 Good afternoon everyone, and thank you for joining us for today's public safety briefing led by deputy mayor for public safety Phil banks Following our last speaker. We will take a few questions from the media followed by some questions that have been submitted by the public ahead of today's briefing I would now like to turn it over to deputy mayor Phil banks Good afternoon and welcome everyone. I Would like to wish everyone And those who are observing Ramadan round I started yesterday Ramadan will buy it and certainly a peaceful and blessed Ramadan period for all And continue to keep New York City safe as the safest big city in America You're gonna be joined by four people today. One of them you've heard from before. He's chief Michael Petrie He's a chief of crime control strategies for the NYPD and he's going to be speaking about two topics one topic is going to be about these illegal weed shops and The proliferation of them and the damages that they're causing throughout the city He's also going to be talking about auto and auto related thefts Then you're gonna hear from the parks apartment I'm joined today by the deputy commissioner and chief operating officer Mark folk and he is accompanied by Assistant commissioner Edwin Rodriguez and they're gonna be talking very excitingly about a new initiative That they are going to be utilizing as far as keeping the park safe cleanliness of the parks go hand-in-hand with public safety and It's actually very exciting to see that they're looking at this initiative I think that the citizens are gonna be very happy about what we're doing to keep our parks to continue to keep them clean And last but not least we're gonna be here from the Ana Logan who is the director of the mayor's office of criminal justice She is going to briefly explain to you exactly what that office does But then she's gonna have a presentation and she's going to discuss recidivism And what exactly that means and the impact that it is having on our our city And he's a small number of individuals that's committing an inordinate amount of crime and impacting the city And it's a very interesting very informative Presentation Diana and I know that everybody's going to get a lot a lot out of that So for those of you who are tuning in thank you. I appreciate it We're gonna have these discussions. You're gonna see them expand You're gonna see a lot more people from city and city government in the future You're gonna see people from our external partners that we work with come up here and this discussion and this informative session We believe there's gonna be very beneficial. So we like for you to Share with your friends here with your colleagues here with anyone who you think would benefit share with everybody Go to hear from Eric comm you can sign up you sign up on the link you get a link We will inform you about the topics that we will be discussing It'll be a platform for you to submit your questions So that we can answer your questions and then you can it's to start for you to engage in these conversations with us So once again, thank you for all who is joining Our first topic today that we're going to be speaking about is this increase of these illegal weed shops, right? Smoke shops that you're seeing that's taking place all throughout the city And if you have not seen them I just asked you to open up your eyes because every day they seem like there are more and more that are opening up and I just want to take a minute or just a brief second to really explain what we're faced with here before Michael Petrie goes into the details New York City and New York State like many other states have looked apart and looked historically at the enforcement of marijuana for decades and Come to the conclusion that there was unjust enforcement It was over enforcement in this area and it was a lot of people in a lot of communities that were severely impacted by the marijuana the marijuana laws and New York State said we're gonna do something about this We know legalized cannabis and we're going to allow and have a system in place that communities and people who were unjustly And unfairly Targeted by the criminal justice system who got swept up into that into that net that they will be given an opportunity Right to be able to prosper from the legal canonization in New York But there's a group of people out there who says no stop. We're not going for that We're not going to wait in line. We're not going to flood the application We're not going to have our marijuana regulated and we're also going to sell it to your kids And we're gonna talk to your kids and we're going to disguise it as candy and we're gonna disguise it as breakfast cereals So let's think about this. We as a government have decided to say hey We're gonna correct the wrong and then we're going to now look to positively impact Certain communities and we're gonna legalize cannabis Other people that have said no they're not going to be able to do that And I am and I think you're gonna hear that I believe Albany has is listening. I think Albany has heard I'd like to thank the governor and all the people in Albany who are at least taking this and making this the level of importance So that we can strengthen our laws to be able to impact the individuals who decided that they are not going to play by the rules And I think this is something that as a city and as a state we need to keep that high level of Importance in priority and quite frankly, I think we need to drive them out of business It is going to it and it has already impacted our communities as you hear shortly about the violence that's associated with it, etc Etc. So so chief of petri. Can you start telling us about these illegal? Shops that we're seeing smoke shops and what we can be doing about it. Yes, sir. Thank you deputy mayor So as as the deputy mayor stated we've seen a sharp increase in both the ownership and the selling of Illegal cannabis inside of smoke shops. We've identified almost 1,700 Smoke shops in New York City and they pop up daily So what we've been looking at is are these smoke shops acting illegally Are there complaints associated to those smoke shops? Whether it be 311 or 911 complaints. How many feet is the smoke shop from the nearest school and With the illegal sale of cannabis in some of these stores comes a cash business that Individuals are targeting We've seen over a hundred smoke shop related robberies already this year and what we're also seeing is the use of multiple motor vehicles that are either stolen or have paper plates being used to Then commit these these robberies. So what's the NYPD doing? We have really stepped up our enforcement with our partners and other city agencies but we've also have Robbery task force and most of our boroughs both on the patrol and the detective side of the investigations and We've you know, we've made hundreds of arrests just this year and we're going to continue to to focus on not not only the illegal sale of marijuana But also make sure that that these stores are safe and so are the surrounding areas one thing that the deputy mayor and myself have been speaking about in the police commissioner is an increase in catalytic convert of thefts in New York City Over the past two plus years Over 13,000 catalytic converters have been stolen in New York City and when I speak to other law enforcement professionals around the Tri-State area, they're also seeing the same problem. So why? Well, it really started in 2021 where we saw our shop increases in these thefts and it's a low-risk high-reward kind of crime But it also affects families think about going outside and thinking you're going to to school or to a game Or to the store and now you can't use your car and it takes a while for it to get fixed so the city passed two bills last year that is helping with the enforcement and also the state is Has just passed a bill in regards to catalytic converters. So I like to speak about a specific Program that the NYPD had started in the summer of 2021. It's called the NYPD CAT scan program So what this does is We etch a unique serial number onto the catalytic converter and then we enroll that into a database That serial number allows the NYPD to identify the vehicle that the catalytic converter belongs to And then what we can do is all we have to do is scan a QR code with The NYPD issued phone and check it through that database We've had four of these events where we've have done etching and we have Two events tentatively scheduled for April in Staten Island in Queens and we also put a Vehicle catalytic converter NYPD CAT scan program sticker on the vehicle identifying The thieves that that car is in the system of the NYPD's CAT scan program So I'm going to go back to something Mike and and so it's intervention right so we have the People stealing cars oftentimes when they are stealing your catalytic converter. They're stealing them out of Illegal cars. They're stealing your car And then they're going to steal your catalytic converter. But let's just go back a second to the the illegal smoke shops I want to be clear. We're talking about the illegal smoke shops Are not the ones who are operating and performing with the laws Um, I understand that robberies up in these establishments significantly. Is that accurate? That is correct So so we've really seen an uptick in these types of robberies in new york city Last year and it continues into this year And you have approximately what percent is of that in in? A tick is and he's but he's armed robberies people going in with guns. Yes, Rob the location. Yes Most of them are With gunpoint robberies Multiple perpetrators will enter and what we see is they then go on to commit another one and another borrow Go commit another one in another borrow. We've had upwards of of groups of individuals Do 20 to 25 smoke shop robberies in a month And they're targeting the the cash that's on site Now why why are these businesses having so much cash on site? Well, it's it's to Circumvent the tax law and I think that the mayors have proposed new bill To increase civil and tax penalties for unlicensed unlicensed and illicit sale of cannabis Will be something that that will help You know that if Cannabis has been legalized and decriminalized on the state level The federal laws have not quite caught up with that if you are Deposit money into a federal bank and it was Proceeds of Cannabis are you a committing a federal violations? These businesses are not going to play with the feds right because the penalties are too harsh So they're not putting this money into the bank and then it makes it an attraction For that cash to be on hand and then for the bad guys and the bad girls with their guns are going to rob Right, so they're not going to try not to break the fed law because the penalties are severe inadequate and sufficient But they're willing to break the state and city laws So I just want to actually applaud Our part is in orbony because I do believe they are looking at this and I believe that they're considering um increasing the potential sanctions that we can impose When we uncover these illegal Smokeshops who are targeting our our individuals there. So thank you orbony for actually taking a look at this and certainly For city for the residents for for bringing this out to us and for city government for Raising this particular issue, but it is uh, it is very very important issue. So So thank you chief for petri. Thank you So next we're going to uh speak to our partners in the parks department and they're going to inform us about a new initiative that Is uh, I'm actually excited about because I do believe cleanliness is next to godliness And certainly it is a hand in hand related to public safety, which is very important. So So, uh, commissioner Tell me what we're going to hear. Well, thank you very much, deputy mayor banks We greatly appreciate the invitation and we also do agree that cleanliness goes hand in hand with public safety Last week we marked the arrival of spring Which is really the beginning of the ramp up of the busiest time at parks Just for a bit of context we at new york city parks are responsible for 30 000 acres of land in the city Which is almost 14 percent of the city of new york We've over a thousand playgrounds 800 athletic fields. It's a very large system As the weather warms up. So does our operation We've been grooming ball fields and we shortly will begin to turn on over 3400 drinking fountains 800 spray features, which are really critical to help keep new yorkers cool and hydrated as the temperatures warm up We're also preparing to open all of our beaches and over 50 of our outdoor pools Again critical to help new yorkers cool down and enjoy the summer But as the deputy mayor noted Safety and cleanliness and programming go hand in hand It's our mission at parks to make sure that everyone is welcome and safe when they visit any one of our 1700 parks We believe one of the best strategies to do this is to have well maintained parks Our maintenance is a key to that To that end we're so pleased that mayor adams included in his get stuff clean campaign For the first time ever a dedicated second shift cleaning initiative At a select number of parks across the five boroughs These 240 newly hired parkies will be working afternoon and evening hours From thursday through monday. So over the weekend cleaning what we at park called hot spots Which is our heavily used sites during the warmer weather months. So think of picnic areas barbecue sites places where families and patrons gather We're dedicating staff to make sure that they're clean. So when you show up to use the park It's clean and along with cleanliness comes safety Simply put we're committed to maintaining our parks over a broader period of time at a larger number of parks across all five boroughs Critical to that also is the staff maintaining our over 1400 public restrooms There's been a lot of conversations in the press and amongst Our colleagues in government and the public about the importance of the public having access to safe and clean restrooms We are very pleased at parks that we provide more public restrooms in any other agency in the city And 1400 of them open seven days a week throughout the year We do really like to remind new yorkers though that clean safe parks is also dependent upon your use And your coming to parks. So if you see issues you see concerns Please call either 911 or 311 to report cleanliness issues And if you're coming to barbecue, we really do appreciate if you clean up after yourselves pick up after yourselves Bag up the trash and then place it right next to one of our trash containers And we'll make sure it gets out of there very quickly And or if you want to carry it out carry in carry out. We also appreciate that So again on behalf of all our hard-working colleagues at parks We appreciate this opportunity deputy mayor and we look forward to a great summer. I appreciate you So so so let's let's go over a couple potential takeaways one Is that if you are visiting the parks and if you see something Whether it's cleanliness related or not that does not look appropriate We like for you to call 311 or of course if it's an emergency call 911, right? That's the first takeaway, correct? Correct. Absolutely either 311 or 911 And the second takeaway is that if you're utilizing the park do the best you can right to clean up after yourself, right? Put your garbage in the garbage cans or I think take it with you or however you're going to see but you could help us Uh by helping yourself, right? You can you can how's it go? You can help us help you Correct by you actually doing a lot of cleaning up yourself But we're also dedicating resources where they were not dedicated before Right dedicated shifts the evening and weekend hours, correct So this would be a correct statement that the areas at least where we're starting this initiative I think you said it was you know 62 different facilities that the people should see cleaner this year than they did previously Absolutely. That's our goal. Okay. Yep. Very good. Excellent Okay, so last but certainly not least right. I am joined here by deanna logan Director of the mayor's office of criminal justice me and deanna speak Five or six times a day She has a very very critical and important job And I think it's going to be interesting what she is going to be speaking about now. So So deanna if we could just get a real quick overview because a lot of people may not Truly know or understand what the mayor's office of criminal justice does And then you're going to have a presentation that's going to focus in on recidivism and just certain areas in the criminal justice system, right? Yes, okay, it's on you. Okay. Well, good afternoon everybody I'm really happy to be here with my colleagues from the parks department from new york city police department They keep me with chief lepetre all the time apparently, but Uh, thank you mayor. Thank you deputy mayor banks My name is deanna logan and I am the director of the mayor's office of criminal justice We affectionately refer to ourselves as mac jay and a lot of people refer to us as mac jay as well We serve as the think tank and coordinating entity for the city's criminal justice system And what does that mean? It means that we advise mayor adams and deputy mayor banks on criminal justice policy and serve as the mayor's representatives to the courts to district attorneys Defender organizations state criminal justice agencies among other entities We work with our law enforcement Partners with city agencies not for profits foundations the public And our goal is to implement data driven Anti-crime strategies and promote the operation of a fair justice system Our efforts include projects to address current crime conditions prevent offending and build strong neighborhoods that ensure enduring safety mac jay's work is grounded in data We have our research innovation and policy teams. They work collaboratively to identify concerns that may be barriers to public safety And so now deputy mayor i'm going to just kind of go into some of the collaboration and the efforts that we've had on the one of the main main Crime challenges that we've been seeing right so Under mayor adams leadership with deputy mayor banks the city's public safety agencies began an Unprecedented collaboration to align crime data across the city systems mac jay New york police department department of correction and many providers of our service work together to coordinate the data systems And produce an accurate picture of public safety landscape within the criminal justice framework of new york city We also mac jay have a long-standing relationship with the office of court administrations data team That both drives the data that's available and helps to analyze criminal justice trends So with our sister city agencies and state city agencies We also work with the partner service providers and justice involved individuals To obtain and review not only the quantitative data that you hear us talk about in terms of numbers But qualitative data like how it actually works for them on the ground To inform the city's government's critical criminal justice work Our unprecedented collaboration across all of these multiple data streams allowed us to drill down Into the city's most challenging public safety matters That one challenge that new york city is facing right now Is the recidivism problem and when we talk about the recidivism problem What we are really talking about is the deep dive into the data that shows us that approximately 9 000 people that have a Recent persistent pattern of recurring criminal charges and missing court And so I want to be really clear about that because when we're talking about a recent persistent Criminal charge pattern. We're not saying that everybody's been convicted We're saying that these individuals in a very short Quick period have been coming back on recurring criminal charges And they're failing to actually show up in court for those charges, right? So in the last year 2022 There were approximately 190 000 arrests and chief lapetri will let you know because you see he's smiling at me because he knows that that's accurate of those 9 000 individuals that were charged in court that had that pattern of recent persistent recurring criminal charges The population of 9 000 Represents 8 percent of all arrests right 8 percent And then when we looked even closer what we realized is those 9 000 with that pattern Of them there are approximately 2000 that would go on to commit violent felony offenses, right? 9 000 that have the recurring and within that population. There's a pocket Small pocket of 2000 individuals that go on to commit violent felony offenses Now putting that information into perspective what we know is people with recent persistent pattern Of recurring criminal charges and missing court Are at high risk for failing to appear in court and committing another crime However, they're also the small concentration of people who commit those crimes, right? We identified this group by working with all of our partners across agencies service providers and we worked together and we said What do all of these people have in common? What do they share? and When we look at data, I can tell you that the research innovation team they're they're usually really complicated and The the thing that was most astonishing about this group of people Is that what they shared was absolutely common sense? It wasn't complicated. It was that within this group. They were recent pending felony cases in court multiple warrants two or more in the past five years several open cases and three or more right several open cases means three or more within the past five years Once we actually honed in on those shared factors It wasn't hard for all of the experts in the area to replicate our findings, right? That's when we know that we're we're on to something when we can give Our partners the information of what we're seeing and they can take the data and they can do it themselves And they did and they concurred that these individuals Were most likely to reoffend and miscourt the same way that we came to that understanding Now what we also know is true from our data is that People within this within the arrest population who don't have these shared factors And don't exhibit the pattern of recurring criminal charges and missing court Are actually returning to court So people who Don't have warrants in the last five years No convictions in the last three years No felony convictions in the last 10 years And no pending cases Generally have significant fewer incidents of recurring criminal charges So the data is clear It shows that people who have Recent patterns of recurring criminal charges Are driving a considerable amount Of the crime we're seeing today, right this population of individuals as you should be seeing on your screen I hope you're seeing on your screen disproportionately accounts for a significant percentage of the crime and non-court compliance 8% of the arrested people as you're seeing out of the 190,000 citywide arrests in 2022 That group accounted for 27 percent of felony arrests 22 of all or 22 percent of all arrests 29 percent of felony robbery arrests 57 percent of felony burglary arrests 36 percent of grand larceny arrests 33 percent of larceny auto arrests, which I'm thinking chief laboratory falls into your catalytic converter population and then 60 percent of misdemeanor pettit larceny arrests The small population of individuals with this recent persistent pattern Are actually really struggling. We know that they are struggling to modify their own behavior They're also individuals that are not susceptible to the supports that work for the majority of people that we talked about that aren't seeing that pattern We understand that for some individuals with this recent persistent pattern of recurring criminal charges A period of incarceration is warranted and in some cases the necessary mechanism to order to disrupt that cycle But we also understand that true public safety requires multiple methods and partners that can deploy the tactics to combine strong accountability and robust prevention strategies We know that many among the recidivist group are struggling with a heightened level of need And it means that in specific cases we must employ a much more targeted form of support And supervision to provide Intent services accountability coping skills that will afford these individuals the ability to overcome their behavior Based on research in new york and other jurisdictions. We can improve outcomes for many of this group With a much more precise response to address their behavior and needs that would include more active and stringent supervision While they are out of jail housing supports mental health care Trauma informed therapeutic supports to help guide better responses to difficult situations Stressors and fears what we know about this population is that they respond to what we take for granted getting up and going to an appointment Rises in them a level of fear and flight or flight response that does not actually happen for average new yorkers and citizens Improving the outcomes for this group is possible And we will be coordinating across our incredible array of talented service providers to do everything in the city's power to increase the intensity Precision and effectiveness of how we help this population Successfully return to court to answer their charges and to avoid reoffending So what you know is more intense individualized supervision and clinical supports equals reduced rearrest rates Increased court appearance rates to go back and finish their cases and address their crimes and fairer more efficient system operation for the criminal justice system Excellent So if I could just you know a couple of things, uh diana and first of all, thank you that was very informative And I i'm i'm relatively confident that our listeners here, you know got a thorough education understanding of this issue here so small percentage of the population creating an inordinate amount of A crime has taken place right driving the numbers are for the percentages are higher And even within that small amount like we can identify even within that small amount the ones that are actually We've taken that and are creating violent felony offenses against us so we can see the population It's nine thousand that population will change because since it's common sense Criteria then people roll in and people roll out but the trend of nine thousand People that are overall reoffending stays and two thousand of them will go on to commit violent felony offenses And since we're talking about recidivism, we we know who these individuals are correct In Well, we know we can identify them at arraignment And so we know that we need to do something different for those individuals exactly and and and that difference Can be harsh in conservation races, but it could actually just be services that they actually need as well Right. Absolutely. There's the two things that you can give them, right? You know if it's required from conservation, which as a society We do want to make sure that that is only a last step a last result We want to be very able to make the assessment the tree yard to determine will housing work will job work will mental health Assisters worth work to be able to get these individuals out of criminal justice systems and as the last resort In conservation if need be just to save the rest of society would I be accurate and framing it? That is very accurate Okay, thank you Okay, so listen here that That actually sums up our our presentations for this week once again Thank you, and I believe that we're going to go to some type of questions Thank you deputy mayor We will now take a few on-topic questions from the media related to today's presentations We encourage those who have an on-topic question related to today's briefing to use the raise hand function now For any off-topic questions, please follow up with the press office for a response Our first question will come from Debra Lee Santos Who is with the Manhattan Times Bronx Free Press? Debra, you know, Debra Lealon is now unmuted Terrific. Good morning. Can you all hear me? Yes Terrific. Thank you for the time in the presentations Um in time the conversation uh to public on public safety to a change in seasons and the uptick Uh of use of the park screen spaces and overall increase in just the use of public spaces Um, you know, it's an obvious concern that the youth related incidents that we've seen uh proliferate Involving guns in instance some instances not involving them in others. For example, the uptown platform seen where a young man was was brutally beaten by another group of of youth The concern also Is uh exacerbated as we turn again in terms of the the season and think about how there'll be more use of public spaces There'll be more congregation. There'll be more opportunities, rightfully so And I want to ask um the deputy mayor uh to speak to how it is at the nypd And the city agencies that are represented here today um specifically plan on addressing That concern uh because again, you're you're already seeing that uptick in in youth Violence and youth incidents. Um, and that's likely only going to be exacerbated by The change in in weather Thank you for the question deborley. Unfortunately, we only have time today to take questions related to the presentations that were made during this briefing Uh, we will refer that question to the press office and somebody will follow up with you later this afternoon our next question comes from Bernadette Hogan from the new york post Bernadette your line is now unmuted Great. Hi guys. Thank you so much. Um, this is a question for director logan The figures that you provided about the group of 9 000 and then the smaller group of very violent, um offenders the 2000 How do those figures compare to 20 or 2019 or 2018? What's the five-year arc and how can you explain? That transition of numbers so So unfortunately when we look at the data part of this unprecedented Collaboration was to get us additional variables that really start in 2020 and don't allow us to go back Into the 2019 2018 to do that. We do know that our partners in criminal justice uh, uh, so Cja is what we refer to them as Have a dashboard that kind of gives a little look into this population But overall the data really starts and is reliable when we look starting in 2020 Thank you Earlier this week the administration reached out to new yorkers asking them to submit questions for the officials that have joined us here today We will now get to as many of those as we can with the time that we have left Our first question comes from alice and queens and is for the parks department She asks if a park is overgrown with invasive vines such as english ivy. How can I report it to be removed? Great. Thank you very much alice for the question Um, certainly control of vegetation and parks is one of our primary focus And if there's overgrown vegetation, we encourage any citizen to call 311 And report it through 311 with the location And if you have a sense of the type of vegetation you can also submit photographs And then we'll follow up on that request. Thank you Our next question comes from richard from the bronx and is for the nypd He asks the most recent opportunity for the community to participate in the bronx calm stat was a real example of transparency and fostering trust How can the community further support the nypd with community oriented policing separate and apart from precinct councils? Thank you. Yes, so we we just had our really our second Comstat community meeting which went very well With the bronx this week You know as always, uh, you know, it's the community and police working together, right? So the police department needs the community For the eyes and ears, you know call 311 call 9-1-1 You know walk into your local precinct and really meet the offices From that precinct or or the area that that you live in or the area that you uh work in Thank you Thank you chief Our next question comes from kathleen in brooklyn for mac jay In response to the covet pandemic mac jay worked with community organizations to open emergency reentry housing To decarcerate rikers island does mac jay remain committed to the emergency low barrier reentry housing model in addition To the transitional housing bed scheduled to come online this summer So the administration and mac jay are committed to making sure that housing is a priority When we opened up the reentry emergency hotels that was always meant to be a short term emergency We are now working to move into transitional housing, which is a much more cost-effective Way for the city to provide housing to all of those people who have criminal justice involvement Most importantly what the emergency reentry hotels did for us was allow us to take Best lessons learned meaning that as we're moving into transitional housing We will make sure that the partners that are providing it have immediate policemen for individuals within the 24 to 48 hour period that we had to do with the emergency hotels We will have the onsite services that support individuals and we will be able to do it at a much more Much more cost effective way for the city and for all of the people that need the supports Our next question comes from lauren from queens for the parks department She asks has the past infestation of the spotted lantern fly compromised the health of street trees Is there a plan to survey street trees and exterminate spotted lantern flies? Thank you lauren for that question Actually, the state's department of agriculture is the lead agency on spotted lantern flies and we regularly coordinate Approaches in response to them the spotted lantern lantern fly is mainly threat to agricultural crops Alone they are they do not kill trees although in great Quantities they could weaken trees At this time we at parks are not considering any widespread Treatment or certainly not removal of trees in order to control the spotted lantern fly population We do encourage all new yorkers though if you see a spotted lantern fly Please feel free to just squash it and dispose of it. Thank you All right, the next question comes from greg on statten island and this is actually related to the chief's presentation just earlier Are there more local police patrols being planned to combat people walking around in early hours of the morning Chicken car doors and private driveways and parked on the street Thank you greg so yes, so we have seen a optic in Motor vehicle break-ins in statten island We actually just had statten island Into comp stat just just a couple of weeks ago and that was one of the things That we were questioning the commanders on so what the commanders have done is they have moved Some patrols to the to the areas and to the times that they do see A cluster of car brakes and we're also looking at Car brake recidivists recidivists who might live in the area, but you definitely will see and And are seeing a more increased patrol in regards to car brakes in statten island Next question comes from roger from statten island. This is for mac j Does your office track repeat offenders when it comes to shoplifting? This is a big problem in our city So Mac j doesn't actually track individuals We review aggregate data to identify trends and patterns that allow our partners to work And support individuals, but also for nypd does the enforcement part of that work We do however Work with the mayor on those initiatives that are Most pressing and so as it regards to retail theft there will be more to come because We have been working very closely with deputy mayor banks and with the mayor for the retail theft plan On individuals that are the recidivists that are driving that So if I could just add to it, so the new york city police department does track Shoplifting recidivists as we track all recidivists in new york city And I will tell you this we know who the 327 individuals are that have been arrested over 6,000 times in the past year 327 people Have been arrested 6,000 times for shop shoplifting related crime and when you look at Those individuals almost half of them are convicted felons. So those are the individuals Some of them that diana logan was speaking about during her presentation Thank you Our next question comes from sarah in brooklyn and is for the parks department Can you tell me more about the plan to bring legal e-bikes into parks? Great. Thank you sarah for that question. We're very excited about this pilot initiative We at parks along with the entire city has seen the significant growth in electric micro mobility including e-bikes And in coordination with our sister agencies across the city We're very pleased to be part of mayor adam's recently announced micro mobility plan This includes a pilot which will allow e-bikes on parks roads and designated green ways These are critical part of the city's infrastructure of mobility As with all things safety is our top concern so micro um e-bikes will not be allowed On pedestrian only pathways The goal of the pilot is again e-bikes on park roadways and green ways Through the pilot we will be looking at interventions that help support safety on these paths including signage Education to help reduce conflicts. We'll have more details about the pilot closer to its rollout in the beginning of the summer Thank you Our next question comes from laurene from queens, which is a question that we've received repeatedly during this week's responses from the public And it focuses around Regulation of law and licensing for e-scooters mopeds and flybikes when it comes to riding on sidewalks This is very dangerous. And if someone is caught doing so, can it be confiscated? So, yes, so Bicycle enforcement through our patrol officers or 20,000 approximate patrol offices and our Highway offices is something that we take very seriously and it is Illegal to ride recklessly on a sidewalk Things of that nature So it is something that we enforce and we've seen a sharp increase in that type of enforcement Thank you chief on behalf of the Adams administration I would like to thank everyone for tuning in to today's briefing. We look forward to seeing you all at our next one. Have a great day