Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Delivers Remarks Atgreater Allen A.M.E. Cathedral

April 23, 2017

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Thank you so much. Thank you, Pastor. Thank you, everyone, for this chance to be with you. 

[Applause]

First, I want to give honor to God, without him this day would not be possible.

[Applause]

Pastor and I were doing the calculation. We first met in 1989. I had the honor of serving on David Dinkins’ first campaign for mayor. And one thing you knew, even back then, if you wanted to make something happen in Queens or in the city of New York, you had to go to Pastor Flake.

[Applause]

And what he has done as a trailblazer in education, in affordable housing, in making this one of the great churches of this city, it’s inestimable. I don’t know where he found the energy to achieve so much but it is amazing, the body of work this man is creating. Let’s thank Pastor for all he has done.

[Applause]

And in our household at Gracie Mansion, we remember that no one does this alone. Beside every great man stands a great woman, and Reverend Elaine Flake is that great woman.

[Applause]

Pastor is also a master of subtlety. He made clear to me to stay brief but he did in a very respectful manner. So, I will honor that but I have a solemn obligation first because there’s one thing – it’s a sad thing – I have to share. I think a lot of you saw a few days ago, we lost one of our brave firefighters – Firefighter William Tolley. He will be laid to rest this coming week. I’d just like to ask you to bow your heads with me for a moment of silence for his family and his memory.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

I will be brief but I want to get right to the point of something so important. And I think it’s a perfect topic to discuss in a church where people, everyday, live out their faith. Putting faith into action is what it’s all about, right?

And Scripture is so powerfully about the concept of redemption. It pervades the beliefs of  people in this great church feel and live on every day. If we believe in redemption then we have to look at where our nation, our state, our city went astray over the last few decades and how the era of mass incarceration was created because it had nothing to do with redemption.

In fact, it was, tragically, a renunciation of the notion that people could overcome their mistakes and live a better life. It was taking human lives, devaluing them, throwing them away with no sense that they could ever come back. That’s what mass incarceration has been for decades.

And finally – finally, our consciousness in this nation is changing. But we, in New York City, know that we have to lead. So, I announced a few weeks ago that once and for all we will be closing Rikers Island. We will be closing that facility.

[Applause]

And we’re doing that for a very simple reason. The era of mass incarceration did not begin in New York City but it must end in New York City, once and for all. 

[Applause]

Here’s the point – to do that we all have to work together. For anything to get better in our society, we all have to work together. That means we continue to do the things that reach the root causes of why anyone would end up in trouble with the law to begin with. We devote ourselves to changing our schools so we actually teach our children properly.

[Applause]

Creating jobs so there’s something to aspire to, that are for everyone in the city. Every borough. Every neighborhood. Addressing the real challenges that hold people back – the challenge of poverty, the lack of affordable housing.

If we’re going to solve the big picture crisis of mass incarceration, let’s be honest about what are the root causes, and that’s what we’re devoted to addressing. 

But the other piece of the equation is so important. If you drive down crime – just drive down crime regularly, then people don’t get arrested and they don’t go to jail. Simple enough. 

And I want to remind everyone in this room – even though the doubting Thomases said that policies like stop-and-frisk were the only thing that kept us safe, we have reduced stop-and-frisk 93 percent and crime has gone down for three years in a row in this city.

[Applause]

So, we are now convinced that our historic reductions in crime will continue. So, think about that. We’re going at the root causes of the problem. We’re reducing crime. What else?

Well, keep people out of incarceration who don’t need to be there because there’s a better alternative. Help people who can’t pay bail, and that’s why they end up in jail. There’s a better way to do that – to keep them out of jail to begin with.

[Applause]

And finally – finally, if you address recidivism, if you make sure that the first time someone sees a jail cell is the last time then that era of mass incarceration can end. 

So, here’s what we’re doing. This is the last announcement I want to give you. We talked about this a few weeks ago. It’s so important.

We’re saying the first day anyone – God forbid anyone ends up involved with the criminal justice but if they do, the very first day they end up in one of our jails a counselor is going to sit down with them and say, “We’re going to start planning right now for your re-entry to society.”

Audience: Amen.

Mayor: “And we’re going to make sure this is the last time you ever have a problem.” 

[Applause]

We’re going to do something radical. We’re going to assume that some people ended up in jail because they weren’t given the tools to live a productive life to begin with. 

We’re going to give them that time. You know, just four years ago in this city, anyone in Rikers or the other jails got less than an hour a day of education or training even though they’re in a place where we have every opportunity to reach them and right the wrongs of the past. So, I have a new rule for this city. Anyone in our jails, every week day – five weekdays, every day – will get five hours of education and training every single day to prepare them for their future.

[Applause]

And the last piece of this plan, and it’s a very powerful one, if anyone is sentenced and serves time on Rikers – that means they did a minor crime in the scheme of things, that means they’re serving less than a year or up to a year – if they’re sentenced and they serve time on Rikers, we will guarantee at the end of their sentence that they will get a transitional job as soon as they walk out the doors of that jail.

[Applause]

Some have suggested – some critics have said that is “giving jobs to criminals.” I say, no. That is redeeming people who went astray and helping them to never be criminals again.

[Applause]

So, I’ll conclude by saying these are the changes we can and must make. Think about this for a moment. We are blessed in this time. A lot of what held us back in the past – the falsehoods, the divisions, the stereotypes – have been unmasked. A lot of truth has come out in the last few years. As our youth might say, a lot of people are now woke.

[Laughter]

And as we have seen what was wrong in the past, we are recognizing that we don’t have to live with mass incarceration. We don’t have to live with jails that dehumanize people. We actually can build a society where we get it right at the front of someone’s life, at the beginning when they have hope and possibility. Let’s fuel that hope and possibility, and make each young person great. It’s as simple as that. 

[Applause]

And I thank you. This will be something we all do together ever. This will be something we all do together, everyone in this church, particularly for the young people in your life. It’s a chance to give them the value and respect that our society so often did not give them. It’s a chance to get it right and let this city be the beacon for this nation and for this world of how we uplift our young people, and create the society we should have created long, long ago. 

Thank you and God bless you all.

[Applause]

###