New York democratic socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier this week declined to say if her House campaign supports sending murderers to jail.
In an interview, the self-proclaimed “prison abolitionist” refused four times to directly confirm whether she endorses locking up people convicted of murder. Avila Chevalier is running to represent the 13th Congressional District and was recently endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a fellow democratic socialist.
Recommended Stories
“I work at a public defender’s office where most of our clients are incredibly poor black and brown New Yorkers,” Avila Chevalier told the New York Editorial Board, a substack run by New York City journalists. “And for so many, the crimes that they’re being indicted for are crimes of poverty, or the effects of poverty.”
“What we have right now is a system in whenever harm happens, there’s more harm being perpetrated, not only on the folks who engaged in the harm, but also on the victims of the harm,” the democratic socialist continued. “I’m someone who has actually been the victim of crimes, of violence, and gone to the police as a young person thinking, doing the thing that society told me to do, and all that did was traumatize me more.”
“But can you get a little less abstract?” interviewer Ben Smith asked. “Like she was watching a jury vote on the guy’s guilty, should he be sentenced or not?”
“This is what I’m saying, is that when that happens, and as someone who has sat in so many courtrooms, to me, all of that is tragic,” Avila Chevalier said when pressed to clarify her position for the fourth time. “The fact that the murder happened is tragic. The fact that there was a circumstance in which that could even come to pass is tragic, and all of that is a reflection of systems that allowed that circumstance to be possible. And so, you know, I have always focused my attention on how do we create systems where that’s not even a possibility.”
During the interview, Avila Chevalier, 32, also revealed she has had “very positive conversations” with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), criticized billionaires and the “fascist in the White House,” and declined to say whether she would back House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) in his leadership position if elected. Avila Chevalier is running to unseat Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairman Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), a close ally of Jeffries.
She also detailed some of her other policy positions, saying she is against deporting anyone from the United States and declined to directly confirm if she believes Israel should continue to exist as a country.
MAMDANI ENDORSES DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST OVER AIPAC-BACKED ADRIANO ESPAILLAT IN NEW YORK HOUSE RACE
On the issue of prison abolitionism, Avila Chevalier said she worried that many people misunderstood what she believes. The House candidate said she believes the worldview centers on the “question of harm,” and asking “why is it that there is so much harm in our society.”
“What we do is that we then put people behind bars in incredibly traumatizing conditions in a context where they cannot actually reflect on the harm that they caused or feel any remorse on that because they’re just trying to survive inside, and they’re being re-traumatized day after day after day while inside,” she said. “And then when they’re released, they’re bringing that trauma back to our community. … We have to think not only about interrupting that cycle of harm but also preventing it from the onset. And part of that has to do with thinking about, what are the systems that actually reduce that harm from happening in the first place?”
