Policing Poverty Race, Space and the Fear of Crime After the Year of the Gun (2005) in Suburban Toronto
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POLICING POVERTY RACE, SPACE AND THE FEAR OF CRIME AFTER THE YEAR OF THE GUN (2005) IN SUBURBAN TORONTO by Amy Marie Siciliano A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Geography University of Toronto © Copyright Amy Marie Siciliano, 2010 i ii POLICING POVERTY RACE, SPACE AND THE FEAR OF CRIME AFTER THE YEAR OF THE GUN (2005) IN SUBURBAN TORONTO Amy Marie Siciliano Doctor of Philosophy Department of Geography University of Toronto 2010 Abstract In 2005, firearm homicides in Toronto spiked to unprecedented levels, prompting mainstream media to label 2005 as the ‘Year of the Gun’. While the majority of those killed were young black men in Toronto’s impoverished post-war suburbs, the shooting death of a young white woman downtown reframed the problem of gun violence in popular and policy discourse from the perspective of those it least affected: the predominantly white middle- classes in the gentrified urban core. This dissertation attempts to situate dominant narratives of the problem of gun violence and policy responses to it as an event in a history of Toronto, especially with reference to transformations in urban space and governance. It argues that the Year of the Gun can be understood as a destabilizing moment in the city’s collective history that helped normalize ways of narrating and governing a growing socio-spatial divide between the city and the post-war suburbs. Through analyses of government proceedings, media discourse, social scientific research, participant observation, and key informant interviews it identifies how intersecting discourses, practices and representations framed iii racialized poverty and crime in ways that further solidified causal links between the two. It offers a history for these causal links, illustrating how race and space have long played a vital role in real and imagined divisions between the city and its suburbs. It explores the formation and administration of three policy approaches responding to the crisis: a municipal policy framework for social investment, a targeted policing strategy, and non-profit faith-based programs for young black men. It analyses how each defined social problems for government in ways that eclipsed broader processes generating social inequality in the city. The findings of this research suggest that dominant narratives and practices governing poverty and crime have prevented public discussions about the racialized architecture of neoliberal urbanism while enforcing one of suburban decline. They have prevented dialogue about the correlation between whiteness and wealth in the core, while enforcing causal relations between blackness, poverty and crime in the suburbs. And they have prevented critiques about the surveillance of the city’s young black men, while enforcing projections of these same men through the prism of masculinist culture. iv Acknowledgements I would first like to thank all those who took the time to share their knowledge, experiences and perspectives with me by participating in this research. Without their support, this work would not have been possible. My supervisor, Kanishka Goonewardena, sharpened my understanding of this subject, and also rigorously insisted on the importance of form, not just content. While Deb Cowen formally joined my PhD committee at a later stage, she has been absolutely instrumental in the formation of this dissertation, from start to finish. I owe them both deep thanks and gratitude. Emily Gilbert, Jason Hackworth, and Debby Leslie always asked challenging questions and provided thoughtful feedback as my PhD committee members. Roger Keil, Paul Hess, and Katherine Rankin served as my external examiners, and this dissertation has benefited from their generous and critical engagement. Gunter Gad and Sue Ruddick also took much time to share their knowledge of Toronto’s social history, particularly during the early stages of the research. Vanessa Mathews, Barbara Parker, Emily Eaton, Roger Picton, Jennifer Ridgley, Patrick Vitale, Paul Jackson, and Chris Muellerleile have taught me much, kept me sane, and brought me joy throughout this process. Thanks to my family—Martha, Don and Dawn Siciliano—one of my richest sources of strength and inspiration. Et un gros merci á mon amour, Guillaume Neault, pour tout. v Table of Contents Introduction .......................................................................................................................1 The Event Known as the ‘Year of the Gun’ ..........................................................................8 Capitalism, Urbanism and Crime.........................................................................................11 Targeting Crime and Poverty: Racializing Space, Politicizing Race ..................................17 Data and Methods ................................................................................................................22 Chapter Outline....................................................................................................................27 Chapter One Gun Violence, Ghettos and the Making of Toronto’s Priority Neighbourhoods ................................................................................................................30 From Spatial Correlation to Social Cause............................................................................32 Getting to the Root Causes...............................................................................................37 Mapping the Ghetto and its Neighbourhood Effects........................................................43 Community Safety Plan: Balancing Prevention with Enforcement.....................................53 The Priority Neighbourhoods: Responding to Crises ......................................................59 Chapter Two The Cultural Politics of Urban Reform ...................................................73 Modernizing Toronto...........................................................................................................79 Urbanizing ‘Colonial Encounters’.......................................................................................82 Towering Toronto: ‘High-Rise vs. No Rise’ .......................................................................87 ‘The Era of Suburban Innocence is Over’ .........................................................................101 Conclusion .........................................................................................................................107 Chapter Three Community Policing or Policing Community?..................................108 ‘Policing a World within a City’........................................................................................113 Street Gangs: A Deviation or the Norm?...........................................................................121 From Organized Crime to Terrorist Threat....................................................................125 Community Policing: TAVIS, the ‘People’s Police’.........................................................132 ‘This is not Soft Policing, its Strategic Policing’...........................................................139 Policing Community: TAVIS, Whose People’s Police? ...................................................142 Conclusion .........................................................................................................................146 vi Chapter Four ‘The Problem with Men’: Governing Racialized Masculinity ..............147 ‘The Analysis has Already Been Done’ ............................................................................149 ‘The Elephant in the Room’...............................................................................................151 The Reverend Eugene Rivers: ‘Growing up without Men’...............................................155 Female-headed Households: ‘Normalizing the Abnormal’ ...........................................161 ‘The Globalization of Thug Life’...................................................................................165 Faith-based Crime Control comes to Toronto: ‘Down with Guns’ ...................................172 ‘Sports as Salvation’ ......................................................................................................176 ‘The Etobicoke Strategy’ ...............................................................................................180 Conclusion .........................................................................................................................184 Conclusion Prevention and Enforcement .....................................................................185 vii List of Graphs Graph 1: Number of Firearm Homicides in Toronto; Number of Articles in 3 Toronto Star and Globe and Mail on Gun Violence 1991-2008. Graph 2.1: Origin of Immigrant Arrival in Toronto. 84 viii List of Plates Plate 1: ‘The Other Toronto’. 4 Plate 2: ‘Could It Happen Here?’. 9 Plate 3: ‘Lessons From the Violence in Paris’. 9 Plate 4: Average Individual Income Compared to Toronto CMA Average, 1970. 15 Plate 5: Average Individual Income Compared to Toronto CMA Average, 2000. 16 Plate 1.1 Strong Neighbourhoods Strategy neighbourhood map. 66 Plate 1.2: Thirteen Priority Neighbourhoods. 67 Plate 3.1: Image from Tha Squad Video. 130 Plate 3.2 Mainstream Media Coverage of Discriminatory Policing Practices. 132 Plate 3.3: Posters to Advertise the Onset of TAVIS Patrols. 138 Plate 4.1 Dr. Eugene Rivers, ‘Growing up without