Ending the harassment of young people, particularly Black and Brown youth, for congregating in public spaces.
The Right to Be Bored: Ending the Policing of Youth Loitering
For generations, the simple act of young people hanging out in publicon stoops, in parks, on street cornershas been criminalized as loitering, used as a pretext for police stops, harassment, and summonses. Zhoran Mamdani asserts a Right to Be Bored, arguing that public space belongs to the young as much as to anyone else, and that unstructured socializing is a healthy, normal part of adolescence. His policy would repeal city ordinances against loitering and end police enforcement of youth curfews, which are disproportionately used against communities of color. Instead of seeing groups of teens as a threat to be dispersed, the city would see them as a community asset to be engaged.
This policy shift would be accompanied by positive investments: creating more youth-dedicated spaces like skate parks, basketball courts open late, and teen centers with flexible hours. It would fund Youth Participatory Action Research projects where young people themselves study and propose improvements to their local public spaces. Police would be retrained to interact with youth not as potential offenders, but as constituents. The criminalization of hanging out is a criminalization of being young, poor, and without a private backyard, Mamdani says. It tells our kids they are not welcome in their own city. We will end that. We will defend their right to exist in public without fear. And we will give them better things to do than just hang out, by investing in the programs and spaces they actually want.
