Latest news with #BackfromtheBrink
Daily Mirror
19-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mirror
Disability expert slams 'barbaric' cuts that could 'push people into poverty'
A disabled inclusion and accessibility specialist has labelled the Labour government's new plans to cut disability benefits as 'barbaric' and said many disabled people are now scared for their lives. Plans announced in March by Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Liz Kendall, detailed how the Labour government want to slash the welfare budget by £5billion. Specifically, they have proposed an overhaul of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) - a benefit payed to working aged disabled people between 16 and 64 to help them with extra costs of living. Shani Dhanda joined two other two other people with disabilities in a special episode of the Mirror's podcast Back from the Brink to share how the shock announcement has them, amongst thousands across the country, feeling fearful for the future. Central to the changes is a reform of the way people are assessed when applying for PIP which will make it much harder for people to qualify for support. The move has ignited fierce public and political backlash as well as fear among disabled communities. Many rely on PIP as a financial lifeline, covering cruicial needs such as mobility aids, specialist transport, and support services. Shani Dhanda, a broadcaster and expert in Inclusion and Accessibility argues that this simply isn't a viable reason and calls the cuts "worrying". She said: "What's quite puzzling is the government are trying to get more disabled people into work, but cutting a benefit that has nothing to do with employment isn't going to really help that. That's why I think is is really barbaric, this approach that the government are proposing. The reason it's so detrimental is because whether or not you are in work, you still face these unavoidable extra costs." The disability charity Scope estimates that disabled people face an average of £1,010 in extra costs every month compared to non-disabled people. PIP is non-means-tested, meaning income, savings and employment status do not affect eligibility. Instead, assessments focus on how a person's condition impacts their ability to perform everyday tasks and move around. Currently, claimants must score 8 points to qualify for the standard rate and 12 for the enhanced rate across two categories: daily living, activities such as preparing food or managing money, and Mobility, related to travel and movement. However, under Labour's proposed reforms, the assessment criteria will change dramatically. Individuals will be required to score at least 4 points in a single daily living activity to qualify for that component — even if they achieve the required 8 points across multiple areas. As a result, many who currently qualify could lose support. If these prosed changes are to go ahead, the government's own impact assessment predicts that over 370,000 disabled people will lose the daily living component of their PIP. The health component of Universal Credit for those unable to work will also be frozen. The overhaul comes, the government claims, as part of their efforts to promote more people into work. She added: "Disabled people are already living in high rates of poverty and destitution. This is only going to push hundreds and thousands of more people into poverty. And then when you think about how you get out of poverty, it's your ability to earn more money. But that's already difficult as a disabled person." In fact, the government's own impact statement, published by the Department of Work and Pensions, predicts that the move will push 250,000 people into poverty, including 50,00 children. Some analyses estimate this figure could be as high as 400,000. In total, around 800,000 people will be affected by these PIP changed with average loss of £4,500 per year. Dhanda, who predicts that these cuts could severely reduce the quality of life for many, continued: "What they're doing is just making eligibility much much harder but there are so many people that that need this just in order to go about daily life, daily things that most of us take for granted like eating, heating our homes, having adequate shelter, having the aids and the tools that we need to live our lives with health conditions." She said: "A lot of people are feeling very worried, very hopeless for their future and are really shocked that it's coming from a Labour government. I'm receiving messages from people who are talking about wanting to end their lives. They cannot see a way out because they're already either in crippling debt or just not able to meet their costs every month." For some, the impact of losing PIP is already a lived reality. Kerrie Kent, 42, survived a life-threatening heart infection in 2021 that left her with long-term health issues. Yet, in January this year, her PIP was stopped despite no improvement in her condition. She said:" I just felt like the rug had been pulled from underneath me." Kerrie, who has has multiple open heart surgeries, survived multi-organ failure and now has a paralysed foot, continued: "I had to buy a wheelchair, I had to buy walking sticks. Things like osteo-treatments, I have to have them in order to free up the movement in my foot and try and relieve some of the pain. The scar tissue damage that I have on my chest because it's been open seven times now, causes extreme back pain." She continued: "There's extra therapies that I have to pay for. I can't clean the house. I would like to do things like that but I can even carry the bucket up the stairs because I'm not allowed to carry any kind of weight. So all of these things that ultimately contribute to me just trying to be normal, it helped greatly [receiving PIP]." The mum of one has been told in no uncertain terms by her doctor that she is unable to work for more than a few hours a week or risk worsening her health. She explained: "You know, that support that is really, a very small amount, [it] actually just helped me so, so much. It's horrible that it's been taken away. And I now will have to foot the bill for all of those other medical things that I need to purchase on a monthly basis. And I don't really have anywhere else to turn with that. "They're just targeting the most vulnerable in our society. No one I know wants to be on PIP, I didn't want to be on PIP. No-one wants to be at the point where they are claiming that. For me it was complete desperation and I'm lucky that I can work for the 23 hours a week that I do, but I know so many other people that don't have the privilege to be able to do that. They want to support themselves, but they can't." Noah Rees, a former aspiring rugby player, suffered catastrophic injuries after falling several feet headfirst onto concrete at age 19. Breaking his skull, spine and ribs and puncturing both lungs, the now 24 year-old says he spends every spare moment he has in rehabilitation. He is worried that losing his PIP could completely disrupt his recovery and everything he has worked so hard for. He explained on the Back from the Brink special: "I've been improving a lot recently as well. My physicians and and physiotherapists, they said there will come a time when you plateau and, and this was about five years ago." Now working towards competing in the Paralympics in the decathlon, the fall from a walk way in his home town of Brighton on a day out with friends resulted in him losing all movement on the left side of his body. He has worked painstakingly to learn to walk and talk again and improve his mobility over the years. The change to the rules could see him lose access to vital therapy and support that have helped him come this far. He explained: "When I got [PIP] it was not enough to live independently and do physio. It's like, I still live at home I'm 24, ideally I wouldn't but for me it was either live independently or improve [my condition] and I chose to improve so hence why I'm here. "I think when you live with a disability, it obviously takes away your freedom and your independence and having a little bit of money to use as you like it, as you're allowed, it's very freeing and it gives you that little bit of independence as opposed to when you don't have it, you're stuck in a wheelchair in a room, unable to do what most people can do." Earlier this month, 42 Labour MPs warned Prime Minister Kier Starmer in a letter that the proposed cuts are 'impossible to support'. A vote on the proposal is expected in June. With widespread uproar and members of his party uniting against the cuts, many are urging Starmer to make a U-turn before a crisis occurs. The government said in a statement to the Mirror: "We're determined to create a welfare system that supports people into work and out of poverty. Our Plan for Change will change people's lives for the better. That's why we're creating a sustainable welfare system that genuinely supports sick and disabled people into work while always protecting people who need it most." Listen the the full special episode, Back from the Brink- Disability Cuts: A Crisis in the Making, now wherever you get your podcasts.
New York Post
14-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
An ode to cop creativity — how colorful characters with bold ideas made New York City safe
'Back from the Brink,' Peter Moskos' new book chronicling New York City's remarkable 1990s crime drop, revives something largely absent from national discourse in recent years: the voice of cops. It packs a powerful — and desperately timely — message for New Yorkers in 2025: Don't believe the 'experts' and academics who tell you police don't reduce crime. Indeed, as we careen toward June's mayoral primary, public safety remains Gothamites' top concern. Yet many candidates still advocate what the 1990s turnaround debunked, as Moskos writes: 'the dominant sociological 'root cause' concept of crime, dismissive of any positive role of policing.' Moskos critically reminds us social issues like 'job creation, income maintenance, medical care, housing, education, drugs, and firearms' did not change majorly in the 1990s — 'in fact, poverty increased.' Yet the Big Apple slashed its murder rate by 20% for five consecutive years, beginning in 1994, even while the city's 'jail population began a decades-long decline in 1992.' 8 Peter Moskos with his new book, 'Back from the Brink: Inside the NYPD and New York City's Extraordinary 1990s Crime Drop' (Oxford University Press). Peter Moskos How? Not through introducing an army of social-service 'alternatives' to policing and prosecution, as socialist Zohran Mamdani and a rainbow of other Democratic candidates advocate. Instead, police leaders were given support 'to try new ideas' and a fresh policing philosophy was adopted, 'one focused on reducing crime, fear of crime, and disorder.' The book's genius is in providing a veritable oral history (recounted in cop-ese) of this experimentation and revolution from the inside. It moves chronologically from the chaos of the city's gritty, violent 1970s and 1980s to the restored order of the early 2000s, the transformation unfolding through interviews with police officers — and a handful of other key players — who witnessed it firsthand. That compelling, on-the-ground format is no surprise coming from Moskos, a sociologist who became a Baltimore Police Department beat cop as research for his Harvard doctorate. His first book, 'Cop in the Hood,' drew on that experience to illuminate the realities of narcotics enforcement in some of America's toughest neighborhoods. 8 New York City subways were out of control in the 1970s. AP The voices in 'Back from the Brink' ring with authenticity. Many interviewees begin by describing how they grew up and what led them to join the NYPD, offering a wide spectrum of backgrounds and motivations. Whether raised in families of addicts or professors, each officer brings a distinct perspective — and a personal stake — in the work of protecting the city. The story opens in the 1970s NYPD disarray, when mass layoffs fostered officers' deep resentment and a sense of betrayal. As the city staggered through the crime-plagued 1980s and into the early 1990s, crises like the crack epidemic and the Crown Heights riot exposed the department's lack of a clear understanding of the challenges it faced and an effective strategy for addressing them. 8 Graffiti was a subway scourge before cops made quality-of-life issues a priority. AP But big changes were brewing; the chaos underground proved a powerful motivator. 'Vigilante' straphanger Bernie Goetz in 1984 shot four black teens who'd asked him for money — thrusting the extremes of subway crime and rider fear into the national spotlight. Surveys showed beggars had intimidated nearly two-thirds of passengers into giving money, and close to 1,000 homeless people were living in the subway system. As then-NYC Transit Authority President David Gunn put it: 'It's really important on our agenda that we continue to create the impression that someone is in control down there.' Moskos recounts the NYCTA issuing a 1989 code of conduct that now reads like a Karen's checklist — but starkly illustrates just how unruly the subway had become. Pamphlets like 'Introducing Operations Enforcement' announced the agency's new mission: to 'restore a safe, civil environment.' This drive became part of a broader revolution: basing public-safety goals on not arrest numbers but restoring everyday citizens' sense of safety. 8 Moskos signs copies of his new book at Astoria's Irish Whiskey Bar. Hannah E. Meyers Vincent Del Castillo, who served as transit police chief during the campaign to rid the subways of graffiti, recalls Gunn wanted more than arrests — he wanted visible results. 'Eventually we got the message,' Del Castillo said. 'That began a policy where no train would go into service if it had any graffiti at all.' Police creativity played a crucial role — such as coating freshly cleaned trains in hot wax, allowing graffiti to be quickly steamed off. Many graffiti artists, frustrated by seeing their elaborate work melted away almost instantly, eventually gave up. That kind of imaginative policing is a central theme of Moskos' book. No one embodied it more vividly than the gritty and flamboyant Jack Maple, a senior NYPD executive under Mayor Rudy Giuliani's first police commissioner, William Bratton. (Bratton would return as Gotham's top cop during Mayor Bill de Blasio's first term; Maple died in 2001.) Known for his Homburg hats, spats and relentless dedication, Maple recruited what he called 'Jack's broken toys' — officers willing to go undercover as prostitutes or billionaires to catch criminals in the act. 8 Maple's creative policing helped revive New York. Wikipedia Maple sketched his four-step crime-control strategy on a napkin over drinks at a legendary restaurant. 'I'm sitting in Elaine's,' he once told Moskos, 'and you know when you have just enough to drink, you can concentrate on one thing?' He jotted down his keys to reducing crime: timely, accurate intelligence; rapid deployment; effective tactics; and follow-up. Backed by other unconventional thinkers in the department, his formula became the foundation for NYPD's CompStat crime-tracking system — now a global model for data-driven policing. Maple — like many of the book's figures — underscores a vital truth: Real progress often comes from those on the ground who observe problems firsthand and have the creativity and drive to solve them. 8 A 1975 'survival guide' for New York visitors was blunt about the city's crime. Back from the Brink / NYPD Many interviewees reference George Kelling and James Q. Wilson's landmark 1982 Atlantic article, 'Broken Windows,' which famously argued visible signs of disorder — like broken windows, graffiti and public intoxication — create an environment of neglect that invites more serious crime. The core insight was behavioral: When minor infractions go unchecked, both criminals and residents begin to assume no one is in charge. Grounded in fieldwork and frontline observations, the revolutionary essay became a cornerstone of New York's 1990s crime turnaround after Bratton operationalized the theory into a citywide strategy. Under his leadership, police began cracking down on quality-of-life offenses — fare evasion, public drinking, aggressive panhandling and vandalism, among others — on the theory restoring order would deter more serious crime. 8 Broken-windows theory turned around a deteriorated Bryant Park, seen here in 1983. Bryant Park Corporation Businessman and civic leader Daniel Biederman, who transformed Midtown's Bryant Park from a dangerous no-go zone into a celebrated urban oasis, told his wife on the drive home from a New Hampshire mountain-climbing trip: 'I just read something so incredible and so on target for New York City.' He applied the theory to park management by establishing clear behavioral standards: 'There are seven things I don't want going on here. This is my version of Broken Windows.' His list: loud radios, public spitting or cursing, harassing women, smoking, feeding pigeons and letting kids sit on balustrades (they fall and bonk their heads!). Simply having guards enforce the rules proved so effective, the park hasn't needed its own dedicated police. 'Unless it's dastardly, nobody gets arrested ever,' Biederman says. 'Back from the Brink' recounts other small but effective interventions — like piping in classical music at the Port Authority Bus Terminal — that helped restore order and drive out chronic loiterers. 8 Astoria's Irish Whiskey Bar hosted a reading by some of Moskos' interviewees, including former NYPD Chief of Department Louis Anemone (in white shirt and dark jacket, center right). Hannah E. Meyers Fittingly, the book's launch took place at a Queens dive bar, where the redheaded tapster spoke in a thick Irish brogue. Moskos opened the evening with a moment of silence for late key players in New York's revival — figures like George Kelling and Jack Maple. 'Back from the Brink' is a remarkable tribute. It shows how unconventional thinkers, novel ideas, a few drinks and a lot of grit can produce real, lasting progress. Hannah E. Meyers is a fellow and the director of policing and public safety at the Manhattan Institute.
