he promised on the marketing campaign path.
She mentioned the NYPD had mentioned which varieties of calls is likely to be moved to the Division of Group Security, however argued the sensible impact can be restricted. Out of roughly 4.3 million requires service, she mentioned, about 123,000 have been psychological health-related and about 85,793 nonviolent calls would possibly qualify for diversion beneath the town’s current framework — about 2% of the division’s name quantity.
It is a creating story. Test again for updates.
