He has repeatedly talked about defunding the police. Literally, not figuratively, and not that long ago.
He said he wanted to close down Rikers Island. He said that prisons are unnecessary. He said he wants to empty jails. His comments on crime and policing, in general, are quite extreme. I could set literally every other topic to the side, and this would be a voting issue for me.
About the only response to this stuff a reasonable person can muster is "he doesn't believe that now". Yeah, OK. I guess we'll find out...
He clearly still believes in police reform. In some places that includes reducing police budgets in favor of more effective public safety programs. That's what "defund the police" means. Not "abolish", reduce funding. In NYC he's running on maintaining police funding at current levels and adding additional nonviolent peacekeeping capacity. He may personally believe that ultimately funding can be redirected further, but that's not what he's running on.
Criminal justice is majorly fucked in the US broadly. We incarcerate non-dangerous people with minor offenses way too long, and we let dangerous repeat offenders walk free. The answer isn't so simple as "lock more people up" or "let everyone go", we're in a trickier bind than a straightforward over incarceration or over lenient set of policies. Mamdani talks a lot about reducing penalties for minor nonviolent offenders, and for increasing rehabilitative capacity, but he does retreat to rehabilitation too readily (from a rhetorical efficacy perspective) when questioned about how to handle repeat offenders.
I don't think he's actually changed his values at all, he's just polished his phrasing and set more achievable near-term goals.
Yeah, I understand that's what people are saying to rationalize it. And like I said: we'll find out! But see my reply to the sibling comment, where I link directly to his words:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45820126
He's well-documented, saying many times, in many different variations, in many different places, that he wants to eliminate prisons, "dismantle" the police, and so on. One or two comments you might be able to brush aside, but this is a consistent pattern.
"We'll find out" haha, you think he's going to shut down the nypd? They have an operating budget of what, $6 billion dollars annually?
He's not going to shut them down, you can't just stop a $6b organization. You can, however, defund it. Maybe they could do just fine with $5 billion. If the city has an extra billion to spend on building housing or improving transit or providing health care or services to the homeless... a billion dollars a year buys a lot of things.
It becomes very hard to assume good faith in such situations.
You have to be trying really hard to interpret that in the way you’re trying to do it, “my guy.” I’m just reading his words and taking him seriously.
Suddenly there will be far less crime.
Less, much less, but not zero. You'll always have the odd person who ends up a problem even under optimal circumstances. The range of trait expression in humans is very broad, and there are a lot of humans. You can't run away from that, but you can be compassionate about it. Insisting that your socialist utopia will simply render all humans happy and harmless, and as such there will be no need for forceful law enforcement is obviously wrong and harmful to your movement.
Yes. He did. Because the law[0] (the passage of which he was not involved) says Riker's Island needs to be closed by 2027 -- something Eric "how much will you pay to play?" Adams slow-walked on purpose.
The rest of your diatribe is a bunch of bullshit that doesn't pass the sniff test.
> The rest of your diatribe is a bunch of bullshit that doesn't pass the sniff test.
Other than being 100% true, and extremely well-documented, you mean. But stay classy.
[1a] defund the police: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/31/politics/mamdani-defund-p...
[1b] "dismantle" the police: https://x.com/ZohranKMamdani/status/1336087694636707841
[2] prisons unnecessary: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/out-of-touch-ma...
[3] "the goal must be to abolish [prisons]" (plus multiple other variations on that theme) https://x.com/peterjhasson/status/1937682021276410317
[4] "The entire carceral system is an unreformable public health hazard. Defund & dismantle." https://x.com/ZohranKMamdani/status/1328828240757215234
[5] "what purpose do [prisons] serve?" https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1945929553274196188
I mean...come on, man. The receipts exist. The only thing you can do is say that he changed his mind or he didn't mean it in the first place.
That's as may be. And you are absolutely entitled to your opinion.
But you called Mamdani out for promising to enforce the law.
Are you not a fan of the rule of law?
Nope. Try again.
My response is "looks good to me. Accepted". if police aren't protecting the people they shouldn't be funded by taxpayers. All for police reform.
And yes, if we aren't jailing everyone for being homeless or smoking weed, we'd need less prisons. If prisons were about reform, we'd nedd less prisons. These all make sense.
But I guess if detractors just want to take soundbites, remove all subtlety, and blast it out to twitter's 280 character limit, then their plan worked. It's just a same these same people would try to downplay 90% of the stuff Trump said in 2024 that he is doing in 2025 to the letter.
> “I think we have to ask ourselves that … I think a lot of people who defend the carceral state, that defend the idea of it and the way it makes them feel, they’re not defending the reality of it and the practices that are part and parcel of it,” he continued.
> “Because if you actually break it down … how many people come out the prison system better than they went into the prison system?”
From the New York Post so presumably this is the worst they could find on the topic.
He said he wanted to close down Rikers Island, right in the middle of the debates [2]. He said that prisons are unnecessary [3]. He said he wants to empty jails [4-6]. His comments on crime and policing, in general, are quite extreme. I could set literally every other topic to the side, and this would be a voting issue for me.
These are his words. I'm not taking them out of context or reinterpreting them. About the only response to this stuff a reasonable person can muster is "he doesn't believe that now". Yeah, OK. I guess we'll find out...
[1a] "NO to fake cuts - defund the police." https://x.com/ZohranKMamdani/status/1277414510131916801
[1b] more on his historical comments on defunding: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/31/politics/mamdani-defund-p...
[1c] "dismantle" the police (in this case, the Vice squad): https://x.com/ZohranKMamdani/status/1336087694636707841
[2] "Yes, we have to close Riker's island" https://www.facebook.com/reel/1380642053476909
[3] prisons unnecessary: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/out-of-touch-ma...
[4] "the goal must be to abolish [prisons]" (plus multiple other variations on that theme) https://x.com/peterjhasson/status/1937682021276410317
[5] "The entire carceral system is an unreformable public health hazard. Defund & dismantle." https://x.com/ZohranKMamdani/status/1328828240757215234
[6] "what purpose do [prisons] serve?" https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1945929553274196188
[2-6] indicate that our current prison system is punitive and does nothing in the way of rehabilitation or reform. No, he will not close every prison. Yes, in an ideal world we would not need hundreds of prisons full to the brim because we would actually rehabilitate and release people. This is hardly a fringe opinion and it is in fact a very common criticism of our prison system. Interpreting these statements as "he is just going to stop prisons and let all the violent criminals out in one go!!!" with no further though IS reinterpreting his words uncharitably because obviously that would be stupid.
Regarding prisons, again, he is explicitly talking about closing down prisons. He has moderated his rhetoric more recently on this issue, but no, your interpretation of the subject is not what he's saying here, and it clearly isn't what he means, even today.
He has a long history on these topics. I'm not misinterpreting his comments.
> We don't need an investigation to know that the NYPD is racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety.
> What we need is to #DefundTheNYPD.
> But your deal with @NYCMayor uses budget tricks to keep as many cops as possible on the beat.
> NO to fake cuts - defund the police.
The only way you can say this doesn't mean "defund the police" is by re-defining his words using Orwellian double-speak ("he doesn't really mean defund"), and then, when you get to the last line, ignore the part where he explicitly tells you not to do that. No fake cuts! Defund!
If you're talking about the "globalize the intifada" comment, he actually never even said that, but a whole lot of people (you among them, it seems like?) have been brainwashed into thinking he did through political maneuvering.
The root of that whole drummed up controversy was him refusing to blanket condemn the phrase when media people (never attributing it as something he himself had said) kept asking him to.
And he was always very clear what his reasons for that were, which were extremely reasonable to anyone who isn't a kneejerk ultra zionist.