On Monday February 11th, 2019 Care Not Cops (CNC) released a powerful new report detailing the harms of policing on communities in Portland while highlighting the work of community organizations’ to build real community care. The report, titled “Building Care: Portland Communities Respond to the Violence of Policing,” compiles 11 organizations’ experiences with policing in Portland.
In drawing from the expertise of respondents, the report highlights the needs of communities and organizations to achieve their visions of building genuine care and safety for their community members and the people they serve. CNC surveyed a diverse range of organizations that are made up of and work with impacted communities – from people who are houseless, immigrants, and people of color, to those who have lost loved ones to police violence, workers and day laborers, environmental advocates, youth, and tenant organizers. Organizational respondents ranged from Don’t Shoot Portland and Street Roots, to YEJA (Youth Environmental Justice Alliance) and the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon.
“This report provides a clear direction for City leaders on where they should actually be investing our resources that reflects the lived experiences and real needs of Portlanders,” said Anna So, a core organizer with CNC and Critical Resistance Portland. “The recommendations in the report urging a deprioritization of policing and a desperate need for investments in community care and resources can’t be any clearer.”
We will continue to work and build with many community organizations, and will be using this report to as a tool and road map as we gear up in fighting for disinvestment from policing in Portland’s budget this year.
We thank the following groups for their organizing work, for the time and thought they put into responding to the questions from CNC, and for making this report possible:
- Community Alliance of Tenants
- VOZ Workers’ Rights Education Project
- Right 2 Survive
- Street Roots
- Sisters of the Road
- Portland Parent Union
- Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon
- Don’t Shoot Portland
- Youth Environmental Justice Alliance
- Movement Of Mothers/and/qeothers Standing/up/together
- Portland State University Student Union
- Critical Resistance Portland
- Special thanks to Sarah Crumb for the design of this report
Summary Recommendations from the report urge the city of Portland to:
- Implement genuine strategies for dignified temporary and permanent housing, to halt sweeps of houseless encampments and other villages
- Develop and implement a plan to dismantle the controversial gang policing unit of the PPB
- Immediately scale back police presence in historically Black neighborhoods, communities of color, and areas with high houseless populations in order to reduce the fear, ongoing trauma, violence, and oppressive conditions which impede on people’s daily survival
- Move away from police responders to health or mental health calls and implement alternative first responses as means to meet needs or address harm and accountability that are not led by the police
- Invest in life-sustaining and dignified resources that would ultimately reduce people’s vulnerability or targeting by policing
We will be mobilizing to upcoming City Budget Forums to ensure these recommendations and other community priorities are implemented.
Save the following dates in your calendar and prepare to turn out.
April 2nd, 6pm | April 9th, 6pm | May 9th, 6pm