The Legal Aid Society has released a new analysis of City data showing that, seven months into the Mamdani administration, New Yorkers have paid millions of dollars to resolve lawsuits alleging misconduct by the New York City Police Department, with $53.5 million paid between January 1 and July 31, 2026.

Rather than advancing the transformational policing reforms promised on the campaign trail, the Mamdani has continued many of the enforcement strategies championed by former Mayor Eric Adams. Despite campaigning on a promise not to return to broken windows policing, the administration has continued fare evasion enforcement and other low-level enforcement practices, including the continued criminalization of people for sleeping or occupying more than one seat in the subway.

Since 2018, New Yorkers have spent nearly a billion dollars on police misconduct claims. Legal Aid is calling on Mayor Mamdani to correct course and deliver meaningful reform to the NYPD.

“New Yorkers voted for a fundamentally different approach to public safety, one that promised to move away from the failed policing strategies that have driven over-policing, undermined constitutional rights, and failed to make New Yorkers safer,” said Phil Desgranges, Attorney-in-Charge of Criminal Law Reform at Legal Aid. “Seven months into the Mamdani administration, taxpayers continue paying millions to resolve allegations of police misconduct while New Yorkers continue to suffer the consequences of over-policing.”

“Mayor Mamdani still has an opportunity to deliver on his commitment to meaningful policing reform, but that requires more than rhetoric,” Desgranges continued. “It requires ending the practices that continue to generate harm, erode public trust, and cost taxpayers millions of dollars year after year.”