Mayor Adams has begun his active pursuit of building a safer city for the younger generations with the official release of his “Blueprint to Stop Gun Violence”.
It was announced by the Mayor on January 24th, 2022 that he had assembled plans to deal with gun violence in New York City. One thing he plans to focus on is protecting the children of this city by preventing weapons from falling into their hands and dealing with those in illegal possession of them. According to him, 10% of teens who were arrested in 2021 had a firearm. His plan to combat this is to reach young people before they have an opportunity to turn to guns and violence. He stated in his big reveal of the blueprint “…There are at least 250,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who are out of school and out of work.” As we are the group this refers to, it brings along a worry that people you could possibly know may or already fall into that overall statistic. Eric Adams was an officer in the NYPD before he became Mayor so he has had hands-on experience with arresting teenagers for crimes they shouldn’t be able to commit on their own.
–https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/09/nyregion/eric-adams-albany.html
After reviewing the statistics of young people out of school and how many end up with guns, Mayor Adams decided the best way to combat this is with careers. His idea is that if more kids in troubled neighborhoods have opportunities to work for big companies before they have the chance to turn to a life of guns and violence. This will be done through a program called The Summer Youth Employment and Youth Engagement Program which will open in the summer as this is where crimes committed by minors seem to rise. This program will help identify and establish paid internships with big companies spread across the city for all teenagers interested in one. The goal is to have teens focused more on careers and attaining a higher education than committing crimes. With this, we may also see a rise in those in the workforce and better-trained employees across all fields since the experience is being offered to them at such a young age.
It is no surprise that Mayor Adams is doing so much for the city as he has lived there his whole life. He grew up in a rough neighborhood and has been subject to discrimination and police brutality. He also went to Bayside High School and is a graduate of John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He ended up becoming an NYPD officer and did his best to serve the city as well as bring about change. From there he continuously moved up the ranks from Captain to State Senate to Brooklyn Borough President and currently the Mayor of New York. He has seen so much wrong growing up and does his best to prevent others from seeing it as well. All the issues he tackles daily are ones he has dealt with himself growing up in such a rough area. He has met people who lost their children to gun violence and has met the families of officers who lost their lives to people who should not have weapons.
With the focus being on the children of New York City, Mayor Adams has established a plan to turn children away from guns and violence and turn them towards jobs and opportunities to gain worthwhile experience. He plans to establish a Summer Program that keeps kids focused on jobs and offers them paid internships with big companies. As a once police officer, he has seen how polluted the city is and how many teenagers who have bright futures are throwing their lives away by turning to guns and violence. He has also seen firsthand as a teenager growing up in NYC how horrible the system is. With this plan being put into place, all we can do is hope it is successful.
