When: Saturday, Nov. 24 at 2:00pm
Where: Surrey City Hall, 13450 104 Avenue
Longtime Surrey resident and APPS member, Lenée Son, explains, “We’re told the police make us safe, but in our experience, they are a threat to our safety. They surveill and harass homeless people, enforce the catastrophic war on drugs, and terrorize racialized and Indigenous communities, profiling and brutalizing young people of colour with impunity.”
Crime rates are falling in Surrey and across the country, but police budgets continue to expand. The police and their supporters play on Surrey residents’ fears of gang violence to justify funding increases. But the City of Surrey is already home to the largest RCMP detachment in the country, and the proposed municipal police force will be even bigger. According to Jeff Shantz, professor of criminology at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and APPS member, “This overwhelming police presence does nothing to address the systemic roots of gang involvement: poverty, racism, and drug prohibition. Instead, the cops profile and criminalize youth of colour, making the situation worse.”
Massive funding for police comes at the expense of social programs and resources, like community centres and youth programs, which could actually address some of the root causes of violence in our communities. By divesting from the police, we can invest in real community solutions. It is up to us to decide what form those solutions take.
ANTI-POLICE POWER SURREY is new organization that formed to push back against the relentless expansion of police power and call for the City of Surrey to divest from the police and invest in the people. Anti-Police Power Surrey is supported by Alliance Against Displacement. (Artwork by Art Twink.)
For more information visit the Facebook event page https://www.facebook.com/events/1931565783624616/
