When it comes to public safety, Zohran Mamdani is simply a fresh face for bad ideas that have already failed in New York City — except that he’d push them farther then ever.

Even as says he no longer wants to defund the NYPD, he’s campaigning on moving billions of dollars, nearly a quarter of the police budget, to a new Department of Community Safety that would rely on the failed “violence interruption” and “restorative justice” schemes imposed (on a much smaller scale) under Mayor Bill de Blasio.

This is basically voodoo dressed up as serious policy, a mishmosh of leftist jargon.

Notably, it depends on cash handouts to “credible messengers” who supposedly have the inside dope to quash sidewalk beefs before the shooting starts.

That is, Mamdani claims “Cure Violence” programs will prevent crime by paying violence interrupters — often ex-gangbangers themselves — to serve as “father-figures” or “spiritual advisors” to likely perps.  

Supporters tout “Cure Violence” as “evidence-based,” but even their cherry-picked data says otherwise. Experiments in “violence interruption” have always been micro-sized hothouse pilot programs, and even those frequently show no “significant” impact. 

You’re supposed to believe that a tiny 6-block experiment that didn’t work in Baltimore or Chicago will magically function at scale across the five boroughs.

Mamdani’s proposal cites the CAHOOTS program in Eugene, Ore. as a model of “peer response” to behavioral health crises. But even a burg like Eugene, with fewer people than Washington Heights, couldn’t sustain CAHOOTS, which shut down this past April. 

Somebody should tell the Mamdani people to update their campaign literature — maybe find a model program that hasn’t closed.

Mamdani’s Community Safety plan will also expand and “overhaul” de Blasio’s “B-HEARD” program.

B-HEARD assigns “health professionals” to respond to “911 mental health calls” — but the program is “struggling,” reports The New York Times, with over 60% of calls “deemed ineligible” since the situation was “potentially dangerous.” 

People who call the cops because a family member is having a mental health crisis and being violent know the score; they’ve been in this situation many times: If they call the police, it’s because they need a cop, not a social worker. 

Then again, Mamdani thinks people shouldn’t call the police even if they are facing a violent criminal: His posters suggest you distract attackers by “spilling your soda,” or asking them if you went to the same high school.  

This is all old, bad wine in new bottles: No wonder Mamdani’s now busy trying make the race about fighting President Donald Trump.

If New Yorkers focus on the inanity of Mamdani’s prescriptions, he’ll quickly stop being the mayoral frontrunner.