Colorlines on Los Angeles Police Gentrifying Skid Row

Jessica Hoffmann's article in Colorlines called LAPD GENTRIFIES SKID ROW does a great job demonstrating how broken windows policing strategies, in LA called "Safer Cities Initiative," are working to criminalize poverty, push poor people away from social services, and wage campaigns of violence against black people and other people of color. According to Hoffmann, Skid Row now has a nearly constant presence of police on foot, horses, bikes, and cars.

As the state continues to escalate violence in poor neighborhoods by increasing police funding and presence, it simultaneously defunds social services. Taxes are spent waging violence against the poor, homeless, ill, and disenfranchised rather than helping people out. The barbarism of the state works to alienate people from each other and dissolve social unity.