Great news for the people of New York City who have been plagued by rampant gun crime all across Gotham for the past couple of years! The Mayor is rolling out a new program to reduce gun violence and the city will pump half a billion dollars into the effort. (Where they found that money when they can’t even operate the migrant shelters is a mystery for another day.) The not-so-great news is that the plan doesn’t include any money for even one additional police officer. Instead of funding the NYPD to meet this increased demand, the cash will instead be spent on additional housing, employment opportunities, and mental health programs. The goal of this program is supposedly to “stop violence before it happens” and promote “positive youth development.” (Free Beacon)

New York City mayor Eric Adams (D.) on Monday unveiled a new plan to combat gun violence that included no goals for hiring new police officers for a force hemorrhaging personnel.

The “Blueprint for Community Safety,” released by the city’s gun violence task force, will pour almost $500 million into housing, employment, and mental health programs without a cent toward putting new cops on the street. The mayor said boosts for social programs will help to “stop the violence before it happens on our streets.”

“Our city must start intervening earlier, focusing on positive youth development, before it’s too late,” Adams said at a City Hall press conference Monday.

What this really sounds like is a plan to combat the homelessness and migrant crisis rather than anything to do with fighting gun violence. And to be clear, those are important priorities as well. More mental health treatment being available may get some of the homeless off of the streets, but if it’s not mandatory or enforceable, many people will refuse to participate as they generally have in the past.

The housing situation has been out of control for years. There simply aren’t enough rooms for all of the people who are out on the streets and in the subways. It seems unlikely that a new infusion of cash is going to magically make more space appear, but it’s at least worth the effort to try. And as far as positive youth development goes, this problem was identified back in the 90s. Better ways to get kids into the schools and stop them from being recruited by the gangs is a critical priority, but it’s also one that the city has failed at miserably.

What this plan fails to do is address the one pressing need that everyone can clearly see. If you want to reduce gun violence, you have to get the people with the guns (and a willingness to use them) off of the streets and keep them locked up. The gang bangers aren’t going to hear about this program and suddenly decide to become social workers. We’re dealing with an endemic problem that is now generational in nature. A lot of the gang members are the children and even grandchildren of gang members who wound up behind bars or dead. It’s a “family business” in too many communities in New York City and other major metropolitan centers.

If you want to reduce gang activity and gun violence, you need to remove gang membership as a “career option.” Yes, I understand that such a thing is far easier said than done. But the city managed it in the 90s under Rudy Giuliani. Crime wasn’t completely eliminated, but it was vastly reduced and driven underground. And the city could do that again if the will existed to do so. But it would take a lot more cops as well as prosecutors and district attorneys who are willing to throw the book at those who commit gun crimes and take them off the street for decades. When gang membership is no longer seen as a profitable career and is instead a dead-end path leading to prison or a coffin, you will have less crime. This new program sounds like it will be yet another very expensive piece of window dressing that fails to address the underlying issues.