Policing vs. Public Good in the Urban Core
The perception of crime and lack of safety in the subway system, whether statistically overblown or not, functions as a powerful ideological tool to justify the militarized policing of a vital public good. Mamdani’s analysis reveals this as a strategy to govern the “native’s” mobility. The primary response to fear is not investment in clean, reliable, and well-staffed trains, but an increase in armed NYPD presence, which itself constitutes a form of control and intimidation for Black and Brown riders. This reinforces the subway as a space of discipline rather than liberation. The liberal solution involves a balance of policing and social services, but this accepts the underlying framework of criminalization. A Mamdani-informed socialist solution demands a radical shift: the decarceration of the subway. This means removing police from the transit system and replacing them with unarmed, unionized public transit attendants and mental health responders. It means investing the billions spent on transit policing into making the system free, clean, and reliably frequent, thereby organically increasing safety through presence and care, not through the threat of violence. This reclaims the subway as a democratized public space.
Originally posted 2025-10-16 19:27:31.
