The NYPD is transferring oversight of its 3,600 school safety agents from the Community Affairs Bureau to the office of Chief of Department John Chell, according to multiple sources, in a move that comes as the department’s commissioner pushes for stricter repercussions for some teens convicted of serious crimes.
A police department spokesperson confirmed the move is in the works, calling it a structural one related to management and oversight. The spokesperson noted that “the role and functions of school safety agents will remain the same.”
Still, the issue of policing in schools has historically been a sensitive one, and any change is likely to generate scrutiny.
Four years ago, under pressure from police reform advocates during the Black Lives Matter movement, former Mayor Bill de Blasio agreed to move control of school safety agents out of the NYPD entirely.
He said in 2021 that his administration would put the agents under the authority of the Department of Education, in a bid to reduce the intensity of the policing of young people.
But de Blasio’s second term as mayor ended in December 2021, before his administration completed the transfer, and the agents were kept within the Community Affairs Bureau under his successor, Mayor Eric Adams.
Adams, a former NYPD captain, has backed tougher policing on a number of fronts, including by reconstituting a plainclothes unit known as “Anti-Crime” that was disbanded by de Blasio in response to persistent complaints from communities.
His police department also formed a Community Response Team whose sometimes aggressive work contributed to a surge in dangerous vehicle pursuits in recent years.
Chell helped create and operate the Community Response Team and publicly backed the increase in vehicle pursuits. As THE CITY has reported, at least 17 civilian deaths occurred in the course of police car chases in the past few years.
His office, which directs the department’s uniformed force, is slated to oversee the agents, who are unarmed. They conduct metal detector screenings at the entrances to dozens of schools and patrol them to generally keep students safe during the school day and at dismissal. The shift is expected to occur before the school year starts next month.
NYPD officials said the change is strictly structural, and that better oversight was needed for the school safety division. Shifting the division to the chief of department will assist both coordination and access to resources, they said.
Last November, federal investigators raided the School Safety Division’s headquarters in Queens as part of what the New York Post reported was a probe focused on city contracts.
“The School Safety Division is one of the most important in the agency — working in our schools every day to protect our children — and it’s critical that its structure reflects that,” an NYPD spokesperson said in an emailed statement without providing their name. “This organizational change will improve the School Safety Division’s ability to serve our children and schools safely and effectively.”
Still, the change comes at a sensitive time for policing in the city, particularly when it involves young people.
President Donald Trump’s push to deport undocumented immigrants has already swept up some New York City school children, and any uptick in aggressive policing that leads to arrests could make more students vulnerable.
Additionally, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and some of the city’s district attorneys have been advocating for the state to amend legislation passed as part of criminal justice reform efforts in 2017, under then Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
The law, known as “Raise the Age,” transferred most criminal cases of 16- and 17-year-olds to family court rather than criminal court, often leading to penalties short of jail time.
On Friday, Tisch published an op-ed in the New York Post advocating for state legislators to amend the law, under a headline that read: “‘Raise the Age’ is killing New York kids.”
A month earlier, Tisch said at a press briefing that gangs are recruiting younger members to evade the more serious consequences of arrest, and that the number of kids under 18 arrested for gun possession climbed 136% between 2018 and 2024.
However, an analysis in the policy journal Vital City last November noted that the share of crimes committed by juveniles has decreased since the legislation was passed, with those under 18 involved in 12.3% of major crimes arrests in 2017 but just 9.1% in 2023. The analysis saw a similar drop when it comes to violent crime arrests.
A midyear analysis of crime Vital City published last month noted the limited data available, but found that in cases where the suspect’s age is known, the proportion of criminal complaints involving youths under 18 dropped to 4.3% in the first half of 2025 from 5.6% in 2018.
“There is little public evidence to support the claim that Raise the Age has led to increased youth crime,” the latest analysis found.
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