Unpacking Experiences with Hyper-Surveillance and Police Violence—and The Streets Response to the Policing Machine

This talk will describe how a street participatory action (Street PAR) project trained 15 residents formerly involved with the criminal legal system to examine experiences with policing in the Eastside and Southbridge neighborhoods in Wilmington, Delaware. Street PAR methodology is a novel intervention created to train residents on how to conduct critical analysis in local communities, schools and correctional facilities.

From 2010-2015, our Street PAR project collected over five hundreds of surveys and dozens of interviews from a large community sample of street identified Black men and women (ages 18-35). Also, we found 42% of participants were "stopped in the last year." Chi-Square and ANOVA analysis suggest an interactional relationship exists between race, gender and age on the experiences with police index. Young Black men (ages 18-21) were more likely to have negative contact with police. Analysis also suggests a smaller, more hardened mostly male variant of the larger street-identified community had repeated contact with police. Qualitative analysis reveals two major themes: (a) perception of disrespect and disdain by police for residents; and (b) low motivation for working with police.

In addition to analysis, we sponsored countless community programs on policing, re-entry and homicide. Also, all 15 Street PAR Associates trained in this program were able to move into quality employment and 6 Associates enrolled in college including graduate school.

Lastly, this talk will offer a roadmap or way for researchers to think about enacting a viable community-partnership with surrounding local neighborhoods. Of paramount importance, are clearer examples of translationational work that effectively works with nonprofits and hard-to-reach populations in a respectful and collaborative manner to generate useful analysis to solve problems. To learn more about our Street PAR Project and policing analysis in Wilmington, DE, feel free to check out our book project: Murder Town USA: Homicide, Structural Violence and Activism in Wilmington. Rutgers University Press.