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Crime in Brooklyn Decreases Substantially, Thanks to “Innovative Team Efforts:" Perhaps First Envisioned by Frum Communities

Crime in Brooklyn Decreases Substantially, Thanks to “Innovative Team Efforts:" Perhaps First Envisioned by Frum Communities

By Yehudit Garmaise

Crime has decreased substantially in Brooklyn, thanks to an innovation in policing that NYPD Chief of Patrol Junita Holmes calls “a team effort.”

The new way of policing and the only way of policing,” said Holmes, is now comprised of the joint efforts of “the clergy, Crisis Management System teams, not-for-profits, government agencies, Sanitation, and the Administration for Children’s Services connecting families to whatever needs they may have.”

When it comes to keeping neighborhoods safe, said Holmes, who coordinates the city’s community participation in increasing public safety, “communities are at the table.” 

“It's not like NYPD has the lead,” said Holmes, who added that police officers are “allowed to prioritize, whatever issues or challenges with which they are met.”

The team effort seems to be working, as Mayor Bill de Blasio reported “a real turnaround when it comes to public safety,” since the dark days of the pandemic when “some of the neighbors in Brooklyn had some of the hardest problems with crime of anywhere in New York City.” 

In Brooklyn, murders are down by 21%, shootings are down by 20%, and rape, robbery, burglary are also all down compared to last year, the mayor reported. 

The decreasing crime numbers show that “we are right on the path, towards someplace better,” said the mayor. “Something important and powerful is happening in Brooklyn.”

The mayor attributed the increased public safety to Brooklyn’s “extraordinary innovation, extraordinary creativity, understanding and respect, and a sense of partnership between the police and the community that is becoming a model for the whole city.”

Of course, since the late 1970s, neighborhood safety enforcement groups, such as Shomrim have been patrolling the streets of Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn and elsewhere 24/7 to attend to the needs of the community faster than the NYPD often can. 

But now that the rest of Brooklyn has caught on to neighborhood policing, Holmes said that the borough’s powerful approach to fighting crime will soon be adopted in all 77 precincts, soon to be 78, all over New York City.

“In Brooklyn: front and center, there is a civilian presence, solving problems,” the mayor said. “Police are playing their crucial role, but also there is a really smart division of labor to make sure that we reduce violence.”

The men and women of the NYPD and the community leaders, “who are out there working to stop violence before it happened, should be very proud of this,” said the mayor, who attributed Brooklyn’s drop in crime to the good work of the many community groups who were “violence interrupters who helped to support our young people.”

In particular, the mayor commended the public safety work of Brooklyn North and Brooklyn South. 

While cities all over America saw huge upticks in crime that have continued, in Brooklyn South, the mayor reported, the shooting levels have gone back to 2019 pre-pandemic.

 Brooklyn North, which “historically is one of the most challenged borough commands in the whole city,” the mayor said, “has seen a lot of real progress with numbers that are now substantially better than they were in 2020.”


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