Community action and intervention Midterm 1

How do communities benifit indivdiauls? (appeal of community)

• Comuniteis that are comprissed of peopel that have a sense of belonging will be strong

  • More of these = stronger society

Appeal of community

• The idea that communites good is a commonly heald belief

• Community can be used as a form of informal social control

  • Sense of belonging makes people care about fittingi n (following the rules of society)

• Justiifes the goverment employing commiunity interventions to help decrease crime

What is Community

• Having a shared experience (ie. living in the same neighbourhood)

• Haivng a shared intrest (ie. hobbies, religion)

• Haivng a share aspect of self (ie. indiginouse)

• Basically just having somethingi n common with other people (i guess just a grounds to relate to other people)

Types of communities

• Geographic (living in the same general area) Focus of this course

• Intrest (having the same intrests and intentionally coming together on that)

• Attachment (Feeling attached to this feeling that they belong)

  • Hard to say what makes them similar to the other peopel who belong to the community

  • ie. feeling canadian

    • What is canadian? (hard to define

Dark side (negative aspects) of community

• Can constrain individual freedoms

• Community groups can be harmful to outsiders (ie. gangs, hate groups, etc)

• Communities can be exclusive

• Can have norms that are harmful to members (Ie. suicide groups)

• If people don’t have the means to obtain pro-social community, they may find community in ways that are seen as problematic (ie. joining gangs)

3 Catagoies of community based theories

Community lost - Theories that say that communites themsleves are lost in soviety (is gradually dissapearing)

Community saved - Theroies that say that communities exist (people feel like they’re apart of a community)

Commjjunity libereated - What constitutes community is being transformed (old ways of thinking of community no longer make sense in the modern day; it is increasingly different today than what it was in the past; takes different forms)

Community lost theories

1. ie. durkheim, most people froom before the 20th centruy writing about the impacts of the industrial revolution

   • Wellman (1979)

     • He says that ubranization/industrilization has led to a decline in personal association

       • Sense of community is lost in this process; going from small ocmmnites that relied on eachother and had close social bobnds (interdependence but self sufficent) to urban envoirments causes people to beocme more anonomyus as you no longer need ot know your neighbours or rely on eachother

       • Community gets lost in this in a way that has detrimental effecs

   • Chicago school (Social disorganization theory (the one with zones))

     • Considered a theory of place rather than a theory of people

       • Concluded that the PLACE has an impact ON the PEOPLE, which CREATES the crime

         • Zone b’s lack of community causes crime to be endemic to the place because they see it as people leaving the place and criem doesn’t follow them

     • Social disorganization of the community means there is a lot of residential instability, racial/ethnic heterogeneity, and poverty

       • Also high reates of delinquency because youth do not have good role models/people who are always present/alot of non-devient things to do

       • Lack of commitment to improving the community

       • Not alot of commitment to pro social values (ie. cleanign up)

         • Not any solidity in social values that people in a residential neighbourhood may have

       • People lack the time and resourses to work towards bettering the community (Focused on their own survival rather than the survial of the community)

     • Issues with this theory

       • Not getting the dark figure of crime (only looking at police reports)

       • Very generalized/vague; not looking at specifically why people are commiting crime (ie. people might be hungry and need to steal food to survive)

         • People who live there live there because its all they can afford

       • They only focused on youth

       • Doesnt’ account for the crime and community disorganization loop; is the community disorganized and it leads to crime, or does crime lead to social disorganzization?

         • Do people not want to intervene when they see things go wrong because of community disorganization OR does crime exist and create community disorganization?

     • Alot of the reforms that came out of this theory were good, but some ended up being bad (ie. broken windows policing)

Community saved theroies

2. ie. reasearchers that started reaseraching after the chicago school (1950s-1960s) mainly by going into communites

   • Neighbrouhood systems of support and socialibility persist, meaning that there is conncection amongst residents, regardless of income, racial and ethnic differneces, etc

   • Focus on ethnographic work rather than armchair

   • Social problems in these communnites

     • These communites stay togethe rbecause they are communites that are segreated from larger society

       • Do dense ties exist because of isolation form broder sociery? do dense ties prevent ties from being made outside the community? (there’s probelms with this too)

         • Dense ties: protecive factor becase it protects residence from the negative effecs of their isolatino (ie. racisim, poverty, economic margnialization, basically anything negative in their life its kindal ike hey’re hiding from it under a blanket) (what are dense ties?)

       • Ie. black neighbourhoods (pre 1960s) woulda had their own infrasturcutre, services and ammendies

Dense Ties

protecive factor becase it protects residence from the negative effecs of their isolatino (ie. racisim, poverty, economic margnialization, basically anything negative in their life its kindal ike hey’re hiding from it under a blanket) (what are dense ties?)

Community Liberated Theories

• Liberated from geography

• Ie. online groups, intrests, etc

• Increase in suburbanization and technological change leads to non-spaical communites (not rooted in geography anymore)

  • Focused on private spheres

  • fOCUS ON people mocing to the suburbs

  • Idea of community is extended to virtual spaces

    • People may feel less connected to their next door neighbour and more connected to someone they met online

• Crime in the liberated community

  • New types of crimes are being committed

    • Ie. Fraud, idenity theft, deep fakes, etc

  • Stranger danger is intensifie as the public sphere is now seen as a site of danger

    • Beign absorbed in a private sphere can also contribute to the sense of stranger danger; seeing strangers as the people that would hurt people rather than people you know (even though its usually people that know you that hurt you)

      • Can become a mechnanisim through which we socially control people, ie. telling women not to go out at night

      • People start seeing the public as a danger; people start wanting to be in a capsel to alleviate their anxiety (ie. putting headphones on to escape)

  • Leads to people seeing certain people as signs of danger in society and can cause people to criminalize them/stigmatize them (ie. people who do drugs, homeless people (they don’t have any private space to do their daily activities)

Eseptial elements of a community that allow us to come together to solve problems like crime

create a foundation of “strength” and regulate members behavoirs so that they align with the values of the community)

• Social networks

• Social captial

Socail networks (and ties)

• Ability to form relationships and ties (can be strong or weak) with other people

  • Strong ties: high levels of intimacy, ie. clsoe friends, family, people who you can ask anything from

  • Weak ties: Low levels of intimacy (ie. aquatiences, school/work friends, etc)

    • Allows you to better navigate the demands of everyday life (ie. can provide you notes if you’re sick, can save you a seat in a class that’s full, someone you can say hi to, someone to do group work with, etc)

Community saved theorists and Social Networks

• worried about people only having strong ties and not having a lot of weak ties in the larger socierty

  • Hence, wehy its important to have both strong and weak ties; lives are better the more ties you have

Social Networks benifit to indviduals

• allows the person to create a stable sense of self, have a self idenity, ordered continutiy, self esteem, and derived from relationships (ontological security: knowing woh you are and where you belong, and understanding yourseld as belonmging to something bigger than yourself)

  • People NEED belongingness, connectedness, trust to function and that is only gained through your relationships to others

  • Ontological insecureity: having an idenity crisis (not knowing woh you are and how you fit)

    • A result of not having a comminity, can lead to mental health probelms

Social Captial

• web of ties characterized by respect/trust

  • Strong communities have inisdiual members who have high levels of social capital

    • Members have social networks that are characterizedd by levels of respect and trust

      • Rich in social captial if your web of ties is chracterized by respect/trust (qualtiy of ties; you want a lot of really good ties)

    • being rich in social captial can uplift people in the community, allows others with weaker social capital to forge relationships with their strong social network, can organize community efforts, having connectinos outside the community, knowing where to go to get things outside the community, cerates the capaicty for people to have more of it, facilitates action in the broader community (benifits everyone not just yourself)

  • Simotainously private and public good

What does high social captial mean

• Signals social organization, which allows people to have COLLECITVE EFFICACY (capacity of solve collective probelms as a colelvtive)

  • Self inters tied to collective intrest; people want the best for the community

    • People start ot see themslevs as embeded in the ocmmuntiy; people see their self intersts as tied to the intersts of other people

  • allows for informal socail control

    • Strong communiteis have common values and matian effetive socail control because they have strong socail captial and many ties

    • People are commited to upholding the values of the group; group will intervene when someone is not

    • The control that a community is able to excerisse over its members such that the community is able to embody certain values

      • Can manifest in many different ways (Can be oppressive but can also be non-opressive, ie. laughing and someone gives you a side eye)

What leads to crime in a community

• If places have crime embeded in them, they may lack sinformal social control which leads to crime

  • The people may also lack social captial and collective efficacy which leads to crime (what if the people are a community that cause crime relative to wider society and they come together to do so?)

  • Community is seen as a potentail solution to crime due to these facto

What should we aim to build communites to be?

• build socially organziaed communites, so that the members come together using their collective resources to achieve common ends

  • Communites that are able to be socialyl organized are able to realzie common values and maintaitn social controls

  • Members may possess kniweldge or expereitse about aproblem and its solutiins

  • Citizens are seen as coprosuces of safety and enter partnersihps with the state/formal agents

    • The state may intervene within geographic communities; seen as the state worknig with the community to solve cirme problems

Issues with community interventions

• may see state internentions operating within communites twith the community intervention label applied to it (its just labeled as a community interneveiton because it happens in the community but its directed by the state)

  • The community may be held responsiblized (shift in responsibltiy; in this case, responsiblity is shifted from the state to communities) for anything that happens as a result of community intervention when it actually has very little to do with them

Why is the state interested in community interventions?

• In the 1970s, the state faced a lot of questions about how it organized its appraoch to controllying crime

  • The goverment had promised to excerise its authoruity witihin its borders and keep ctiziens safe, they saw the CJS as a means to tackle crime, however these ideas got called into doubt due to crime rates rising

    • The role of the goverment started to be challenged, whcih caused the state to experiecne legitimacy deficits (the idea that the state has legitmacy in controling these areas of life is questioned)

      • 1970s; start to hear abotu neoliberalisim which sees human flourishing as something thats going to come out of economic approaches (programs) (starts to be favoured by politition)

        • Focuses on idnvidaulism; best way to maximise floursihing for indivduals is to allow capitalists to maximize their profits (trickle down effect; people at the top make a lot of money and it creates benifits for those below them)

        • Idea that goverments need to get out of the way; people need to profit and make as much money as possible fre from govemrent intervention

        • Focus on free market capitalism, reductions in govemrnet spending, etc

        • Led to shifts in how we looked at society and eachother

          • Changed the values in socierty and how we socailize people to “fit in”

            • Examples: Privitization of prisons

            • Made people focused on themsleves and looking after themevles first and foremost; goals are around self fufilment and self actualization, seeing others as comititon and life as a solo trip

              • Once you have this orientation on life and consider the goverment incapable of solving these issues in society, you start wanting everything run as a buisness and ir becomes easy for one to say that you’re responsible for yourself and your own community and that you need to do your stuff on your own

            • People also start thinknig that since crimes on the rise, and no ones gonna help them, they need to look out for themsleves first and foremost

              • Makes safety a commodity; you can only have it if you have the money to buy it (Ie. ring cameras)

              • The indivdaul migth be afraid of being responsiblizied if harm comes to them (victim blaming)

                • These things they never had to take resposniblity of before

                • People are being asked to take responsbility over things they odnt have much control over (ie. you don’t control if someone robs your house)

            • Community interventions allows the state to relegitimize its relationship with th epublic because they’re estesnsaily saying “we’re gonna help you protect yourself”

              • However, tey’re gonna do so by directing the interventions just witihni communites

              • Leads to the implication of ordinary citizens in governeance, which results in wider social ocntrol and allows the goverment to covern at a distance

              • The promises that the state is making has changed; its no longer about eliminating crime because its impossible (we see it as an inevitiablity/a social fact) so they change it in alignement with that understanding

                • It changed to how to manage crime (and how to “protect yoruself”

                  • Allows for private industry to enter into it; lots of privtiaization in crime control

              • Community interventinos migth be less about solving the problems of comminity and mroe about managing people, encooruaging peole to look after themevles in particualr ways, and questioning if its effective

        • Living in a neoliberal society has a lot of issues, such as;

          • The emphasis on indvidualism

            • The encoruagement to think about the self primariyl and seeing others as competatiors can be harmful to community

          • Sees society as a meritocracy; Whatever you get is because you deserve (merit) it (karma i guess)

            • Ie. people who have success in a meritocracy deserve it because they worked hard for it

          • Leads to people feeing disembeded (disconnected) in society

            • Creates feelings of loneliness

            • Creating a family is starting to feel like a comodety

            • Issues is one of ontological insecurity (its an idenity crisis; cannot see yourself as belongign to something larger than yourself)

          • Essentialisim becomes attractive to people who are expereincing onological insecurity

            • You start to beleive that things like gender, race, class, etc are essential and valued qualites that make you unique (basically, in an effort to figure out who you are you look at physical/fixed characteristics and say that makes you you)

              • Issue: you look at peoplew ho dont have that as people “othered” from you (you see them as fundementally different from you)

                • Example: in the US people idenifty themsevles as democrats or republicans (who you vote for is seen as apart of you) and makes you think that you’re fundementally different than the other side

          • Othering leads to dehumanizing people

            • Seeing others as fundementally differnet can lead people to not seeing others as human, which leads to an increase in crime and violence

            • Examples: Mass violence (ie, school shootings)

Polticial and economic frameworks dictate the CJS, and who people think are bad (think abotu whats going on in society to see how it determiens what we do and hwo we look at eachother)

Space according to Foucault

Fundemental in any form of communial life

• Fudnenmetnal in any exercise of power

  • Space and who its shaped by and how its shaped is how power gets eexercise (people with power deterimine waht spacese are like and how they’re going to be experienced

Social problems may be bunded by__

• Socail problems may be bundled by neighbrohood

  • Racial and economic inequality is concentrTated in certain neighbrouhoods

    • Race and class may be intercepted in certain neighbourhoods

    • None of it is accidental (but dont peoplel choose where they live?)

Why is social dislocation incteasing

• Social dislocation is increasing as a result of political decisions

  • Theres socail factors that come together that make people feel like they can’t come together or that tthey lack control of their lives

  • ie. municipal resources (areas with less property tax may have less municipal resources than those with a lot of property tax)

    • People could get priced out of their homes even after they paid off their morgages due to property taxes

What does neighbourhood quality of life depend on (5 things)

1. Local services

2. Shared norms/values

3. Peer influences

4. Crime and Violence

5. Job Access

Local Services

• Ie. gorcery stores, banks, schools, publicly accessible leasure activites, etc

• Can leave people feeling trapped without these things because it means they have to travel far out of the nieghboruhood to have access to necessitys (ie. gorcery desert might mean needing to drivet o get to the closest gorvery store; some people don’t have the money for these things)

Shared norms/values

• If people dont feel like they share the norms and values of the people who live there then they might not want to build a community

• Develops social captial and socail efficacy

Peer Inflences

• cONNECTS to shared norms and values

• Harmful/negative peer influecnes might exist

• Needs to be spaces for people to do non-criminal things (ie. public lesire spaces)

Crime and Violence

Become issues and concerns due to the first 3 not being met

Job Access

• No serives and no ammednidies maens no job

• Lack of public transit might make it difficult for people to access jobs or get jobs outside the city

The relationship between people and place

• Space is an active force in peopeles lives

• Space and wgat it means is defined/produced by people

  • Ie. ideas, values, determine whats a good or bad space, etc

  • However, if you find yourself affiliated with a devalued space, you might obtain a courtacy stigma (your affiliation with the tatinted space will make you seem like a bad person or taint your image)

    • Poeple might try to avoid this stigma but saying that they’re not like the other peopel that live there or try to get out

• Developemnt of social captial/collecitve efficacy

• Devalued places leads to bestow stigma

Clara Court

• Public housing development that gotham and brumley were studying

• Part of a real US city

• Public housing

  • Subsitidzed (odnt ahve to pay full market value)

  • Theres people who look after the surrounding area (ie. the alwns)

  • Theres security associated with the housing activity (sorta makes it like a mini city)

  • Kinda like regent park

• Interviewed people who lived there

  • Found that residents( mainly women) complained about the place being run down and the amount of criem there

Safe Spaces

• Theres no way for them to say that these are the safest sapce; they’re self infliced spaces that they see as safe (jsut ways to use the space to make themsevles feel safe)

• Provide secutiy and trust

• Can be done in private or in publci with the entire community (ie. BBQs, talking to neighbours, etc)

• Allows us to become “eyes on the street”

  • Presenece is potetnially deturing certain behaviours from taking place

• Makes them feel like active agents in constructing safety

• People do what they can to make it a better place for thmesves (residence may like it there)

Hot spaces

• Places where residients see as a siteo f danger (linked to crime and violence)

• Create a distingution between themseves (law abiding ctiizens) and the people who frequent these spaces (are associated with these spaces)

  • Ie. the circle (has abandoned buildings, people sell and do drugs there, etc)

  • Us vs them mentality

  • Sees the them as the peopel who give othes the impression that its a bad area to live in

    • Make the distingciton that its isolated and that the us arent gonna be tarnishe dby the them

      • Aruge that not everyone is bad

  • Some may avoid these spaces but others may reject them all together

• The idea that these places are bad is based on past experiecnes or intercations

• They use “street wisom” to avoid being there

  • Ie. walking extra blocks to go around those spaces

  • People make sense of these spaces and that disctaties how people live their everyday lives

Contested Space

• Theres different groups that talk about the communtiy in different ways; they argue about who the community is for and what it does

• Redevelopement schemes in clara court leads to conflict (ie. regent park; the lady at the start didn’t like that they tore the whoel thing down just to build a worse place ontop of it)

  • They need to have new servivces and amendies and new hosueing and needs to be better integrated into the fabric of the city

  • Large scale development projects start to dissapear

  • Start to see people displaced and market housing introduced into the neighoburrohs that may appeal to people outside the neighbourroohd withch leads to difficulites in affordablitiy

  • Leads to questions such as who actually speaks for the community? who represents true community members?’

  • Some community memebrs might disavow the communtiy identiy; they might not want to be surrounded by this stigma and want to leave the community and embrase the projecte

  • Some people may embrase this community because they would have to go to another area if the project was completed (they dont know anywhere there)

• Different groups (factions) represetent “true” community

Commodification of Community

• Commodities: Things that are bought and sold

  • Can generate profit off of things

  • Can be physical or societal

  • Are symbols (threres meaning embeded within commodities, people think differnet things of you/associate you wtih differnet things depending on wjat you have)

• Community is increasingly being thought of as an idea/feeling that can be constructed or sold

  • Or as a space where people consume stuff

  • People may buy into these places or spaces; they are attracted to certain people

  • Communites may become like a brand (ie. brooklyn)

  • Becomes a place where rich people want to frequent

    • The economic value of ocmmunity takes precidence; the soical value it might have for indivduals gets replaced

      • Lowers social efficacy and the sense of community

      • Leads to parts of the city being developed just for people to buy stuff (Ie. Landsdowne being built to be an entertainment district)

        • Makes it exclusionary; some people are not allowed to be there

          • Can make certain parts of the city no-go zones for large groups of people

            • Can lead to these people who can’t participate gtting removed

Gentrification

Alter the character of a neighbourhood by “upscaling”

• Basically putting big chain stores and making it more appealing to white people

• Displaces the residents of the neighbourhood

• Not a natural, organic process

• Redevlopment happened because people who had social and political power wanted it to happen; not the people who lived in the neighbourhood

Welfare vs subsidies (according to my brooklyn)

• Wellfare when poor ppl get goverment money, subsdies when rich ppl get goverment money

  • “Subsidies” lures developers to the neighbourhoods

    • They only get applied to the new ppl that move in

  • They could subisize units and make some of them affordable housing, BUT they dont demand that

Connecting My brookyln to crim

• When you s tart buidling and constrcitng places around these lines, some people are welcoemd and some are not

• When these spaces are oriented aroiund the people with the most money, and you qant those people to sepnd theri money in these places, you want to reasure people that this is a safe space

• People like going to somewhere new and seeing things that they’re familiar with (basically, making everywhere look like where they came from)

• Can be overt

  • Archetcaual elements (ie. hostile archetures (liek putting things on benches so homeless pepople cant sleep on them))

    • Designing out ounwanted activities

  • Surveilents (overt and covert)

  • Done to reassure the residetns that they are safe and should be comfortable

    • KEEPS people socially segregated

      • Make places off limits for peopel who arent gonan use them the ways they were intended to be used (ie. preventing ppl without money from entering a space for people with money)

• Globalization and westernized idea of other cultures

  • :o the fetishisation of asian cultures

• • looking customers to boos tsales

Safe diversity

• Public spaces are becoming incresingly restricted in their uses so that peopel of upper and middle classes can sample other cultures and have “exotic” expereiences, often as commercialized representations of the real thing

  • Ie. fast food resturants like chipotle

  • People like going to somewhere new and seeing things that they’re familiar with (basically, making everywhere look like where they came from)

Bougoisse Playground

• Bourgeois playgrounds: SPaces that are developed or built to appear as if they just organically emerged over time, when they really were purposfulyl designed (oftentiems all at once) so as to offer up opprountiyes for survelicne, social control

  • MAX surveilance

  • Socailly controls whos int the space and what they’re doing

Citizens act as consumers

• They’re welcomed and included based on image; if you appear like you’re gonna do buisness then you’re not bothered but if you appear like you’re gonna loiter or do nothing then you get bothered/watched

• Citizens have rights based off of how consumerist they are (how much money they’re going to spend)

  • People who get arrested or harassed tend to not “look like” they “belong” there (ie. not participating in capitalisim)

  • ie. sellers only approaching rich looking customers to boos tsales

Moral framework of homelessness

• Homelessness throuh circumstance

  • Get more empathy or assistance but are oftentimes still looked down upon

• HOmenessness as a lifestyle

  • Corresponding attiude of these people being problems and that they’re undeserving of empathy or assitance because they chose this

Commodification

• a processs by which something that previosuly was not considered for economic value is now being thought of as a comodity (something that can be bought or sold)

  • Its social value is only derrived from its economic value

Homelessness in commodified urban spaces

• Desirable ‘lifestyles” are linked to consumer enviorments

• Homelessness is also positioned as a lifestyle

  • Choosing freetime, lesire pursites or purchasing non essietnal items

    • Seen as “wasting their money”

Ricky and Ron

• Experiencing the street → Ricky and Ron

  • YOunger mend of colour

  • Hope: get jobs in casinos and be delaers

  • One has laptop

  • Living in shelter, someone found housing and they get jobs at a convientce store

  • They experience the street in the way that the others dont; they’re newer to vegas and they also have a cleaner, fancier image (polo shirts, laptop, kaiki shirts)

    • Allows them to move through the city in ways the others cannot

      • Ie. using starbucks wifi and not getting harassed despite not buying anything

Dave

• Enjoying the street → Dave

  • Goes to the library to use computers but he’s far from the main homeless area

    • Far from homeless services

  • 55 but doesnt see himself getting a new degree

  • Embrased the freedom of being homeless

  • Dislikes repetitve work but can’t get a visa

Jessi

• Losing ones place → Jessi

  • Might not have a place; street is her place

  • Has a lot of past trauma; an amputee, sexually assualted, family troubles (they put money into her account)

    • Used the money to buy her friend a cane (also unhoused)

      • Didn’t want people to know she had money so she lied and said she stole the cane

  • Sometiems visibily and publicly drunk

  • “Mistery finds releif in an immediate and non judgemental experience” - the street was that for her

Jack

• Slept in a chidlrens tent in the homeless cordiro hneear an autoereapif shop

• Had a gambling problem

• Did day labour

• just didnt wanna get in trouble with the law

• African american vet (served in vietnam)

  • Spoke about how many vetereans are homeless (could be due to PTSD or unaddressed mental health needs)

• nARATIVE becomes “they’re not disadvantaged, they’re dangerous”