Press Release
CSS Applauds Gov. Cuomo’s Announcement on Providing At-Risk Youth with Job-Training and Outreach Activities
Governor Cuomo went to John Jay College of Criminal Justice today to declare a “disaster emergency” on gun violence, pledging to spend $138 million to combat gun violence in the state and fund violence prevention programs and alternatives for at-risk youth. The governor’s remarks came after a particularly violent Fourth of July weekend with reports of 51 people victimized by gun violence across the state including 26 in New York City.
Lamenting the toll gun violence has taken on young Black and brown people in New York, the governor said it was time to treat gun violence as a public health emergency with a comprehensive approach not unlike how the state tackled the COVID 19 pandemic, to be led and coordinated by the State Department of Health in partnership with community-based groups, clergy, labor, “Big Business” and other stakeholders. The governor called for providing the state’s most at-risk youth with “positive-engagement” strategies: job-training and outreach efforts that he said will not only result in a job for a young person but lead to “a good paying career when they finish school.”
While we await more details on today’s announcement, the Community Service Society applauds the governor for acknowledging that these are not normal times. Recent gun violence may be partly symptomatic of the negative social, economic, and mental health effects of New York City’s horrible pandemic crisis, but it is rooted in socio-economic challenges facing young people of color that existed long before the pandemic began. That is why the solution cannot be more aggressive policing tactics. Instead, as the governor said, combating gun violence and police reform must go hand in hand, with rebuilding the deep distrust of police in communities of color as a key goal.
Rather than hunkering down and increasing offensive police tactics, we must instead draw on all our resources to re-engage young people with outreach, jobs, skills training and other support to restore their sense of hope for a meaningful future. That approach will protect and accelerate New York City’s social and economic recovery, and it is an approach that CSS has long advocated for through our youth research and policy advocacy.
The governor also used today’s announcement to sign vital legislation sponsored by State Senator Zellnor Myrie and Assembly Member Patricia Fahy that will make it easier to file civil lawsuits in the state against gun manufacturers and firearms dealers who make or sell guns illegally or inappropriately. This is significant, because handguns originally purchased outside of New York account for a large percentage of the guns recovered from crime scenes, according to the New York State Attorney General’s Office. In a column earlier this month on rising gun violence in the city, CSS President and CEO David R. Jones applauded the legislators for pursuing this violence interruption avenue, and urged the governor to sign the legislation.