DSA Leader Can’t Answer What To Do With Rapists

A national leader of the Democratic Socialists of America went on Fox News and confirmed her group wants to abolish American prisons, but when pushed on what happens to violent criminals afterward, the answer stayed vague.

Story Snapshot

DSA national co-chair Megan Romer told Fox News Sunday that abolishing prisons is part of the group’s “long-term program.”
Romer also affirmed positions to abolish the Senate, ICE, and national borders during the same “true or false” segment.
She acknowledged some people should not be allowed in society for safety reasons but did not describe what would replace prisons for them.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has publicly distanced himself from DSA’s police and prison abolition platform.

What Romer Actually Said On Air

Fox News host Shannon Bream ran through a list of DSA positions and asked for quick answers. When she asked about abolishing prisons, Romer said “Yeah” and called it part of a long-term program. She gave similarly direct answers on abolishing the Senate and ICE, showing these aren’t stray opinions but organized DSA goals.

The interview didn’t stop at prisons. Romer also endorsed replacing the presidency and Supreme Court “as we now know them” and defunding the Pentagon. Taken together, the answers describe a plan to rebuild much of the federal government from the ground up, not just reform one part of the justice system.

The Question Nobody Answered On Camera

According to a Deseret News transcript summary, Romer said there are people who should not be allowed in society for public safety reasons. But she did not explain how those people would be contained, monitored, or kept from harming others again. She said the group would decide collectively what to do, only adding that it wouldn’t look like today’s prison system.

That answer leaves the hardest question hanging. Rape, murder, and repeat violent crime don’t pause while a movement drafts its long-term plan. A parent whose daughter was assaulted doesn’t want a committee meeting later. They want the offender locked away now. Vague talk about “collective decisions” isn’t a policy, it’s a dodge dressed up as compassion.

DSA’s Paper Trail Backs The Platform, Not The Plan

DSA runs an official Abolition Working Group that pushes for “freedom for all incarcerated people”. Local chapters, including Metro DC DSA, publish their own abolition resources online. These groups are real and organized. What’s missing from the public record is a detailed, step-by-step model showing how violent offenders would be separated from the public without prisons.

Reason magazine has flagged this exact gap, calling it a contradiction at the heart of socialist prison abolitionism. The criticism isn’t that DSA lacks passion for the cause. It’s that passion without a workable mechanism for handling dangerous people is a liability, not a policy.

Even Fellow Democrats Are Backing Away

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist himself, publicly split from DSA’s abolition push during a Friday radio appearance, defending the continued existence of police, prisons, and jails. When an elected socialist mayor won’t stand behind his own party’s platform on public safety, that tells voters something. It suggests even sympathetic insiders see the plan as unready for the real world.

The Hill has reported that Democrats fear the viral Romer interview will leave a lasting political scar heading into the midterms. Fox News coverage described conservatives mocking Romer for confirming the platform so plainly. Whatever side of the aisle someone sits on, an unanswered question about violent criminals is not a small detail. It’s the whole ballgame for anyone who cares about public safety.

Why The Missing Answer Matters More Than The Slogan

Abolishing a slogan is easy. Abolishing prisons while still protecting neighbors from rapists and killers is an entirely different task, and one DSA has not shown it can solve. Until the movement produces a concrete plan for violent offenders, voters have every reason to treat “long-term program” as a phrase covering for the fact that nobody has worked out what comes next.

Notice which questions tripped up the DSA's Megan Romer:

“What does ‘taxing the hell out of them’ mean?”
“What does prison abolition mean to you? ”
“What does defunding the police mean, in your mind? ”
“How do you feel about [Russia’s invasion of Ukraine]? ”
“What is the…

— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) August 11, 2026

Common sense says you don’t tear down a system that keeps dangerous people away from families until you can prove the replacement actually works. Right now, that proof does not exist in public view, and that absence is the real story voters should weigh before the next election.