{"id":2130,"date":"2015-10-16T16:40:35","date_gmt":"2015-10-16T16:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huffsantacruz.org\/wordpress\/?p=2130"},"modified":"2015-10-16T16:40:35","modified_gmt":"2015-10-16T16:40:35","slug":"exclusion-zones-santa-cruz-and-north-carolina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/huffsantacruz.org\/wordpress\/exclusion-zones-santa-cruz-and-north-carolina\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusion Zones–Santa Cruz and North Carolina"},"content":{"rendered":"

NOTES BY NORSE:\u00a0 The fascist mind-set that has rooted itself in the Santa Cruz City Council and staff (actually deeply rooted in the staff) is grotesquely exemplified by these Charlotte, N.C. stories with all the 21st Century irony of a black police spokesman.
\nSanta Cruz beat Charlotte to the punch by establishing extra pre-judicial Stay-Away orders in 2013 and expanding them in 2014. These orders, given at the absolute discretion of the officer,\u00a0 ban “accused criminals” from any area controlled by the Parks and Recreation Dept. (which covers a huge swath of the city, far beyond the actual parks themselves.\u00a0 The overwhelming majority of those impacted are ticketed for sleeping, being in in a park after dark, and smoking–“crimes” that have nothing to do with violations of person or property.
\nThe law in question, Santa Cruz’s MC 13.04.011 is one of a toxic cluster of anti-homeless laws, soon to be joined by laws stripping RV’s of parking places, and–if the bigoted Take Back Santa Cruz and its co-founder Councilwoman Pamela Comstock have their way–banning them entirely from parking without a residence permit.
\nMC 13.04.011 is currently being used to menace the weekly Freedom Sleeper protests with $198 citations if they dare to hold up a sign at City Hall after 10PM<\/span><\/span>, anywhere on the large city block that contains City Hall and City offices.\u00a0 The protest movement held its 14th successful Freedom Sleep two nights ago, but faced the usual blue-clad goon squad ticketing homeless people for “sleeping in the park” while gracing protesters with high-intensity klieg lights, loud diesel generators, and hired “False Alarm” Security Guards.\u00a0 Freedom Sleepers have responded by declaring the sidewalks around City Hall a “Safe Sleeping Zone” since authorities seem reluctant to ticket for MC 6.36.010a (the sleeping ban) on those sidewalks.
\nMC 13.04.011 is more broadly used against poor people, disabled houseless folks and young travelers who seek to shelter themselves in parks and the huge Pogonip area.\u00a0 Meanwhile Santa Cruz closed its emergency shelter programs this summer, leaving 1000-2000 facing “go to sleep, go to jail” laws.\u00a0 The Homeless (Lack of) Services Center’s boss-for-a-year Jannan Thomas has flown the coup back to Atlanta.\u00a0 And City Council is making no provision for the vast majority of homeless folks facing El Nino weather this winter–other than more “enforcement” of “illegal” activities. \u00a0 Nor is there any provision in its Master Plan for meaningful homeless emergency camping areas,carparks, and restoration of public spaces.
\nHomeless Lives Matter.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.charlotteobserver.com\/news\/local\/article38856471.html<\/a><\/p>\n

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October 12, 2015<\/p>\n

CMPD to move forward with exclusion zones plan<\/h1>\n
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Council committee could review ordinance before end of year
\nPolice worried about court challenge<\/div>\n
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\"Charlotte<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Charlotte Mecklenburg Police is planning to draft an ordinance that would create \u201cPublic Safety Zones\u201d that would prohibit people arrested for crimes from entering. Police Chief Kerr Putney could create the zones. Jeff Sinerjsiner@charlotteobserver.com<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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By Steve Harrison
\nsharrison@charlotteobserver.com<\/a><\/div>\n
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Despite facing \u201csignificant constitutional hurdles,\u201d Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officials want to move forward with a proposal to create areas of the city that would be off-limits to people who have been arrested.<\/p>\n

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department hopes to write an ordinance for the City Council\u2019s public safety committee, which could review the \u201cpublic safety zones\u201d later this year.<\/p>\n

The safety zones would be modeled after prostitution-free zones created by the city a decade ago.<\/p>\n

Here is how they would work: If CMPD found an area where there was an uptick in crime, the police chief could declare it a safety zone. Council members wouldn\u2019t have to approve the zone.<\/p>\n

If a person is arrested inside the zone, that person would be prohibited from returning. Within five days, the person could appeal the prohibition, on grounds such as the person is caring for children inside the area or the person lives or works there.<\/p>\n

If the person pleads guilty or is convicted, he\/she would be barred from the area for up to a year. If the person is found not guilty or if the case is dismissed for any reason, the person can return.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still up for discussion,\u201d said CMPD Attorney Mark Newbold, about the proposed ordinance.<\/p>\n

At a safety committee meeting last week, CMPD discussed a study about the prostitution-free zone that was created in 2005. One of the areas targeted was the Camp Greene neighborhood west of uptown.<\/p>\n

In the two years before the ordinance was passed, CMPD received 534 calls for service inside the areas that would become part of the prostitution-free zones.<\/p>\n

In the two years after the ordinance was passed, the number of calls inside the zones dropped by 35 percent, to 350.<\/p>\n

But some of the crime was pushed out to nearby areas. Within 1 mile of the zones, the number of service calls increased from 182 to 294 \u2013 a 62 percent increase.<\/p>\n

Overall, the number of calls in and around the zones went down.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s prostitution-free zone ordinance has lapsed and is no longer in effect.<\/p>\n

In a memo to council members, Newbold said the proposed ordinance would have to reconcile \u201ctwo core constitutional principles.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first could be a freedom-of-association challenge.<\/p>\n

Newbold wrote that courts have found that the First and 14th Amendments have protected the right of people to associate. In one 2002 Cincinnati case, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals found that a woman barred from an exclusion zone had the right to visit her grandchildren who lived nearby.<\/p>\n

Newbold, however, noted that a 2001 Ohio case said that a drug exclusion zone didn\u2019t interfere with a \u201cfundamental personal relationship nor an association for expressive activity,\u201d according to the police memo.<\/p>\n

The other issue, Newbold said, is whether the ordinance would infringe on a person\u2019s right to intrastate travel. He said courts have been mixed on this issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are significant constitutional hurdles that must be addressed whenever the government decides to regulate movement in a public area,\u201d Newbold wrote. \u201cIn the event a court rules that an ordinance affects a fundamental right, then that ordinance will be reviewed with strict scrutiny.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department\u2019s Proposed Exclusion Zone Policy Is Racist<\/span><\/h1>\n
October 13, 2015 \u00b7 by Robin James<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.its-her-factory.com\/2015\/10\/charlotte-mecklenburg-police-departments-proposed-exclusion-zone-policy-is-racist\/<\/a><\/div>\n

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Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police is considering adopting a policy that prohibits people with arrest\/criminal records from being in specific \u201chigh-crime\u201d areas called \u201csafety zones\u201d. As the Charlotte Observer<\/em>\u2018s Steve Harrison explains<\/a>,<\/p>\n

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Here is how they would work: If CMPD found an area where there was an uptick in crime, the police chief could declare it a safety zone. Council members wouldn\u2019t have to approve the zone.<\/p>\n

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If a person is arrested inside the zone, that person would be prohibited from returning. Within five days, the person could appeal the prohibition, on grounds such as the person is caring for children inside the area or the person lives or works there.<\/p>\n

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If the person pleads guilty or is convicted, he\/she would be barred from the area for up to a year. If the person is found not guilty or if the case is dismissed for any reason, the person can return.<\/p>\n

CMPD\u2019s proposed \u201cexclusion zone\u201d policy is race-based segregation under another name.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Philosopher Theodor Adorno wrote that astrology was occultism dressed up in pseudo-scientific terms<\/a>: star charts and tables leant superstition the appearance of objective fact. CMPD\u2019s exclusions zones are antiblack racism dressed up in pseudo-legal and pseudo-objective terms. Because there is no biological basis for race, race-based segregation appeals to an ultimately subjective judgment about people\u2019s racial identities. But criminal status, that\u2019s objective: someone either has or has not been arrested, charged, convicted, or exonerated. That\u2019s a matter of legal record.<\/p>\n

Though the legal record may be objectively verifiable, criminality is far, far from objective. Blackness is criminalized. NYC\u2019s infamous Stop & Frisk policy was ended after statistics showed that black and Latino men were stopped at rates in exponential excess of their proportional representation in the population. The US justice system convicts and incarcerates black people at extremely disproportionate rates. The institution of the police was designed to police black people, and, as plenty of people have argued, the contemporary police is a mechanism for profiting from the surveillance, punishment, and incarceration of black people. Criminalization targets black people.<\/p>\n

So, because CMPD\u2019s proposal to exclude people with arrest and criminal records from specific geographic areas targets criminals, it also targets black people.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a hint in this story, also from the Observer. In the past, the city has put an injunction similar to the proposed exclusion zone on the north Charlotte neighborhood called Hidden Valley<\/a>. Hidden Valley is a predominantly black and Latino neighborhood between Uptown and University City\u2026and, uh, not too far from the new light rail line currently under construction up North Tryon. Interestingly, Camp Greene, a black neighborhood in west Charlotte that was a prostitution exclusion zone several years ago<\/a>, that\u2019s now the frontier of gentrification.\u00a0So, it appears to be the case that exclusion zones are a technique that moves poor black populations out of geographic areas that are ripe for redevelopment.<\/p>\n

Some\u00a0philosophers might call safety zones a \u201cstate of exception.\u201d Giorgio Agamben popularized the term, which refers to a state of affairs so dire and threatening that the state declares it necessary to suspend normal rights and rules of governance: a problem so severe supposedly justifies the state\u2019s use of any means necessary. As other philosophers like Falguni Sheth and Alexander Weheliye have noted, the state of exception has been pretty much the rule for black people. To riff on W.E.B. Du Bois, black people are thought to be a problem, the<\/i> problem, and thus their very existence justifies the state\u2019s use of any means necessary to contain and eliminate them. In this sense, CMPD\u2019s saftey zones are just another variation on a very, very old theme.<\/p>\n

As Lester Spence, Jared Sexton, and many other black studies scholars have shown, contemporary society marginalizes black people by rendering them immobile, both literally (in the case of CMPD\u2019s exclusion zones or via mass incarceration) and figuratively, say, in economic terms. In an economy that runs on entrepreneurship, flexibility, and so on, the inability to freely circulate is an economic disadvantage. By impeding people from, say, caring for their children, this makes them more vulnerable to all kinds of disadvantage: if you don\u2019t have reliable family or friends to care for your children, you either have to pay someone to care for your kids, or you risk losing them to the foster system. The CMPD policy is a technique for rendering black people immobile, and often thus subjecting them to further state surveillance, economic disadvantage, and other types of structural racism. So the exclusion zone policy isn\u2019t just racist in motivation, it\u2019s racist in effect: it reinforces and intensifies the racism that black people already experience.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A No-Go Area for Those Arrested?<\/h1>\n

A plan in Charlotte, North Carolina, to create prostitution-free zones isn\u2019t unprecedented, but it does raise question about constitutionality, racism, and effectiveness.<\/p>\n

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Elvert Barnes \/ Flickr<\/a><\/p>\n

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