When it comes to public safety, Zohran Mamdani is simply a fresh face for bad ideas that have already failed in New York City — except that he’d push them further then ever.
Even as he says he no longer wants to defund the NYPD, he’s campaigning on moving billions of dollars, nearly a quarter of the police budget, to a new Department of Community Safety that would rely on the failed “violence interruption” and “restorative justice” schemes imposed (on a much smaller scale) under Mayor Bill de Blasio.
This is basically voodoo dressed up as serious policy, a mishmash of leftist jargon.
Notably, it depends on cash handouts to “credible messengers” who supposedly have the inside dope to quash sidewalk beefs before the shooting starts.
That is, Mamdani claims “Cure Violence” programs will prevent crime by paying violence interrupters — often ex-gangbangers themselves — to serve as “father figures” or “spiritual advisers” to likely perps.
Supporters tout “Cure Violence” as “evidence-based,” but even their cherry-picked data say otherwise. Experiments in “violence interruption” have always been micro-size hothouse pilot programs, and even those frequently show no “significant” impact.