Mamdani taps radical socialist author of ‘The End of Policing’ to transition team

Alex Vitale, whose X bio states the words "putting abolition into practice" and touts his book "The End of Policing" in his bio, wrote on X, "I'm excited to announce that I have been asked to join the Mamdani Transition Team to work on community safety issues. A New Era for NYC."

A tagline on the listing for the book states that it's the "best-selling bible of the movement to defund the police." A summary of the book states, "The massive uprising that followed the police killing of George Floyd in the summer of 2020— by some estimates the largest protests in US history—thrust the argument to defund the police to the forefront of international politics. That case had been put persuasively a few years earlier in The End of Policing by Alex Vitale, now a leading figure in the urgent public discussion over policing and racial justice."

"The central problem, Vitale demonstrates, is the dramatic expansion of the police role over the last forty years. Drawing on firsthand research from across the globe, he shows how the implementation of alternatives to policing—such as drug legalization, regulation, and harm reduction instead of the policing of drugs—has led to reductions in crime, spending, and injustice," the summary adds.

Additionally, Vitale has said previously that the "police are a direct interference with our ability to articulate a more radical socialist oriented politics. And they will be used to stop us. They will criminalize our movements ... So anything we can do to reduce their power creates political space for us to do what we need to do."

Mamdani has previously advocated for the "defund the police" movement, but during the campaign, tried to walk back those comments, promising not to defund the police. However, with the appointment of Vitale, those campaign promises appear to be empty.

In 2020, Mamdani posted, "Queer liberation means defund the police," and also said that the New York City council needed to "defund the police."

In June, however, Mamdani stated, "I will not defund the police."