Three rising Democratic stars are pushing to abolish police and prisons — and their policies would hit black communities hardest.
Abdul El-Sayed, the projected Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan, has openly advocated defunding the police. In tweets and interviews from 2020 and 2021, he declared, “I believe that we do need to defund the police,” and called law enforcement “standing armies we deploy against our own people.”
Darializa Avila Chevalier, who won the Democratic nomination for Congress in New York City, campaigns on abolishing prisons entirely. When pressed, she refused to say that even murderers belong behind bars.
State Rep. Francesca Hong, the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor of Wisconsin, went further. She stated plainly: “I support defunding the police as a first step towards abolishing the police” and “Police exist to uphold white supremacy. Defund then abolish. Reform can’t be an option.”
“Police exist to uphold white supremacy. Defund then abolish. Reform can’t be an option.”
These aren’t fringe voices. In 2024, 61 House Democrats voted against a resolution condemning calls to defund the police. Rep. Rashida Tlaib laid out the goal: “No more policing, incarceration, and militarization. It can’t be reformed.”
Bill Maher recently observed the trend on ABC News: “It’s not just a few people anymore. I read every day about a new person in Colorado or Wisconsin saying some variation of: not defund the police — abolish the police, no prisons, no police.”
The victims? Overwhelmingly black Americans.
About 90 percent of black victims are killed by other black people, according to crime research data. 70 percent of black violent crime victims are victimized by a black offender. Violent crime is heavily concentrated in minority neighborhoods — 54 percent of murders in the U.S. occur in just 2 percent of the counties.
Yet the policies these Democrats push would make those neighborhoods less safe by reducing arrests, incarceration, and deterrence.
Despite claims that abolition speaks for black Americans, the data tells a different story. Even at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement in August 2020, a Gallup survey found that 81 percent of black Americans wanted police to spend the same amount of time or more time in their neighborhoods. Only 22 percent favored abolishing police departments.
A 2025 survey of Chicago residents showed 59 percent of blacks strongly supported hiring more police officers, with another 27 percent somewhat supporting that. A late July 2026 Rasmussen Reports survey found likely black voters oppose proposals to abolish police 58 to 33.
The pattern extends beyond policing. The same lawmakers demand weakening immigration enforcement and restricting law-abiding citizens’ ability to defend themselves.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani declared, “We need to ban all guns.” Hong earned endorsements from Michael Bloomberg’s gun-control organizations. El-Sayed refuses to take donations from gun-rights groups and supports virtually every major gun-control proposal under debate.
On immigration, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that “an increasing number of established Democrats are calling for a dissolution of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.” More than 40 House Democrats support legislation to abolish ICE entirely.
During the Biden administration, at least 12.8 million illegal aliens either surrendered at the border, were apprehended after crossing illegally, or became known gotaways. Recent data for New York shows illegal aliens are overrepresented in the incarcerated population compared to their overall share of the state population by at least 3.4 times.
The common thread: these policies lower the costs of committing crime while making it harder for law-abiding Americans to protect themselves and their families.
If there are no real penalties for violence, there will be more violence. Democrats claim “black lives matter” — but their policies of defunding police and emptying prisons mean more black people will be victims of violent crime.
I support defunding the police as a first step towards abolishing the police.
Jacob Blake is fighting for his life but he shouldn't have to be. We must also fight for his life and get justice for all those harmed by state-sanctioned violence.
Black Lives Matter
— Francesca Hong For Governor (@FrancescaHongWI) August 24, 2020
We need to ban all guns.
— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) May 24, 2022
