THE LIBRARY & READING ROOM
Keep informed!
DEFUND THE VPD
LISTENING CIRCLE
March 19, 2022 on Zoom
Guest Speaker - Meenakshi Mannoe
Powerpoint Slides here ⇢
Podcast Audio Recording here ⇢
TRACKING INJUSTICE PROJECT
https://trackinginjustice.ca/
Tracking (In)Justice is a project of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Data Justice and Criminology Lab of the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Carleton University, the Ethics and Technology Lab at Queen’s University, and the Centre for Research & Innovation for Black Survivors of Homicide Victims (The CRIB) at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto and more.
E-Learning on Defund the Police:
A Roadmap to Police Free Futures in Canada - This document is a community resource for anyone interested in learning about the growing movement to end policing in Canada. It has two roles: one is to explain some of main strategies toward defunding the police and building police free futures. The other is to map out the growing cross-country movement and to link to ongoing local organizing.
Vancouver Groups:
DEFUND 604 NETWORK: https://linktr.ee/DefundNetwork
Hogan’s Alley Society is a non-profit organization composed of civil rights activists, business professionals, community organizations, artists, writers and academics committed to daylighting the presence of Black history in Vancouver and throughout British Columbia.
Defund VPD on Instagram
VANCOUVER ABORIGINAL TRANSFORMATIVE JUSTICE SERVICES SOCIETY
Defund.ca. https://www.facebook.com/defund.ca
From the the activists On The Ground in Vancouver:
Flora Munroe: Defund VPD: Divesting from the police, investing in the people
The Sweet Grass Patrol: As winter arrives, a new Indigenous-led effort is helping people living on Vancouver’s streets find housing and help.
VANDU/WAHRS/PIVOT Legal have filed a complaint directly with the Vancouver Police Board.
Material Support for Over-PolicedCommunities:
Outside Vancouver:
Outside Canada:
Reclaim the Block (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA)
Know of other good resources that aren’t on this list? Please let us know so we can add them!
LINKS & RESOURCES
NEWS ITEMS AND BACKGROUND
NEWS ITEMS
Joint response to 2021 VPD Budget
We, the undersigned, unequivocally condemn the City of Vancouver’s 2021 budget, which allocates over $340 million in expenditures to the Vancouver Police Department (“VPD”).
Vancouver police board approves $6.4 million increase to VPD budget
$322 million budget is provisional, now goes before city council for vote
Going it alone, Sawant to unveil her proposal for immediate 50% cut to Seattle Police budget
Seven of Seattle’s nine City Council members have pledged their support for the demands to #defundSPD part of the city’s weeks of Black Lives Matter protests community rallies.
Vancouver’s Council Wants a New Way of Policing. The VPD Is Not on Board
Council asked the force to end street checks, cut spending and more. The police say they don’t take orders from city hall.
Taking the Call to Ban Police Street Checks to the Vancouver Police Board
The BC Civil Liberties Association, Black Lives Matter-Vancouver, Hogan’s Alley Society, Union of BC Indian Chiefs, and WISH Drop-In Centre Society continue to call for an END to police street checks in Vancouver and across BC.
RESOURCES
DEFUND THE VPD BACKGROUND
Policing is not equal, and it is not justice.
The origins of policing are in protecting property, and from a time when that property included enslaved Africans and stolen Indigenous land. The RCMP were originally the NWMP, a police force founded to suppress Indigenous Resistance to colonization.
While a privileged few see the police as protectors, many communities know them as enforcers of a status quo that suppresses, brutalizes, and kills.
As Sandy Hudson, a Toronto-based Organizer and Abolitionist, writes in HuffPo: Defunding The Police Will Save Black and Indigenous Lives in Canada.
Police Budgets have grown enormously in the past 20 years. Despite this, most other social services - mental health, harm reduction, education - have seen cut after cut, or been privatized entirely.
The Police now take on these duties that they cannot be properly equipped to deal with. “Defund, not Reform” The money spent on police budgets must once again flow into these services, revitalizing care, community and solidarity.