Thread by @PeterMoskos

“You have a 16-year-old kid arrested three times in 90 days with guns,” Shea said. “Where is the outrage and where are the hearings to say, ‘What’s going on?’”

OCFS (NYC family services) already has a budget of $3.8 billion. That's real money.
nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-c…

Gil-Medrano is the 16-year-old (as opposed to the 13-year-old victim): "Sunday was the second time that Gil-Medrano had been shot. On July 7, 2020, the teen was shot in Crotona... Gil-Medrano would not help investigators as he recovered."

Together, NYC Family Services (OCFS) and Homeless Services (DHS) have a larger budget then the NYPD. That's something. #defund

What's odd is simply by pointing this out, I feel like people will think I'm some anti-social services person. I'm not.

But there are literally billions spent on these services. More than for policing! Where is the accountability? Where is this money going? Real questions.

And the public debate is being framed like it's a money issue that has to come from police. No. These NYC social service agencies (though they do some good) are failures. There's no reason we have people without homes when $50K per year is spent on each homeless person.

Billions. Literally billions of dollars. People have no idea what billions mean. Imagine the entire ~$5.5 billion budget for the NYPD with 35,000 cops plus more. Now imagine MORE than that. That is what is being spent annually on family and homeless services in NYC.

You'd think a 16-year-old who had been shot when he was 15 and then arrested three times in the following year for illegal gun possession would trigger some sort of massive social service response. But no. Catch and release. And now he's dead.

The reason I find this so frustrating is that I don't know the effective non-punitive solution. Not my field. But if social service agencies with billions of $$$ of funding don't or can't prevent this, I'll go with the least worst solution we do have: the criminal justice system.

A kid is shot and then arrested three times in the following year for gun possession. He's obvious a risk to others and at risk. Was he on anybody's radar? Did any social service agency do anything? Violence interrupters? Is it a question of leadership? Urgency? Communication?

The OCFS mission statement seems to say it's their responsibility: "promote the well-being and safety of the state’s children, families, and communities... responsible for the administration and management of specialized programs for juvenile offenders."
ocfs.ny.gov/main/publicati…

NYC social service budget breakdown:
$3.8 billion to NY Family Services (OCFS, let's say 1/2 goes to NYC).
NYC's Admin for Children’s Services (ACS), $2.69 billion.
DHS (Homeless), $1 billion.
HRA (Human Resources) $9.7 billion.
ThriveNYC $0.32 billion
= $15.6 billion in NYC.

NYC would be _far_ worse off if this money weren't being spent (even w/ waste fraud abuse inefficiency etc). But $15.6 billion is 3X the budget of the NYPD! You can't tell me shifting $1 billion from police, upping social services from $15.6 to $16.6 billion, would tip the scale.

I imagine there would be greater benefits if $1 billion in social services funding, representing 6% of their budget (maybe from the proverbial "waste fraud & abuse" category) were shifted to the policing, increasing the NYPD by 18%.

It amazes me how little is needed to fund social services that do good. The Osborne Foundation, for instance. Maybe you haven't heard of them, but they do a lot of good. Their budget is but $25 million! It's the bureaucratic city behemoths I question. osborneny.org

Otisville Prison-to-College Pipeline (P2CP), which happens though my college. I'm sure they have _some_ funding, but it's chump change. And they does good. It could be expanding.
giving.jjay.cuny.edu/2019/05/22/edu…

Having all these social services agencies in NYC is atypical. Most cities have little to none. And though it's hard to say which problem helps, collectively there are a lot of programs in NYC. I think these agencies are an unheralded part of what kept NYC so safe for so long.

So build on successes. Ask agencies how we can judge success / failure. Then hold agencies accountable. But the issue here in NYC is not but for a few million more from policing, everything would be fixed. $16 billion is a lot of money. We should be getting more in return.

*"it does" or "they do." Take your pick. But not "they does."