A Fantasy Debate in Brooklyn

A ll six Democratic candidates for Brooklyn district attorney are united on a couple of policing issues — but one is moot, and the other is a fantasy.

The race includes acting DA Eric Gonzalez, City Councilman Vincent Gentile and four alums of the office: Marc Fliedner, Patricia Gatling, Anne Swern and Ama Dwimoh.

All have denounced stop, question and frisk — a tactic the NYPD now uses only in rare cases, where clearly warranted. The department abandoned stop-and-frisk as a mass anti-crime strategy even before Mayor de Blasio agreed to legal settlements that basically make it impossible to revive.

On Broken Windows, the complaints run from Gonzalez’s charge that enforcing outstanding warrants for quality-of-life offenses “does not keep us safe” to Fliedner’s claim that it (and stop-and-frisk) “aren’t working.”

Gentile calls it a “prosecute-first” policy; and the rest insist it’s an outdated failure.

They all miss the essence of Broken Windows — which is to protect public order in small ways, and so head off greater threats to public safety. That’s been the core of NYPD policies that have massively reduced crime these last 23 years.

And though quality-of-life enforcement remains vigorous, the manner of enforcement continues to change. Cops now issue fewer summonses, and the City Council has softened many penalties — all in response to the grievances the candidates express.

Time and again, we’ve fretted about the risks of this softening — but the NYPD, to its great credit, keeps bringing crime down.

Which is the best of both worlds — unless the critics’ railing against straw men finally forces police to abandon the approach that keeps this the safest large city in the nation.

Bluster on an issue that’s still live, folks.