AOC Says NYC Mayor May Support Community Violence Prevention Programs Rather Than Increased Police Wages

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez( D-NY ) believes that rather than raising police pay, Mayor Eric Adams should fund community violence prevention programs without the use of law enforcement.

The” Stand Up to Violence” program at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, which addresses violence as a public health issue and enables social workers to look into shootings without the use of law enforcement, was discussed by Ocasio-Cortez in an interview with” The Daily Show.”

Ocasio-Cortez responded that she” thinks so” when the show’s’s host, Jordan Klepper, questioned whether Mayor Adams misplaced funding that increased the annual salary of rookie NYPD cops by 28 %.

According to Ocasio – Cortez,” we are now at a stage where most officials are actually paid more than teachers with master’s’s degrees serving these same children involved in these tragedies.”

In contrast to her remarks, the New York Post reported that the city’s’s Department of Education estimated that teachers with a master ‘ degree and teaching experience earn between$ 68, 000 and$ 83, 900 per year.

She stated,” We are defunding our libraries as well as our public schools, pools, playgrounds, and health.” ” We are sending a statement about who and what we care about when we take all those sources and demand that every department— aside from the military one— be cut.”

The Police Benevolent Association( PBA ), the city’s’s largest police union, and Mayor Adams reached a tentative eight-year agreement retroactively earlier this month, according to the New York Post. This agreement raises new officers’ salaries by more than$ 12, 000 despite low recruitment numbers and departures. Additionally, the agreement gives officers back pay in addition to increases of 3.5 % this August and 4 % in 2024.

Patrick Lynch, the president of the PBA, claimed that the town had also lost” far too many brilliant cops” to other departments’ better paying and less demanding policing positions.

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According to Lynch, this partnership considerably raises our members’ quality of life in addition to being a significant step toward closing our wage gap with many police departments.

Once PBA officials approve the agreement, which is expected to cost taxpayers$ 5.5 billion through 2025, the deal will pay rookie cops salaries ranging from$ 42, 000 to$ 55, 000 annually.