Democrat Tiffany Cabán, a New York City council candidate, has outlined a plan for victims of violent crimes to help rehabilitate their offenders in her public safety agenda.
As Cabán is a staunch critic of traditional policing methods, her public safety agenda illustrates a plan to turn away from customary policing tactics in favor of a more holistic approach. Such an approach would favor what Cabán refers to as “Violence Mediation Centers and Community-based alternatives,” as opposed to jails and prisons.
The candidate’s agenda reads:
Rather than address instances of violence with policing and prisons, we could work with programs like Common Justice and others, proven to work and developed right here in New York City, showing the way on non-carceral alternatives to instances of violence.
In Cabán’s would-be “Violence Mediation Centers,” victims and offenders would engage in a form of “restorative justice.” On page 12 of her public safety agenda, “A New Vision of Public Safety for New York City,” Cabán provides an example of “restorative justice” in action:
A person is beat up, suffers a broken rib, and is robbed of his wallet. First, his needs are heard and affirmed, and he works with trained staff to develop a services and healing plan. Then, when he is ready, he participates in restorative justice circles with the person who harmed him and their respective support systems. He asks questions and gets answers, and they develop an accountability and consequences plan.
Though Cabán’s radical proposals may be well received by her progressive base in Western Queens, sitting members of New York’s City’s City Council have slammed the nominee’s public safety agenda. In an interview with the New York Post, Councilman Robert Holden stated: “Unless Ms. Cabán is running to represent the Twilight Zone, it sounds like she needs to participate in a restorative reality circle. Our city and state already help criminals enough as it is, without insane ideas like this.’
In addition to Holden, another council member who chose to remain anonymous remarked, “This is insane. Woke socialists need to wake up. If they get their way, New York City will have to build more prisons just to house and keep law abiding citizens safe from criminals that sleep wokers want to be free to roam our communities.”
In response to intense criticism regarding Cabán’s proposal, a representative of the candidate, Erica Vladimer, told the New York Post:
Anybody who is saying that this is going to increase crime… is continuing the fear mongering that has so pervaded the city for way too long. Restorative justice is one piece of this public safety plan, and what it requires is consent of the survivors to participate.
Vladimer would go on to add, “restorative justice is one tool to address public safety in a way that the NYPD and our court system hast yet to prove they can actually do.”
According to the New York Post, retired NYPD Detective Sergeant, Jospeh Giacalone, who now works as a professor at John Jay, explained that the agenda neglects the rights of victims:
If this keeps on going the way it’s going, eventually this is all going to backfire. You cannot keep on disrespecting victims and their families because you think it’s going to be a better society or this utopian society.
Cabán, along with five other candidates for city council, enjoyed an endorsement from the Democratic Socialists of America back in November of 2020, a group that includes radical New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Cabán secured the Democrat nomination for New York’s 22nd District this past June. The candidate now looks towards a general election in November, where she will be heavily favored in a densely blue district.
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