Manufacturing Dissent Since 1996
New interviews throughout the week

Inside L.A.'s Homeless-Industrial Complex / Tracy Rosenthal

Ioana cristiana ooa82vmuzi4 unsplash

"I talk about broken windows in the article because I wanted to figure out what is the policing strategy that's being used to turn homeless people into a canary in a coal mine of crime. So you have William Bratten, who is the police chief who moves from New York to Los Angeles and back to New York as the proponent of this policy that we call 'broken windows' which we are still living with to this day. And under this view of policing, it doesn't matter what the crime rate is. It matters if basically rich, white residents feel safe. And when we use police to do that, we give an incredible amount of discretion to police officers, and we're policing people and places, as [Michael] Bloomberg says, rather than events or incidents. And so I think it is very important that we situate the rise in policing of unhoused people in this broader project of broken windows policing that cities engage in, that is essentially criminalizing the poor."

Chuck interviews writer, activist, and co-founder of the Los Angeles Tenants' Collective Tracy Rosenthal on their New Republic article "Inside L.A.'s Homeless Industrial Complex"

 

https://unsplash.com/photos/oOA82Vmuzi4?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink

Share Tweet Send

 

Rosenthal tracy jeanne headshot e1545208426438 225x300
Guest

Tracy Rosenthal

Tracy Rosenthal writes essays about art, opinions about housing, and satire about Los Angeles, which you can find in the LA Times, Art in America, and Fence. They are a co-founder of the L.A. Tenants Union and author of the widely-shared Two-Evils voter guides. Their first book, Abolish Rent, co-written with Leonardo Vilchis, is forthcoming from Verso.

Tracy Rosenthal's Personal Site

 

Related Interviews