Zohran Mamdani keeps plan to decriminalize prostitution vague as critics blast frontrunner’s stance

Zohran Mamdani’s campaign said Tuesday that he has not decided whether to decriminalize prostitution, six weeks before New York City’s November mayoral election. The stance reflects a broader pattern critics say marks the Democratic socialist’s campaign: hedged positions on contentious topics that leave voters unsure what he would do in City Hall. The remark comes as Mamdani seeks to distinguish himself in a crowded field by promising to steer criminal justice policy toward reducing arrests and pursuing traffickers, while inviting scrutiny of how his proposals would affect sex workers.

Campaign spokeswoman Dora Pekec said Mamdani has not settled on decriminalizing prostitution but would not fully legalize it. He has proposed mirroring former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s approach of limiting police focus on sex workers and prioritizing actions against traffickers, Pekec said. “We haven’t made a decision on that yet,” she told reporters Tuesday. “As Mayor, Zohran will end sex worker raids and work with district attorneys to reduce unnecessary prosecutions.” Pekec argued the approach would improve safety and reflect a broad consensus in New York that decriminalization has support among voters. She also said Mamdani would reinvest about $40 million into victims services programs that were cut under Mayor Eric Adams. "It’s not just the right thing to do to make our communities safer, it’s also popular, as a plurality of New Yorkers support this approach," Pekec added.

Observers say Mamdani’s reluctance to commit to explicit rules—such as whether Johns or pimps would face harsher penalties—has become a hallmark of his messaging. Some political observers describe the stance as a hedged, mumbly approach that avoids decisive policy commitments even as the mayoral race tightens. “He’s good at sounding smart enough while saying nothing,” said one Democratic operative who has worked on mayoral campaigns. “He sounds like a congressional candidate, not the soon-to-be mayor who is going to have to tackle these things in excruciating specificity. They believe they have a clue, but the rest of us could use some reassurance.”

Near the Roosevelt Avenue corridor known for long-standing open-air sex work, the ambiguity about enforcement and decriminalization has tangible resonance. The so-called Market of Sweethearts has drawn attention for years as a hot spot where sex workers operate amid cracks in policing and regulation. Marcela Casteneba, 54, who works at Buenos Aires Bakery, described a lull after a recent NYPD crackdown but said many workers remain. “If it’s the way it is now, I can’t imagine if he wants to do that,” Casteneba said of Mamdani’s talk of ending raids. “He should be more explicit of what he’s going to do.”

Mamdani has long framed his position as a push to shift law enforcement away from arresting sex workers and toward dismantling trafficking networks. As a state assemblyman, he co-sponsored a bill to lift criminal penalties from some prostitution offenses, a stance that aligns with his campaign’s emphasis on safety and reform rather than punitive policing. Pekec reiterated that the mayoral plan would target traffickers and reduce unnecessary prosecutions, while highlighting a reallocation of resources toward victim services. The approach, she argued, would be both principled and politically tenable in a city with mixed views on decriminalization.

Critics outside Mamdani’s camp warn that decriminalizing sex work without clear guardrails could generate unintended consequences. Nicole Gelinas, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, cautioned that stopping arrests could complicate efforts to identify trafficking rings and individuals driving logistics around the sex trade. “If you entirely stop arresting the prostitution, you are losing an opportunity of who is in charge of them, finding the rings of sex traffickers and it’s very important to know: are you going to arrest the Johns and the sex traffickers and people driving cars place to place or running the hotels?” she said. “I think it’s just another complex area where he doesn’t realize how complicated it is.” A beat cop quoted in the coverage quipped that a more permissive approach could invite opportunistic crime, underscoring the real-world concerns that critics raise when policy specifics are omitted.

The debate comes at a moment when the mayoral race is closely watched for how candidates address public safety, policing reforms, and the legitimacy of law enforcement institutions. Mamdani’s team argues that a focus on trafficking and victim services reflects a pragmatic middle path that could appeal to a broad spectrum of New Yorkers who support criminal-justice reforms while wanting to safeguard vulnerable people. Opponents, however, insist that vague language about decriminalization risks empowering criminal networks and dampening enforcement against the sex industry’s most egregious abuses.

The timing is significant: with six weeks to go before Election Day, voters are weighing how much a candidate’s positions on sex work, policing, and civil liberties should influence their decision. The New York Post’s coverage of Mamdani’s remarks has highlighted the tension between principled reform and concrete policy implementation, a tension that has characterized the broader conversation within the Democratic coalition about how far to go in rethinking policing, criminal penalties, and accountability. Mamdani’s campaign has not provided a detailed framework for how a Mamdani administration would police sex work, regulate business operations around the industry, or collaborate with district attorneys to pursue traffickers without criminalizing sex workers—elements that critics say will determine the policy’s real-world impact.

The broader context for Mamdani’s campaign is a year of political rethinking around criminal justice and social policy within the Democratic Party, including debates over decriminalization, regulation, and enforcement strategies. While Mamdani has positioned himself as a reform-minded candidate, his reluctance to commit to specific steps beyond a general de-emphasis on raids has left some allies and opponents scrambling to interpret what his leadership would look like in practice. With a crowded field and intense media scrutiny, voters will be watching how he translates his rhetoric into a detailed plan—and how he responds to questions about the practical effects on sex workers, traffickers, and neighborhoods where the industry has long operated.