Re-imagining Public Safety

In the wake of the most recent murders of Black community members by armed officers, students at USF have called for the defunding or dismantling of the Department of Public Safety Department at USF. National concern over state violence against Black bodies is a concern on our own campus. Black students and their allies have called on USF to examine its own practices and to consider a new way of thinking about safety and wellness for our community. What does this mean and what would it look like? 

This project provides race training to officers in the Department of Public Safety as well as a series of forums on race and policing for the entire USF community. The purpose of this project then is to continue the education of DPS as well as the broader USF community so that the campus can remain committed to and engaged with the project of reimagining policing on campus.  

  

Spring 2023 Conclusion of Project

The project overview, timeline and concluding proposal information can be found on the Re-imagining Public Safety Task Force website. 

 

Spring 2022 Events

April 28, 2022 Forum on Diversity in Campus Policing

This campus forum, featuring USF's Debate Team, addressed why diversity in campus policing matters with regard to both safety and social justice.  This forum was funded by the 6 + YOU initiative.  

Watch Recording of Event >>

 

Spring 2021 Events

February 23, 2021 Webinar

On February 23rd, the Jesuit initiative hosted its first public webinar series on race and policing.  The webinar was covered in USF News. The webinar featured San Francisco District Attorney, Chesa Boudin, Professor Rhonda Magee, Professor Darrick Smith, and Senior Director of the McCarthy Center, Derick Brown.  To view a recording of the event, please click here.

April 13, 2021 Webinar

On April 13, 6 + YOU hosted a conversation between Andrea Ritchie and Dean Spade.  The recording of the event is now available.

Below are books written by Andrea Ritchie and Dean Spade:

• Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color (Andrea Ritchie)

• Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States (Joey L. Mogul, Andrea J. Ritchie and Kay Whitlock)

• Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next) (Dean Spade)

• Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law (Dean Spade)

Below are resources that were shared during the event:

• Alternatives to Policing Based in Disability Justice

• A Roadmap for Change: Federal Policy Recommendations for Addressing the Criminalization of LGBT People and People with HIV, Making the Case for Federal Policy Change: Essays and Excerpts (Catherine Hanssens et al., 2014)

• We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice (by Mariame Kaba, edited by Tamara K. Nopper, and foreword by Naomi Murakawa)

• Eminism.org is a personal website of multi-issue social justice activist/writer/rogue intellectual Emi Koyama. Emi often writes and speaks out about feminism, sexual and domestic violence, sex work/trade and trafficking, queer and trans liberation, intersex and disability issues, among others.

• Red Canary Song: A grassroots collective of Asian and Migrant sex workers organizing transnationally.

• Out In The Night documentary: Under the neon lights in a gay-friendly neighborhood of New York City, four young African-American lesbians are violently and sexually threatened by a man on the street. They defend themselves against him and are charged and convicted in the courts and in the media as a 'Gang of Killer Lesbians'.

• #IMREADY movement: The #ImReady Movement raises visibility around self-identified AAPI women and [their] experiences with #MeToo, racial discrimination, war, immigration, and more.

• Ensuring federal stimulus funds support communities, not cops

• Video of Tourmaline (formerly called Reina Gossett) talking about trans history and historic erasure. https://bcrw.barnard.edu/videos/reina-gossett-historical-erasure-as-violence/

• What’s going on with defund around the country (Andrea Ritchie)

• Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police (Mariame Kaba)

• Abolitionist Social Work: Possibilities, Paradox and Praxis

• Arresting Dress: Cross-Dressing, Law, and Fascination in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco (Clare Sears)

• Oakland Power Projects: Engaging Oakland residents in building community power and well-being without relying on law enforcement

• Movement for Family Power

April 27, 2021 Webinar

On April 27, 6 + YOU hosted a conversation among academics whose work focuses on policing and the university.  The recording of the event is now available.

Lead Office on Campus

Department of Public Safety

• Dan Lawson, Director

Humanizing Instruction Subcommittee Liaison 

• Colette Cann

Connection to the Jesuit Foundation Mission

National concern over state violence against Black bodies is a concern on our own campus. Black students and their allies have called on USF to examine its own practices and to consider a new way of thinking about safety and wellness for our community. This initiative proposes to provide race training to officers in the Department of Public Safety and asks them to use this knowledge and learning to help them more empathetically hear the concerns of the community during open forums. This training will further be applied to the reimagining of their unit.