New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced a significant $17 million increase in funding for the city’s five district attorneys’ offices, bringing their total budget to $633 million for fiscal year 2026. This 23% increase since Adams took office aims to bolster public safety by equipping prosecutors with resources to reduce case backlogs, expand diversion programs, and launch initiatives targeting gun violence, cybercrime, and domestic violence. The funding will support hiring additional staff, including assistant district attorneys and analysts, and enhance technological capabilities, such as Queens County’s new crime strategy lab for digital evidence processing. Adams, joined by four district attorneys, emphasized their collaborative efforts in achieving historic lows in shootings and homicides, with nearly 23,000 illegal guns removed from streets since his administration began, underscoring a commitment to delivering “smarter, faster, fairer” justice across the city.
Transcript: Mayor Adams Announces Increased Funding for Five District Attorneys’ Offices, Raising Budgets to $633 Million to Deliver Smarter, Faster, Fairer Justice
Mayor Eric Adams: I’m going to start off with this. This says it all, and when you look at “Disarmed,” of course, the men and women of the New York City Police Department, Commissioner Tisch, and the entire team there, and our other law enforcement entities, Department of Correction, Law Enforcement and Department of Sanitation, PEP employees, crisis management teams. And when you have a safe city and you’re able to disarm a city, it is not one entity.
It is the accumulation of all of the law enforcement partners coming together, focusing on how do we disarm those who want to bring gun violence to our city. And nothing personifies that more than the five district attorneys in this city. We have stood next to them several times throughout the last few years on gang takedowns and really proactive approaches to dealing with public safety. They did not only prosecute crimes; they came up with ideas of how to prevent crime.
And so I cannot thank them enough for their partnership and how we have disarmed our city, and we are going to continue to do so. So today I’m joined here with four of our district attorneys, District Attorney Darcel Clark, District Attorney Alvin Bragg, District Attorney Melinda Katz, and Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon. And we’re also joined by Nancy Paddock, chief assistant district attorney for Kings County. Kings County DA Eric Gonzalez is on vacation, and I’m sure he would have loved to have joined us here today. Because he, too, is in the largest borough in the city, he has been extremely proactive and reactive to dealing with violence in our city and serious crime.
But also, specifically, the gun violence in our city. And Nancy, please give the DA my regards, tell him to enjoy the vacation. I’m looking forward to one also. Today we’re sending a message that we’re really focusing on our DAs and giving them the resources that they need, and we’re clear on protecting our city. This has been our north star since we came into office. And you heard me say it over and over again, public safety is the prerequisite to our prosperity.
Safety is on the top agenda of far too many New Yorkers, and we must deal with the actual crime, but also the perception of crime as well. That’s what this administration is doing, and I want to thank my chief counsel here at City Hall. Allison has really stayed on top of all of the public safety apparatus and made sure our partnerships and collaborations are clear on how we move towards our north star, and that is a safe city.
From upstream intervention to downstream solutions, we are delivering every day for New Yorkers. And our district attorneys are our trusted partners when it comes to protecting our city. They prosecute violent crimes and criminal offenders. They take on gun violence, bust drug rings and human traffickers, protect victims of domestic violence, and they serve justice. They are the real law and order, prosecuting, keeping our neighborhoods and our city safe around the clock, the number of times I’ve seen them at particular shootings or incidents standing side by side, responding to hospitals when there’s a terrible incident, or at the crime scene to get a first hand view of what’s taking place.
They are front and center in dealing with public safety. And we are going to make sure we give them the resources to do their job. In our 2026 adopted budget, we like to say the Best Budget Ever. This would include more than $17 million in new investment for the city’s five district attorney offices this fiscal year. This funding brings investments in our DAs to a total of $633 million this fiscal year. That’s a 23 percent increase since I took office.
The men and women working in the offices of our five DAs will now have even more resources to cut case backlogs, expand diversion initiatives, and stand up new programs that keep our communities safe. Justice delayed is justice denied, and these DAs understand that clearly. And this funding means more criminals off our streets. It means more cases are prosecuted, and it means more communities are safe.
We’re investing in a system that delivers public safety quickly, fairly, and effectively. This is our administration’s largest investment in local prosecutors, that builds on our recent achievements in delivering a safer city for New Yorkers.
With the five DAs, we are witnessing seven months of the lowest number of shootings and shootings victims in the recorded history of this city. And we had six straight months of the lowest number of homicides in our city. We cannot do this alone. We need them to ensure dangerous people remain off our streets. This is continuous improvement in each quarter since January of 2024. There’s no accidents.
As a result of this administration and the partnership with our DAs, the focus is on eradicating gun violence and improving quality of life throughout the five boroughs. Since coming into office, we have removed close to 23,000 illegal guns off our streets. 23,000 illegal guns off our streets. Many of those guns that were removed were due to gang takedowns that we have witnessed in this city. This year alone, we have removed 3,100 guns off our streets.
Our subways are safer with transit crime down across the five boroughs. We have closed down nearly 1,500 illegal cannabis shops. Many of those shops are used as magnets for criminal behavior. And we knew if we closed them down, our streets and communities would be safer. So we moved over 108,000 illegal vehicles, mopeds, dirt bikes, ghost cars to take off our streets so they would not be used as tools for criminal behavior.
And with this funding, we invested in a safer city and we will continue to do so. And again, I want to thank our five DAs for being laser focused on making this city a safer city to raise children and families. I want to turn it over to the Bronx DA, DA Darcel Clark.
Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark: Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Eric Adams, thank you for inviting me to City Hall on this occasion of this very important announcement. I’m pleased to be standing alongside my fellow district attorneys for New York City. For years, I have been pleading with our elected leaders, both on the state and local level, to provide more resources for the Bronx. For crime prevention, as well as to better serve victims and process defendants’ cases more swiftly and justly.
And I’ve been asking for more help to confront gun violence that is stealing our kids’ lives and futures. In March, I testified before the City Council and told them, and you all know me with a little bit of anger and exasperation, that I am fighting for the soul of the Bronx. And today, with this investment of $6 million, Mayor Adams, as well as the City Council, you are saying that you have now joined me in this battle. And for that, I simply say, thank you.
These funds are a game changer for the criminal justice system in the Bronx. We will be able to hire 24 new assistant district attorneys and professional employees, which will help us resolve cases more quickly and fairly, so that we can get justice for our victims and for our community and defendants. And it will help me fully staff our Youth Justice Bureau to more effectively address youth gun violence that plagues the Bronx.
The Youth Justice Bureau staff will be specifically trained in youth development to consider how prosecution is done, and whether diversion should be a part of what we’re doing. Programming or any alternative dispositions are appropriate. This team will also identify and address the trends in youth related gang violence and trafficking, and we’ll have a community engagement component.
These funds will also go toward a long sought South Bronx community justice center and make it now a reality. For years, I have been advocating for a community justice center with an array of programs and services for all members of the community. These centers help in prevention, intervention, re-entry, and will provide social needs and services that will be directly aimed at the heart of the root causes of crime.
Mr. Mayor, I appreciate the financial support and as always, your continued support for the people of the Bronx. Thank you very much. And now it is my pleasure to introduce my colleague, Harlem’s own, Manhattan’s own, former federal prosecutor, former assistant Attorney General, Alvin Bragg.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg: Thank you, DA Clark, my neighbor. We do so much work together, and it’s an honor to work with her as it is with all of the other district attorneys. Such a collaborative approach we have. I want to thank you, Mr. Mayor, for your steadfast leadership. As you said in your remarks, public safety is your north star. You keep us all focused on it, and in particular, the way you’ve funded the district attorney’s office and thought about us is an essential part of the public safety puzzle. So I’m grateful.
In Manhattan, this funding is going to go really far to advancing public safety, and in three ways in particular. First, we all joined arms earlier this year and advocated for a change in our discovery law that goes into effect this week. It’s still going to be a kind of laborious process, requiring a lot of work for us to efficiently move cases. And so the funding, the first part of it will go to helping our staff and really deepening our resources to process the cases, meet our discovery obligation.
And efficiently move cases, which we know reduces recidivism and advances public safety. The second part, and the mayor mentioned this in his remark as well, diversion programs. We’ve expanded through our pathways to public safety programs, our problem solving courts. And these resources will help us to continue that work. And we’ve seen again and again the effect of that on reducing recidivism and advancing public safety. And the third, and DA Clark mentioned some of my prior stops, I’m a proud career public servant.
And I think many of us saw throughout lots of parts of governments during COVID, a lot of people transitioned out. We, in our office in particular, the mid-level prosecutors, those that are really carrying a very important part of our docket. We had attrition in that area, and so this funding is going to really help us with those ranks. It’s such a critical piece, and for me, as a career public servant, to be able to fund those positions.
And the people will be able to look through those years and see an entire trajectory of career in the office, which is along with the kind of fine tradition of the Manhattan DA’s office. I’m really, really excited about that, and so, so appreciative, Mr. Mayor. And so with that, I don’t know if I can top DA Clark’s introduction, but I’m going to try.
My colleague from Queens County, who used to walk these halls as a member of the City Council, and then was in our state legislature, and is, I believe, and she’ll correct me if I get it wrong, leads the most diverse county in the United States of America. And with that, I give you District Attorney Melinda Katz.
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz: We are the most diverse county in the country, actually. 49 percent born outside the United States, decided to make Queens County their home. Thank you, DA Bragg, for that introduction. I want to thank the mayor of the City of New York for the work that he does in combating crime every day. I do know that yesterday, they had a press conference with the NYPD, or he had a press conference with the NYPD, pointing out that they’re disarming individuals in the City of New York. Think about what goes into that. Think about how we get the guns off the street.
We have guns coming in from South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina, up the Iron Pipeline, into the borough of Queens County, and the other four boroughs every single day. And to think about how we combat that. The assistant district attorneys, the New York City Police Department, the detective investigators in my office, the paralegals that work on those cases, the undercover officers who walk into danger every single day to get those guns off the street, the gang takedowns and the cops that go in and make sure that we arrest the gang members so the kids don’t feel that gangs are the chosen family.
All of that takes resources. All of that takes cooperation, not only from the DAs that are here today, but also from the mayor of the City of New York, from the commissioner, from the governor of the state who just changed discovery laws with the legislature to make sure that while we have prosecutions, that it stays relevant to the evidence and makes sure that people are held accountable.
So this is right here, the other half of that criminal justice system, as quoted in a TV show, right? You have the police and you have the DAs. And we work hard every day to get justice for victims. But we also want to make sure that young people and folks don’t end up in the criminal justice system at all. And by disarming people, we are doing that.
We are taking care of the market in the City of New York for those weapons. So, Mr. Mayor and to the council, Mr. Mayor, thank you for the additional funding. I will tell you that this funding is going to bring more ADAs into Queens County. It’s going to bring more experienced attorneys, seasoned professionals in all of those jobs that I just described.
We need more support staff. We need IT people. We need all of the ADAs to get fair salaries. So they want to stay as public servants in the City of New York. And this will help them do that. And as important for us is the fact that we have a crime strategy lab that’s being funded in this budget. That’s $1.75 million to make sure that the lab can address digital evidence.
Right now in my office, we have to send our downloads to somewhere else in order to get the information from all the electronics. And think about modern technology. And think about a city that keeps up with modern technology. Isn’t that an amazing thing? So I am happy and grateful for the funding that increased in our staff.
But I’m also happy and grateful that we will be able to quickly turn around electronic evidence as well now as part of this year’s budget. And just for the record, so everybody knows, our budget went from in 2020, we’ve raised about $25 million since then. About. I’m doing the math quickly. But I thank the entire city.
I thank Mayor Adams for the work that he has done in supporting the offices, my office and the offices behind me. And now it is my great privilege to introduce the district attorney of the county, the great county of Staten Island, who also just finished his role as president of the District Attorney’s Association of the State of New York, Michael McMahon.
Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon: Good morning and thank you, DA Katz, for that warm introduction. I am Michael McMahon. I’m privileged and honored to serve the people of Staten Island as their district attorney. And I know that there are a lot of wonderful hyperbolic descriptive of our boroughs. We’ve got the most diverse, the largest, the most cosmopolitan, and obviously Staten Island is just simply the best borough.
And I’m privileged and honored to come from there and be here today and stand with you, Mr. Mayor, and say thank you for this extra funding that you are awarding to our office in Staten Island. And you are, sir, quite simply the safe city mayor. Since inaugurated, you have focused on this issue with a laser-like acuity, and you have delivered.
And we see it across the board from major gun crimes, drug trafficking crimes, down to the quality of life crimes. And the people of Staten Island, I know when I speak to them, I say that you get that issue. And you understand that to be a strong city, we have to be a safe city. And you get that, and we thank you for that. For us, in our office, this money will allow us to focus on two major areas.
One is intimate partner violence, which within the domestic violence world is such an everyday occurrence, which really drives other crimes as well. Women and children are victims, in particular, of intimate partner violence. They see them in the households, and this will allow us to add additional staff members with the support that they need so that Staten Island can serve its people in this regard.
And the other is in the area of cyber crime. And just two days ago, I was reading a report of a 76-year-old woman who was scammed out of $209,000, her lifetime savings. And it was through a cyber scam, if you will. And this will allow us in Staten Island to have the technological abilities to go after those. We’re taking advantage of those many people.
You also understand, sir, that partnerships are important. That’s why you work with us in the DA’s office, our staff, and your team, represented by Ms. Stoddart. We thank them as well. And of course, our great senator from Staten Island, Diane Savino, I know is part of your team. I have to mention her or I’ll be in trouble. I will not be able to go back across the bridge, and I’m going to have to move in with you, sir, at Gracie Mansion.
So we thank you for this. And you put your money where your mouth is, if it’s okay to say that, because you believe in this, and we thank you for it. And I thank my colleagues as well. It was mentioned how we partnered together, us, you, the police commissioner, and the great men and women of the Police Department to go to Albany and change the discovery laws so that the criminal justice system works more rationally and fairly for those who are accused of crimes, and those who are victims of crimes.
And at the end of the day, that’s how we bring down crime fairly and justly. I’m proud to be part of this team today, and we thank you again, sir. It’s now my privilege and honor to introduce back to you the great mayor of the great City of New York, the Honorable Eric Adams.
Mayor Adams: I want to thank all the DAs, and I’m glad DA Bragg mentioned the effort that was put in place to go to Albany to deal with the discovery laws. What happens in the sterilized environments of our legislative chambers, these actions play out on the streets of our city. And their advocacy and assistance on the discovery laws and other laws– lawmakers attempt to get it right, but it’s imperative that we return when we see some form of impact on public safety.
And that’s what they did. And I want to thank Speaker Carl Heastie, as well as Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, and Governor Hochul for hearing us and making those adjustments in the discovery laws. And maybe a little more we can do, but we do want to thank them for hearing us. So why don’t we do a few on topics?
Question: [Inaudible] and I’m wondering, you know, we’ve seen a lot of headlines of people who have had their cases dismissed because the DAs weren’t able to comply with the discovery laws, these changes. The question is, what will the money that you’ve given to the DAs now enable them to do so that they can better comply with discovery laws so that you can keep more people from getting released on the street?
Mayor Adams: Well, you know, we are fortunate to have the former head of the district attorneys, you know, so I’m going to turn it over to you.
District Attorney McMahon: Yeah, thank you so much. And as DA Clark reminds me that the law goes into effect tomorrow, and really these DAs standing with me, and Nancy, on behalf of Eric Gonzalez and the mayor, and Commissioner Tisch was so powerful in getting these changes done. As I understood the question, what changes do we see that will help us better deliver justice?
Question: So, you know, what will this money mean in your ability to comply with the discovery laws so fewer people have their cases dismissed in the town?
District Attorney McMahon: Yeah, absolutely. It’s a great question because this money does help us be more efficient and effective in gathering evidence, working through it, curating it, and being able to deliver it to the defense in a more timely fashion. But what the changes in the law did was say that as long as we show good faith and we’re able to show to the court that we’ve done everything we can to deliver the material as quickly as possible, cases won’t be dismissed on a technicality.
And that’s really the essence of the changes in the law. We also received additional funding for discovery from the state and working that with the money from the mayor today, it will allow our offices to have the tools and the resources and the personnel to get that voluminous material. It’s still a very broad amount of material that we have to gather. Some of it is certainly relevant and material and we think we should turn it over.
Some may not be, but at least now we can get everything together, we can turn it over, and the victims of crime won’t be penalized because of technicalities and the people won’t be penalized and the cases should not be dismissed. And that was the clear message, the intent of these amendments, and we think the system will be fair, it will be transparent, but it’ll also be realistic in understanding that if there’s one memo book that we couldn’t acquire timely from a police officer, a case should not be dismissed. And that’s what the laws, the changes did.
Mayor Adams: Let’s finish the on– and then I’ll take a few off after they go back and do their jobs. They are busy.
Question: On what it will mean in terms of fewer people being, having locations dismissed.
Mayor Adams: When I, I know I had a couple of meetings with DA Gonzalez in particular and DA Clark and there were two things that really drove me to making sure we get the money that they need. One was just a volume of material that they had to handle, turn over in a short period of time. And even with this money, that volume was just too much. It was just, you know, the ideal sometimes collides with the real. And the idealism just, they were not able to manage that.
And we saw some, you know, some cases that would not have been dismissed, just people were exploiting the system. You know, bad guys are smart and they know the law better than we do. I think some of them are probably lobbyists, [they should] go to Albany and get the laws, you know, actually put in place. But they knew the law, they knew the waiting game, they knew what they could do to get the cases dismissed.
And so this is going to help, discovery is going to help the reforms and the money would help. The second thing that I was really shocked about is that I believe one of the DAs alluded to, personnel. We were just not keeping up. Many law firms were allowing their employees to work from home. We were losing skilled employees. We were not able to recruit.
Our product was not as attractive to many seasoned attorneys. And oftentimes the money that they were sharing with me that they spent training new staff just to have them leave in a short period of time. And so each office has their own unique way they need the money. But I just heard from all my DAs that we’re having a real personnel issue.
And we cannot have the erosion of our public safety apparatus. So when you see erosion in DAs, erosion in correction officers, erosion in police officers, erosion in probation officers, all of these institutions are holding up our criminal justice system. And the Staten Island DA said it better, a strong city is a safe city. And that is why our city is strong right now. Because we focus on it being safe.
Question: Congratulations. Thank you for all that you do. I’m wondering sort of following up on that and talking about workforce development. If there’s any way that additional or more advanced technology in each of your offices could help with case backload. I know in Westchester they use AI and out in Suffolk they use different bots on the back end of the DA’s offices.
And I’m wondering if any of this funding can go towards technological improvements like DA Katz mentioned, this digital prime lab. Like what else can be done like that to help our DAs speed up the backload of these cases?
Mayor Adams: And one of the DAs can answer if they want, but I want to be clear. AI could never give way to a good ADA.
District Attorney Katz: So one of the things that the government has done well, I think, is to keep up with modern technology. And as cryptocurrency scams, as technology scams, as third party scams are happening that require a lot of technology and a lot of expertise, the budget increase is helping us hire those ADAs and those analysts, those financial analysts and computer analysts who can keep up with that technology.
Now, for my borough, for instance, we really absolutely needed a crime lab where we could download our phones and our computers because we didn’t want to have to rely on other agencies in order to get that information out of the computer. You know, we all not only are in charge of investigations and working hard to make sure that people get justice, we also have timelines and deadlines that are mandatory, right?
They’re not a choice that we can make and let them wait for that information. We don’t need to get it to them right now. It’s just not true. We have a time deadline. We must get them an answer to the discovery issue. This will help us do that. If we can download the materials from suspects’ phones and download the materials from any phone that might have anything to do with the case and the computers and the technology and then at the same time go after those that would scam, especially our seniors to a large extent, you know, through technology.
They call them and say, you know, there’s a computer link. Can you send us $5,000 because, you know, of a certain reason? We need to be able to find those individuals as well. So we are using the money to keep up with technology. We’re buying new software to make sure that we keep up with it. But all of that requires resources. And truthfully, in today’s day and time, we are modernizing our offices to keep up with the scams and with folks that would take advantage of others in the City of New York.
Mayor Adams: Thank you, guys.
Question: My question has to deal with public safety in regard to the last several days. Andrew Cuomo has proposed a public safety plan and Mr. Mamdani has gone to a National Night Out. [Inaudible]… so I wonder if you can react to all these public safety plans and [inaudible].
Mayor Adams: I wonder, as we, you know, during this campaign season, you unravel who individuals are. I wonder, was he ever at a National Night Out program before in history? I wonder, has he ever attended an FDNY firefighter funeral? Has he ever made a tweet when we lost a firefighter or the lieutenant that was lost in Queens when a person stabbed her?
You can’t become pro-public safety when you decide to run for mayor. That just can’t happen. I’m just curious, you run on a platform that you want to defund the police to get your Democratic voters for you, and then after you’re elected, you run on a platform that you don’t want to defund the police. So are you just saying things to get elected, or are you saying things that you believe?
Go look over my 30-year history, and you’ll see the consistency of what I want in this city around safety. Let’s not tinker with what’s working. We got it right. The headlines don’t lie, and I’m not sure if you would cover a picture from another tabloid, but we disarmed the city. I know what I inherited when I came to New York as the mayor, when I became the mayor, and when you take almost 23,000 illegal guns off our streets, that’s a real plan.
When you partner with the DAs to bring down dangerous gangs, that’s a real plan. When you fund them properly, that’s a real plan. When you look at our Summer Youth employment, 100,000, Summer Rising program of over 100,000, what we’re doing around Saturday Night Lights to take children off the streets, our universal after-school program, these are real plans that are proactive and reactive, and those are the plans that we must be rolling out, and not just these idealistic plans that we’re just shooting from the hip because it sounds good and we’re running for office. What I ran on, I delivered on.
Question: So do you think that the idea that you have, take police from responding to domestic violence cases and instead you have social workers doing it, my son’s a police officer, and I talked to him about it, and he says that domestic violence cases are some of the most difficult cases, and that it’s very difficult, but when police officers respond, they’re worried about it. Do you think it’s a smart idea to take police officers out of that, what could be a violent situation, and have social workers respond?
Mayor Adams: It’s a terrible idea, and I would never, never sign off on that as the mayor. It’s a terrible idea. People tend to believe that responding to domestic violence cases are routine cases. It sounds nice, just domestic violence. It’s one of the most dangerous jobs a police officer could respond to. Officer Mora and Rivera were assassinated responding to a domestic violence case. I saw the video. I know what happened inside that apartment.
They were assassinated, both of them, and you send a civilian there with a clipboard to try to deal with the environment that is potentially hostile at any moment. The level of unpredictable responses in a domestic violence case is unbelievable what could happen there, and so it is dangerous to send a civilian person there to respond to that call, and remember jobs come over sometimes.
Police officers respond to jobs. Callers will call the police, and they will say, you know, the family’s having a dispute, and by the time you get there, that wasn’t their job at all. The dispute didn’t include that person had a knife, the person had a gun, the person already murdered a family member. That is why it’s challenging to make a policy like that, and it just really shows the lack of full understanding of what public safety is like, and we can’t go back to that. We can’t go backwards, and domestic violence advocates know how challenging these cases are.
Question: Andrew Cuomo [inaudible]… Israel, saying he doesn’t fully support what the government is doing in Gaza. So do you still support the Israeli government actions in Gaza? [Inaudible.]
Mayor Adams: I don’t know where he walked back. He seemed to be walking back a lot of things. Walking back bail reform, walking back cannabis law, walking back, walking back. You know, people just need to be true to who they are, and I’m true to who I am. I don’t want to see innocent people die here in our country, and I don’t want to see innocent people die in Gaza, in Israel. I don’t want innocent people to die. What I do know is that Hamas needs to be destroyed, every hostage should come home, and we should do as much as possible so that innocent children are not dying in any land, including in the Middle East.
August 6, 2025 Manhattan, New York
Sources: NYC.gov , Big New York news BigNY.com
