Mamdani could wipe out misdemeanor offenses in ‘E-ZPass for criminals’

The Democratic Socialists of America, whose New York City chapter has endorsed Democratic frontrunner Zohran Mamdani for mayor, are advocating for radical changes in the criminal justice system.

The group aims to terminate what it calls “the criminalization of working-class survival,” and according to its platform, seeks an end to enforcing misdemeanor charges —a stance that Mamdani appears to support, but which critics are criticizing as a path to “chaos and disorder.”

“Incarceration, detention, and policing are active instruments of class war which guarantee the domination of the working class and reproduce racial inequalities. The origins of policing and prisons and their present-day effects demonstrate that they are are [sic] white supremacist institutions,” the national Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) platform reads.

“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, declares, demanding to end “all misdemeanor offenses, accounting for 80% of total court dockets, reduce jail churn by reducing arrests, and cut funding to prosecutor’s oﬃces.”

Last week, Mamdani, who is a member of the New York City chapter of DSA, posted a campaign video from earlier this year.

“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.

Our plan: https://t.co/uJVfM2xFzB

— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) August 20, 2025

The DSA platform also seeks to “End all ﬁnes and fees associated with the criminal legal process, including ticketing, cash bail, court costs, and parole and probation fees,” and “Freedom for all incarcerated people.”

While Mamdani seems to have recently walked back some of his radical calls to defund the police, he continues to question the purpose of prisons and has been pushing to legalize prostitution.

Zohran: “Policing is something that does not create safety” pic.twitter.com/KF2JSnICtn

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 5, 2025

“People will break the law with impunity. There has to be deterrent for breaking the law,” Greenwich Village resident Susan Ginsburg told the New York Post in response to the plan to wipe out misdemeanor offenses.

“It’s astonishing that we’re even having this conversation,” Maria Danzilo, a 2022 Democratic primary candidate for state Senate, told the outlet.

Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa also blasted Mamdani and the DSA platform.

“That will create an EZ-Pass for criminals, enabling them to repeatedly commit misdemeanor crimes,” he said. “This will make the police even less effective at enforcement. Ultimately, this will cause the quality of life to decline dramatically, leading to a breakdown of law and order and resulting in chaos and disorder.”

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Frieda Powers

Senior Staff Writer
Frieda@bizpacreview.com

Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.