According to The New York Post, Democratic mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America are pushing to end the enforcement of all misdemeanor offenses in New York City.
In its latest platform, the group denounces policing and detention as “instruments of class war” meant to “guarantee the domination of the working class,” and calls for ending what it terms “the criminalization of working-class survival.”
“For all of the working class to achieve collective liberation, we must constrain, diminish, and abolish the carceral forces of the state — from prisons and police themselves, to their manifestations in all forms throughout society,” the platform, adopted in 2021, states.
On the campaign trail, Mamdani has repeatedly called for police to stop focusing on what he’s referred to as “non serious crimes.”
“Police have a critical role to play but right now we’re relying on them to deal with the failures of our social safety net, which is preventing them from doing their actual jobs,” he said in a campaign video posted to X Wednesday.
Our plan: https://t.co/uJVfM2xFzB
— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) August 20, 2025
From The New York Post:
The DSA has also pushed to slash arrests, gut prosecutors’ budgets, abolish cash bail and all forms of pre-trial detention, scrap electronic monitoring, and end imprisonment for parole violations.
Mamdani, a Queens assemblyman and member of the NYC chapter of the DSA and its endorsed mayoral candidate, has questioned the purpose of prisons and repeatedly called to roll back punishment on so-called “non-violent offenses” – both as an Albany lawmaker and in his Gotham mayoral campaign.
He doubled down on his longstanding push to legalize prostitution this week.
On the campaign trail, Mamdani backtracked from his prior ‘defund the police’ views in the wake of the Park Avenue massacre, insisting he’d keep the NYPD roughly at its current size and redirect officers to focus only on “serious” crimes.
Critics remain unconvinced he can lead law enforcement and tame NYC crime.
More over at The New York Post:
Zohran Mamdani wants to end all misdemeanor charges: ‘E-ZPass for criminals’ https://t.co/scK0ObuIZI pic.twitter.com/ZKingPw0if
— New York Post (@nypost) August 24, 2025
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