We all want to enjoy a great quality of life in the greatest city in the world — but it’s the everyday things that matter. New Yorkers don’t want to live with excessive noise, illegal parking, homelessness-related issues, outdoor drug use, aggressive panhandling, and all the other issues that have risen steadily across the five boroughs over the last six years.
That’s why the Adams administration is tackling these problems head on with our new NYPD Quality of Life Division. This is a citywide public safety initiative focused on enhancing trust between communities and the police, while addressing everyday concerns that impact New Yorkers’ sense of safety and well-being. We want our streets to feel and be orderly and safe for all New Yorkers, especially our families and children.
The Quality of Life Division will begin operations with a pilot program in five precincts and one housing Police Service Area. These commands will have localized, precinct-based teams — called Q-Teams. The teams are made up of officers who have already forged relationships with their communities and have had additional training on resolving quality-of-life conditions — once and for all. To be clear, this is in no way a return to “broken-windows” policing. Our Q-Team officers will improve quality of life for everyone, making our neighborhoods more livable — and will accomplish this important task while working hand-in-hand with neighbors.
The Q-Team pilot program is modeled after CompStat — a system that uses real-time data to determine where police focus their efforts and holds precinct commanders accountable. This tried-and-true method — pioneered in New York City more than 30 years ago — is now being used all over the world. We will use data to track and tackle quality-of-life issues as they occur and focus our attention accordingly.
The Quality of Life Division builds on our recent achievements in reducing crime across New York City. Because of our administration’s steadfast focus on public safety, we have now had five straight quarters of decreasing crime — since January 1, 2024 — and we are shattering crime record after crime record. The first three months of the year saw the lowest number of shootings in our city’s recorded history. And New York City additionally saw the second fewest number of homicides in recorded history. Transit crime also decreased by double digits and are at the lowest levels in history, if you remove one year of the pandemic.
We’re making historic strides in making our streets and subways safer, but we know to make New York City the best place to raise a family, we must also make it easier for our children to succeed in schools. Adding more teachers in our schools to provide more individualized care to our students is one of the best ways to help them learn, so we are hiring 3,700 additional teachers at 750 public schools across the five boroughs for the 2025-2026 school year. The best part of it all: these plans were created by schools for schools — empowering our principals and teachers to create systems that work best for their students so that they can excel.
Our new class sizes are capped at 20 students per grade for grades K-3, 23 students per grade for grades 4-8, 25 students for grades 9-12, and 40 students for performing groups and physical education classes. We are committed to ensuring that, by the coming school year, at least 60 percent of our classes will have these smaller class sizes.
And we are announcing the extra funding early so that principals have enough time to hire quality teachers, and plan for the school year that starts this fall.
Safe and clean streets, thriving neighborhoods, bustling transportation systems, and schools where children can get the attention they need so they can learn — these are the things our administration is delivering to New Yorkers every day, everywhere.
