[van-announce] Fwd: June 5: No to Mass Incarceration: Homes Not Jails!

[Charlotte Kates]

**** Please Forward and Post Widely ****

NO TO MASS INCARCERATION: HOMES NOT JAILS!

VPD STOP MINING THE DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE FOR CRIME!


 *VANDU Protest at 2120 Cambie St. - VPD Headquarters
*

*Tuesday, June 5 @ Noon*

 The Vancouver Police Department is part of a mass incarceration agenda
targeting poor people, Aboriginal people, people who use drugs and
immigrants, migrants and refugees. This agenda includes the federal
government passing laws to put more people in jail for longer and the
Provincial government building new privatized remand centres in Surrey and
on the Osoyoos Indian Band reserve in the interior. The Vancouver Police
Department participates in this mass incarceration agenda by mining our
neighbourhood for crime to pad their statistics and keep increasing their
funding – already roughly 1/4 of the total city budget. Mining our
neighbourhood for crime means:


   -

   targeting people in our Downtown Eastside community for id checks and
   arbitrary searches; issuing punitive tickets for vending, panhandling and
   other 'crimes' of poverty; and other forms of harassment
   -

   criminalizing people for possession of drugs to which they are addicted,
   and for their participation in the drug economy as highly exploited workers
   often paid in drugs and subject to intense violence from higher level
   sellers and from the police
   -

   arresting and incarcerating poor people, people who are addicted to
   drugs and people with mental illness for procedural crimes like failure to
   appear, breach of an undertaking or parole violation – often stemming from
   'crimes', like vending or possession of very small amounts of illicit
   drugs, which would never in and of themselves result in jail time

 Join us for a Rally and March featuring speakers, a giant HOMES NOT JAILS!
Banner, and the VANDU Choir!

 For more information contact VANDU:

vandu at vandu.org

604-683-6061





-- 
Charlotte L. Kates     charlotte.kates at gmail.com