This blog post contains portions of my ongoing research project that discuss Eric Adams’ 2022 Subway Safety Plan. After Jordan Neely’s public lynching by Daniel Penny on May 3, 2023, I find it important to address how the mayor’s rhetoric paved the way for Jordan’s death. Adams’ fearmongering around crime and homelessness, in collaboration with news outlets that obsessively report on crime and dehumanize people deprived of housing, created an environment where a homeless man could be choked to death on a full subway car without intervention. These snippets include my findings from The Subway Safety Plan and discuss how Adams’ rhetoric culminated in the murder of Jordan Neely.

The Subway Safety Plan

Adams’ plan, The Subway Safety Plan, is significantly shorter than his predecessors at 17 pages. It is not explicitly a homelessness plan, however it focuses heavily on homelessness (mentioned 21 times), mental health/illness (mentioned 48 times), psychiatry (11 times), safety (30 times) and behavioral health (16 times). This count reflects variations of each word/ phrase (i.e., homeless and homelessness, psychiatric and psychiatry). The plan only addresses unsheltered homelessness, specifically on the NYC subways. Adams takes a law-and-order approach with his proposed solutions, and his rhetoric towards the homeless population takes a harsher turn than de Blasio’s.

Descriptors of Homeless People

In line with his predecessors, Adams recognizes that homelessness is a structural issue stemming from a lack of critical services. He acknowledges that “all [homeless people] are our fellow New Yorkers” (The Subway Safety Plan, 2022, p. 3). Though the plan consistently draws connections between homelessness and public safety, it offers the caveat:

“And while we know homelessness and violence do not equate and must not be conflated, we must also acknowledge that a small minority of individuals who may be experiencing several compounding challenges at once, including behavioral health challenges, must be reached with immediate interventions to prevent deterioration and potential danger.”

The Subway Safety Plan, 2022, p. 3

Adams pledges to protect all New Yorkers, “including those experiencing homelessness and those with severe mental illness.” (The Subway Safety Plan, 2022, p. 3).

At the same time, Adams consistently links homelessness with “severe mental illness…substance use disorder, and complex physical health needs” (The Subway Safety Plan, 2022, p. 11). He makes this implication by pairing homelessness with these phrases without explicitly saying that homeless people are inherently mentally ill or drug abusers. In the same vein, the plan lists prohibited behaviors that use coded language that effectively bans housing-deprived people from using the subway system. Specifically, The Subway Safety Plan prohibits:

“Lying down, sleeping, or outstretching in a way that takes up more than one seat per passenger or interferes with fellow passengers; Creating an unsanitary environment by spitting, littering, and more; Exhibiting aggressive behavior towards other passengers; Using the subway system for any purpose other than transportation; Smoking or open drug use.”

The Subway Safety Plan, 2022, p. 7

Framing of Crisis

Like de Blasio, Adams describes homelessness as “a painful humanitarian crisis” caused by systemic challenges including mental health and an affordable housing shortage (The Subway Safety Plan, 2022, p. 3). These causes are not addressed equally throughout the plan, however. “Housing” is mentioned 16 times, “beds” is mentioned 10 times, and “affordable” is mentioned twice. Conversely, “mental health/illness” is mentioned 48 times, “behavior” is mentioned 16, “psychiatry” is mentioned 11 times, and “hospital” is mentioned 9.

For Adams, the lack of psychiatric beds is a central issue caused by “outdated and discriminatory” funding provisions which “disincentivized the growth of psychiatric bed capacity, especially at private hospital systems, and directly contributes to negative consequences for those with severe mental illness” (The Subway Safety Plan, 2022, p. 15). This is in stark contrast to Bloomberg who advocated for prevention rather than short-term solutions. Whereas Bloomberg mentions “prevention” 94 times, Adams mentions it only once.

The Subway Safety Plan sets strict parameters for the purpose of MTA subways: “our subways exist to move paying customers from one point to another. They are not meant to house individuals or provide recreational space, and we will make it clear our stations and trains are not intended – or available – as an alternative” (The Subway Safety Plan, 2022, p. 5). It concludes, much like the prior plans, that “we will not solve a decades-long crisis overnight” (The Subway Safety Plan, 2022, p. 16).

Actors Involved & Privatization

Adams’ plan calls on the same actors as previous plans: the MTA, NYPD, DHS, DoHMH, H+H, Parks Department, DSS, and HRA, among others. It also calls for collaboration with the Transit Workers Union, which had not been mentioned in prior plans. Adams emphasizes that adequately addressing homelessness must be a joint effort between the city, state, and federal government. He says the administration will “engage in a public-private effort” to increase access to psychiatric beds (The Subway Safety Plan, 2022, p. 14). The plan does not cite specific private or nongovernmental actors that will be involved but calls on a conversation between “public and private partners, academic experts, practitioners, persons with lived experience, advocates and government leaders” (The Subway Safety Plan, 2022, p. 11).

Methods of Control

The Subway Safety Plan asserts that “public safety and justice go hand-in-hand,” creating a link between law-and-order and compassion (The Subway Safety Plan, 2022, p. 16). Adams claims that his “goal is corrective action, not removal, and we will give individuals an opportunity to remedy their behavior before taking further action” (The Subway Safety Plan, 2022, p. 7). This is reminiscent of de Blasio’s Subway Diversion Initiative, as both plans strive to “correct” the actions of housing-deprived people seeking shelter in the subway system rather than immediately involving them in the criminal justice system.

Adams ensures readers that “New Yorkers will continue to see an increased presence of NYPD officers in subway cars and on platforms, especially at high priority stations. More than 1,000 additional officers have already been deployed across the system.” (The Subway Safety Plan, 2022, p. 7). These officers “will now have a clear mandate to enforce the MTA and New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA)’s rules of conduct, and will undergo additional training in these rules before setting foot in our stations and on trains” (The Subway Safety Plan, 2022, p. 7). Their efforts will build on “the NYPD’s revolutionary COMPStat strategy” and “develop a similar strategy for homelessness, public safety, and mental health challenges” (The Subway Safety Plan, 2022, p. 9). Interestingly, Adams does not mention HOMESTAT, an already existing technology initiated under Bloomberg and expanded under de Blasio.

A unique tenant of Adams’ plan is his focus on reforming Kendra’s Law (Mental Hygiene Law § 9.60) “so that if someone who can’t take care of themselves refuses treatment, they can be hospitalized if that is what a doctor and judge recommend” (The Subway Safety Plan, 2022, p. 12). He also calls for “staff across agencies [to] be trained in 9.58 assessments – enabling better engagement and evaluation with individuals experiencing homelessness” (The Subway Safety Plan, 2022, p. 5). This proposal would expand the state’s ability to forcibly institutionalize people who they perceive as unable to care for themselves.

Proposed solutions

Adams’ proposed solutions include more outreach teams, collaboration across all levels of government, reforming mental health laws, and establishing new ways to share information across agencies. Additional hospital beds are also essential to accommodate an expected influx of psychiatric patients. The plan calls to “increase availability of 140 Safe Haven beds and nearly 350 Stabilization Beds in 2022” and “expand the availability of supportive housing through new development and by streamlining the placement process” (The Subway Safety Plan, 2022, p. 11). He gives proposals to state and federal partners, encouraging them to reform laws under their respective purviews and increase funding.

Discussion

Throughout the plan, Adams paints a picture of mental illness posing a threat to general public through his repetitious pairing of mental health with homelessness and potential danger. The prohibited behaviors of being unsanitary, aggressive, or interfering with other passengers on the subways implies that not only are homeless riders a nuisance to the public, but a danger that must be removed. This rhetoric is not isolated to his homelessness plan – fearmongering around mental illness and crime are echoed in his media appearances and press releases. Adams publicly called 911 twice in his first six months as mayor, including on his first day in office. He has announced that he feels unsafe riding the subways, claims he has “never witnessed crime at this level” despite being a transit officer in the 1990s when crime rates were significantly higher, and visited active crime scenes (Fitzsimmons, 2022). After his inauguration, mentions of violent crime in digital and print media spiked to nearly 800 stories per month in comparison to an average of 132 stories during de Blasio’s administration (Akinnibi and Wahid, 2022).

Over a year of fixating on crime and mental illness culminated on May 3, 2023, when Jordan Neely was choked to death on the subway by another rider, Daniel Perry. Neely was known by regular riders for his Michael Jackson impersonations. He was also a black homeless man in the throes of social abandonment as he stood on the F train and gave a “somewhat aggressive” speech in which he demanded food, water, and announced “he didn’t care about anything” (Stieb, 2023). Neely made no explicit threats or violent actions, but another passenger found him threatening enough to hold in a chokehold for approximately 15 minutes until Neely was unconscious. He was pronounced dead at the hospital from compression to the neck, according to the medical examiner. Adams responded to the situation:

“…we do know that there were serious mental health issues in play here, which is why our administration has made record investments in providing care to those who need it and getting people of the streets and the subways, and out of dangerous situations”

Eric Adams, 2023.

In an interview with CNN, Adams avoided taking a stance on vigilantism amongst subway riders, saying “each situation is different” (Brown, 2023). In the aftermath of Neely’s murder, his mental illness and prior arrests are being highlighted in the media while Adams uses the case to support removing people with perceived mental illness from public life.

Neely’s murder is the natural yet devastating culmination of Adams’ rhetoric and media fearmongering around homelessness and crime.

Adams, E. (2022). The Subway Safety Plan. https://www.nyc.gov/assets/home/downloads/pdf/press-releases/2022/the-subway-safety-plan.pdf

Akinnibi, F., & Wahid, R. (2022, July 29). Fear of Rampant Crime Is Derailing New York City’s Recovery. Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-is-nyc-safe-crime-stat-reality/

Brown, L. (2023, May 4). Mayor Adams rips AOC for saying Jordan Neely was “murdered.” New York Post.https://nypost.com/2023/05/04/mayor-adams-rips-aoc-for-saying-jordan-neely-was-murdered/

Fitzsimmons, E. G. (2022, July 15). Eric Adams Can’t Stop Talking About Crime. There Are Risks to That. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/15/nyregion/eric-adams-crime-nyc.html

Stieb, M. (2023, May 4). Outrage Grows After Jordan Neely Was Choked to Death on the Subway. Intelligencer. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/05/jordan-neelys-death-what-we-know-about-subway-choke-hold.html