Professor Nikki Jones Presents on Public Safety at the Black New Deal Symposium
The Black New Deal Symposium was held on February 26th and kicked off a phase of legislative research and development on how we can address the harms committed to Black Oaklanders after decades of systemic racism embedded in public policy and programs. There were six focus area sessions throughout the day: public safety, housing, environment, education, arts & culture, and community economics. Over a series of articles, the history, ideas, and strategies that were discussed in each focus area session will be shared.
Nikki Jones is Professor and H. Michael and Jeanne Williams Department Chair of African American Studies department at UC-Berkeley. Jones earned her Ph.D. jointly in criminology and sociology from the University of Pennsylvania and is considered a leading academic expert on race and the criminal legal system, policing, and violence. Below is a synthesis of her presentation.
Jones discussed how the framework of abolition democracy provides a broader lens for understanding public safety. When we think about abolition democracy we go back to the work of W.E.B. Dubois, who argued that after the one divine event of emancipation, and the victory of getting the black vote, that there was still a gap. What was really needed after emancipation was a commitment to developing the kinds of social institutions that could provide for a multiracial society, a society not based and rooted in racial domination in white supremacy. These social institutions are yet to be built.
So what does it mean to think about public safety through the lens of abolition democracy?
It looks like all the parts of the Black New Deal. It looks like housing, we are on the precipice of a crisis as rent relief expires while rents continue to go up, who is going to be impacted the most? We should be thinking about this as a part of public safety and we should be thinking about the well-being of those who are likely to be displaced and evicted as an element of public safety. Schooling is also an important element along with the need for a just and fair criminal justice system or criminal legal system.
So how do we get that in Oakland?
A study of mass incarceration through a National Academy of Sciences report that came out in 2014 demonstrated that it is the particular politics of race in the United States and the reactionary crime politics that have helped to drive mass incarceration.
Two years ago, the uprisings against systemic racism and police violence seemed to bring an alignment with people centering themselves with those who are most likely to be targets of police violence. Now we see a reactionary response to the spike that is calling for more law enforcement, calling for the heavy hand of law enforcement, even though we know that erodes the safety and well being of communities. It's quite striking to be in this moment where we are returning to those politics and reactionary responses.
What we ought to be doing, what we NEED to be doing, is investing in the kinds of alternatives that build up the capacity of communities. The mayor said maybe a year or so ago, that there's no other research on the kinds of alternatives that will work outside of law enforcement. Coming from the academy, that's just not true. We do actually know the kinds of things that build up the capacity of individuals, social networks, families and communities and we can think about that at a couple of different levels.
A couple of examples of this:
There's research showing that the greening of lots, the abatement of vacant lots, and investments in commercial corridors contribute to the capacity building of a community. What we need to be attuned to in those efforts is that they don't help to spur gentrification and displacement.
The Anti-Police Terror Project and the Mental Health First program might become models for folks around the country.
Investing in alternative responses to crises, particularly those that involve mental health which we know accounts for a significant number of calls for police involvement. MACRO is an example of investing in the kinds of responses that address crises of public safety without exacerbating those crises, which is often the case when police become involved.
Invest in both practices and certain programs that value black life and value black youth; that want to see young people live, not just stop shooting, which is important, but want to see them live and live free outside of prison. One of the most common approaches to violence prevention is to target the same young people who are most likely to be involved in crime, either as a victim or perpetrator of violence, with resources, love and a reason to stop shooting versus telling them to stop or the heavy hand of law enforcement is going to come down on your head.
Change takes time. It requires not just an individual to do something, it requires a community to walk alongside them. Advanced Peace is one model that came out of the Richmond model.
Create buffers and bridges for young people who are likely to be involved in violence. A buffer involves putting ourselves in between young people and the harm that faces them, instead of pushing them further away because of the behavior that they're involved in. And bridges, we know that there's a bridge set up between the neighborhood and the juvenile justice system, between the school and the juvenile in the criminal justice system, but we need those kinds of bridges to other social institutions and organizations that can help to build up the capacity of young people. This is where the investments in the arts and youth serving organizations in culture in the city is essential.
These are all elements of public safety and it shouldn’t be seen as being anti-police to demand that resources be shifted to those organizations because it’s really about the well-being of young people. These investments ensure public safety in a way that is not driven by a moral panic or by white racial fear.
People want a solution to the problem of crime and violence, but history has shown that an increase in policing is not in fact a solution to the problem of crime and violence. More policing has a very marginal, suppression effect, but it is not a long-term solution to solving the problems of violence, which gets us back to the abolition democracy framework in which The Black New Deal is an extension of and sits within.
The Black New Deal forces us to think about reparations. The Black New Deal addresses when the money comes in, where do the investments go and what kinds of protections have to be in place in order to ensure that those investments can have a positive impact. This work can be seen as well within the California Task Force on Reparations and HR 40, the bill for the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act. This kind of a framework for addressing a host of issues and a host of problems, including public safety, is exactly the kind of conversation framework we need right now.
