Beep Beep: Get Outta Our Community, and Get Into Our Thoughts A Look Into Prioritizing Anti-Poverty Measures
Originally Published in Reimagining Community, Issue 4 by 1919 Magazine. December 13th, 2019.
When we talk about violence in Toronto, the focus tends to be on crime committed by the poor. By the Black, Brown, Muslim and Indigenous. By the struggling and unwanted parts of the city. The gaze is squared directly on ‘the perpetrator’. Our conversations focus on what they did and how we need more police in the area to stop it from happening again.
We both live off of Trethewey, on opposite sides of Black Creek, and everyday we feel the impact that police surveillance has on us and on our community. We see regularly what happens if you are Black and happen to be in a group of two or more people on any given day, with the audacity to occupy a local bench. We see constant police drive-bys on the Clearview stretch. God forbid you’re Black having a barbecue and get interrupted because of police surveilling the area in the name of “keeping the peace”.
We want our neighbours to feel free to enjoy a summer day without the threat of wooden spikes being installed on local benches by the Martha Eaton buildings. We want our Clearview neighbours to feel free to enjoy music and barbecue in peace; we say let them blast their music, as long as we hear Rihanna once we’re good!
Instead we are seeing a larger police presence occupying our neighbourhoods and demanding more money from the city to fund their surveillance operations. The question of who is “the perpetrator” and who is the “problem” is still squarely placed on the shoulders of our Black and Indigenous communities.
“We need to shift the conversation from “who” is committing crimes, to addressing what is responsible for crime, and how the targeted nature of poverty is the root cause of crime and violence in our communities.”
Why is it that depending on what part of Jane Street you are on, your housing is dilapidated, often unliveable? Why is it that housing is increasingly expensive, yet there are many buildings that sit empty (until a developer buys it and makes it into luxury housing)? Why is it that depending on what part of the city you are in, the schools you attend, too, are in disrepair? Why is it that you won’t find as many banks, but you will find an abundance of predatory payday lenders on every block in your neighbourhood? Why is it that if you don’t drive, whatever bus you need will take twenty to forty minutes to arrive?
We need to shift the conversation from “who” is committing crimes, to addressing what is responsible for crime, and how the targeted nature of poverty is the root cause of crime and violence in our communities. We ought to be asking about the violence caused by the state, and how our communities are experiencing state sanctioned harm. This is the leading cause for all other forms of violence taking place in our communities.
I like to play a game with friends and ask the question: “imagine your ideal city, what does it look like, and what services does it offer?” I hear a lot of my friends talking about ‘free’: childcare, comprehensive healthcare, transit, housing for all. I hear them talk about a society that is free from misogyny and anti-Black racism. My friends are great, I know; but (and this is a hard but) there is always the one neoliberal in the bunch that prefaces what they “imagine” with “okay, but what’s realistic?” Are we not allowed to be free even within our own imaginations? Who is confining you? Not me.
My imagined city recognizes that policing does nothing to rectify any of the issues plaguing our communities, but rather exacerbates the problem through continuous criminalization. The city I imagine recognizes that poverty, and the targeted nature of it, is the root cause of crime in and around our communities.
It is imperative to remember the police do not operate in a preventative way. Police operate as purely an after the fact response to crime. Their attempts at “crime prevention” just translates to targeting Black and Indigenous youth and trampling on their right to just be. Finally, earlier this year, Justice Tulloch released a report detailing the direct negative impact that carding, as a police tool, has on Indigenous, Black, and other racially marginalized communities. Tulloch spoke to the “limited evidence” that carding is an “effective police tool”, then called for this practice to end.
On top of their inability to prevent crime, the police are often unqualified and unequipped to handle the calls they are responding to. Consider the police interactions that we hear on the news. Think specifically about the calls from folks with mental illness and people living with disabilities. Think of the calls from those discriminated against because of their race, gender, and sexual orientation in this city. Then, consider the murders of Abdirahman Abdi and Greg Ritchie; the mishandling (or to be honest the non-handling) of the missing and murdered victims of Bruce McArthur; and the attack on Dafonte Miller by off-duty police officers. Think about how the police worked internally to cover up the crimes of their officers. These are three very recent cases that have deeply impacted our communities, but there are more coming to light across this city, and across this country.
If we acknowledge that police simply are not capable of preventing crime, that they do not have the range—or qualifications—to deal with someone struggling with mental illness or that their main function is to criminalize children and youth in our communities: then why do we need them? Why is the largest chunk of our cities budget devoted to Toronto Police Services? Why do they keep begging for more of our money?
On October 2, 2019, Toronto City Council voted, almost unanimously, to increase the TPS budget, again. Research and reports from different levels of government exist that are consistently showing evidence that crime prevention does not mean more police on the streets and/or surveillance measures.
I say all that to say, meaningful crime prevention starts with anti-poverty measures not the TPS. Finding meaningful ways to remove the unnecessary stress from the lives of people that are living paycheck to paycheck. We need to address poverty that looks like homelessness, but also recognize that sometimes it looks like folks that are employed but living 1-2 paydays away from poverty. We need policies that address housing, childcare, access to fresh foods, a transit system that is expansive, and access to education — for all.
We do not need government-funded research papers that tell us poor people are the problem. We do not need more anti-Black racism departments at any level of government that will continue to produce said research. We have enough, our concerns are your concerns.
If you ever decide to play the Imagine-Your-Ideal-City game with your friends, you might ind yourself face to face with a neoliberal with no imagination. When they ask you to focus on “what’s realistic”; remember everything you imagine is realistic. If you’re struggling to answer, “how do we make this a reality?” and “how do we pay for it?”, don’t hesitate to imagine there either. In our imagined city, we come together and demand from our City Council: strip the police of their funding! They are eating up too much of our municipal budget, enough is enough. I want this imagined city to be Toronto, and for that I intentionally do not mince my words on purpose: the police do not belong in my community. Full stop.
