STATEMENT ON PRESIDENT BIDEN’S VISIT TO NYC ON THURSDAY

The Fortune Society (Fortune) today issued the following statement about President Joe Biden’s visit to New York City to meet with Mayor Eric Adams to discuss how to address gun violence.

“In advance of President Biden’s visit to New York City to meet with Mayor Eric Adams Thursday, we urge the President to consider how we should effectively move forward – and not take steps back.

The President should support a comprehensive community safety plan that includes significant investments in mental and behavioral health, employment and training, supportive reentry housing, alternatives to incarceration and a host of other services provided by community partners like the Fortune Society.

We urge him not to return to the national response we had in the 1994 Crime Bill where the emphasis and investment mostly went to increasing policing, expanding jails and prisons, and increasing mandatory sentences.

We urge the President and Mayor Adams to visit our supportive Housing Program and invest in services and resources for New York City’s hardest-hit communities.

We must not go back in time and only lean on enforcement and punishment as our collective response and to demonizing youth and in particular those of color. The nation and the world are watching. We must reduce and address gun violence, poverty, homelessness, mental illness, and hopelessness, and improve education by investing in people and not in jails and prisons.

Seize the moment to show the world that our country can address the public health crisis of gun violence without leading the world in incarceration and leaving communities void of resources and hope.