Anti-Poverty, Criminalization & Social War Policing

Project Team Leader: Dr. Jeff Shantz. Department of Criminology, KPU, Jeffrey.Shantz@kpu.ca

My research and scholarly activities and community work affiliated with the Social Justice Centre is related to virtually all areas of Social Justice Centre interest. Specifically my core areas of focus, however, are centered on intersecting issues of anti-poverty and homeless defense, criminalization, police brutality, and social war policing in Surrey. I do community engaged research on practices of self-organizing and activism by poor and homeless people, including defense against police violence and issues of moral panic against homeless people related to mass media and small businesses (and the business associations, etc.) in Whallley and Newton. This includes analysis of forms and practices of organizing, protest, etc. I also will be undertaking with Dr. Ma an environmental scan of available resources in Surrey that might be access by homeless people. In terms of social war policing I am doing research on repressive policing practices in Surrey as well as technical and tactical developments in policing (drones, surveillance, military vehicles). This includes the city's turn to policing and criminalization rather than best practices of harm reduction. Part of this research involves the targeting and criminalization of lower cost housing options in Surrey, especially trailer parks in Whalley and Newton and moral panics around sex work and drug use (and use of bylaw enforcement) as means to clear trailer parks for high profit developments.

Police and bylaw officers steal homeless person's tent and throw it in the garbage

Interview with resident on the Surrey strip regarding policing

Surrey RCMP and bylaw confiscate homeless man's chair and throw it in the garbage

Surrey RCMP and bylaw officers throw away homeless people's furniture

Anti-Poverty/Criminalization/Social War Policing