THEASTER GATES
DORCHESTER PROJECT, CHICAGO Community members eat surrounded by vinyl records in a house rehabilitated by Theaster Gates. Photo by J. Hamblin.
Theaster Gates is a Chicago-based artist who has become famous for renovating a series of vacant structures in the South Side as rich community spaces. The one shown above houses a series of archives: an archive of 60,000 slides formerly belonging to the University of Chicago; a collection of 14,000 books from the now-closed Prairie Avenue Art and Architecture Bookstore; and a record archive—all to be used in a social space for the local community. The project used scavenged wood to regenerate an abandoned house. Other examples of Theaster Gates’ work in the same area include the Listening House, the Black Cinema House, the Soul Food Pavilion, and, most recently, the Stony Island State Savings Bank. The Bank, which was in poor condition when Gates’ Rebuild Foundation purchased it in 2013, is being reimagined as an “arts bank” featuring creative collections.
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implementing a body camera system. However, even once the reels are turning, accountability is not automatic. In the wrong hands, the cameras may simply intensify police surveillance of poor communities. Policy should clearly describe when the cameras should be turned on; post footage for public review; and delete footage after 6 months. Local civil rights groups (the NAACP, the Latino Leadership Alliance of NJ) should be called on to help craft policy.
2
LAY THE GROUNDWORK FOR A RETURN TO LOCAL POLICING
2.1 Include police in new communitybuilding efforts. The CCPD has been praised for its community policing tactics. Police can build on this strength by participating in new efforts to build social capital through SHEDS. Police officers should rely on SHEDS program leaders to identify vacant lots and buildings that currently serve crime and drug hotspots and collaborate with residents to simultaneously secure these lots, maintain them, and step up enforcement.
3
RE-ESTABLISH A LOCAL POLICE FORCE
3.1 Bring back the Camden City Police. In the long term, Camden must re-establish a Camden-based police academy that draws recruits from the city. This will not be feasible until Camden’s fiscal situation improves,
and may meet with resistance from the County and police force itself. The current system is supported by county and state officials, including Governor Chris Christie, who has been a particularly vocal proponent. However, as long as regionaly equity persists, only a city police force will be representative of the people it serves. Camden can help protect this representativeness by offering fellowships to local students to pursue law enforcement education through local college or vocational programs. 3.2 Mandate local hiring. Once a local police department has been re-instated, it should be subject to a hiring requirement that mandates 50% of officers live in Camden City proper.
COMMUNITY PROGRAMS
1
SWIFTLY CONVERT VACANT LOTS TO COMMUNITY USE
1.1 Catalog and convey lots to communities. The City should establish a procedure for the acquisition and transfer of lots to community ownership. Seizing abandoned land is legally complex, but the City has prerogative to do so via spot blight abatement provisions. As legal negotiations proceed, tactical urbanism can help activate empty lots. For those without contamination or other safety concerns, public art installations, furniture, temporary
CAMDEN EQUITY | AGENDA
WiFi hotspots, and other interventions will restore a sense of community ownership and help residents imagine more permanent future uses. 1.2 Establish SHEDS. Where an abandoned building adjoins a vacant property in densely populated area of an underserved neighborhood (a combination that occurs extraordinarily often in Camden), SHEDS can be created. These Shared Hubs for Equitable Development Strategies are neighborhood centers equpped with a basic set of services: a community job board and job mentoring contacts; a community garden directory and seed dispensary; tools for home and yard care that can be checked out to residents; forms for local, state, and federal assistance programs; and editions of community newsletters and other publications. Each hub will have a community leader appointed as programming director by neighborhood vote. Residents who take on this task will receive special compensation (free transit passes, priority in government services, and possibly free living space in the SHEDS building). 1.3 Customize SHEDS. Depending on neighborhood needs and capacities, residents may organize through SHEDS to focus on additional community programming, e.g. financial literacy, stormwater management through rain gardening, culinary classes, cooperative cooking, or childcare. Additionally, each hub should be considered a canvas for community expression through murals, etc.
CAMDEN EQUITY | AGENDA
1.4 Harness SHEDS network to address food insecurity. Relying on the expertise of the Camden Community Garden Club, vacant lots adjoining SHEDS should be maintained as kitchen gardens, either as allotments or community gardens. In addition, the SHEDS should become venues for food-buying clubs connected with local farmers (including urban farmers created as part of the comprehensive vacancy strategy discussed in Part 3 of this book).
D.C. BODY CAMERAS
D.C. METRO OFFICER MODELS BODY CAM JaShawn Colkley models a body cam during a 2014 press conference announcing the new program. Photo by Win McNamee for Getty Images.
CAMDEN CITY GARDEN CLUB Pedro Rodriguez, a member of the CCGC, raises chickens in a formerly vacant lot in North Camden, now a community garden. Photo by Kristen Moe for Yes! Magazine.
The Penn Center for Public Health Initiatives found in 2013 that Camden’s almost 260 community gardens produces $2.3 million worth of food, helping feed about %15 of Camden’s total population. The SHEDS Initiative will provide infrastruture to increase Camden Community Gardens.
Washington D.C. has implemented one of the few body camera policies that allows recorded individuals to ask to see footage. It clearly details the process for making such requests. According to the policy, “The subject of a body worn camera recording, his or her legal representative, or the subject’s parent or legal guardian if the subject is a minor, may request to schedule a time to view the BWC recording at the police district where the incident occurred.” Requests can be submitted online or in person. Police officers receiving such requests must immediately initiate the process for making footage available to the requesting party. As of September 2016, officers must also confirm with dispatch that they have their cameras turned on when responding to potentially life-threatening encounters.
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