In San Francisco this week, the city council was forced to move an outdoor meeting inside after a protester allegedly threw a brick at politicians aiming to increase the militarized policing of drug users. This kind of political action inspired us to write this article and to look deeper at the meaning of crime, the War on Crime, and political action here in Seattle.

This all comes amidst worsening conditions and increasingly militarized policing in cities like San Francisco and Seattle, which enact violence against people of color, queer and trans people, drug users, unhoused people, and more—groups of which many of us are part. In Seattle, the Harrell administration has targeted the very marginalized communities that he aims to represent as the first Asian and second Black Mayor of the City. Under this leadership and before, Seattle has seen constant crises such as forceful evictions and violent encampment sweeps. These are further used to justify higher police budgets.

This same trend is happening on the UW Campus. Earlier this week, a UW committee voted not to condemn violence against people of color and unhoused people, citing that such violence could be justified in instances of “self defense.” When interviewed, an ASUW Representative from the committee told The Nightly: “I am disappointed but not surprised. At UW committee meetings, we have seen UW staff using slurs, misgendering people, and censuring the public - all to support their war on crime. Here in the University Transportation Committee this looks like a plan to displace unhoused people from the Central Plaza Garage. Clearly the UW and UWPD are looking for new ways to wage violence against people of color and the unhoused community here on campus. ”

In order for this machine to keep functioning, mainstream news—90% of which is owned by just 5 corporations, which in turn collaborate with our government—asserts that our neighbors are violent and that we must treat them unequally. As students, we need to think more critically about our perception of our marginalized neighbors. At UW, it is noticeable that many students have given into this false perception and call for more policing—and this is of course reinforced by the University. Back in November, the BSU made a Statement on a performative safety town hall that clearly outlines this situation. “UWPD asks us to police eachother, telling us to be hyperconscious of ‘suspicious activity’ on campus and to actively call in tips anonymously… For administrators, we have to ask; when you’re concerned about safety, this means safety for whom?” Anti-homeless and racist rhetoric is turning us into active participants in what we at The Nightly have termed the War on ‘Crime.’ If we as students don’t think critically about this rhetoric, we could become a part in causing serious harm to already marginalized communities.

We can better understand the current War on Crime here on campus by looking more deeply at the type of crime that occurs. The Nightly obtained documents from a past public records request from the UWPD detailing call data. This has revealed that an average of 1.2% of crimes that UWPD received calls about in 2021 were labeled violent. Among nonviolent crimes in these same three years, 11.5% of calls were regarding skateboarders or other “suspicious activity,” and a large number of UWPD calls were classified as property crime and theft. 

Seeing this data, we need to ask some critical questions: Are theft and property destruction wholly bad? Does it always harm people? How about harming society?

Theft is not always from individuals, such as, the stereotypical robber stealing an innocent person’s purse. Stealing from large institutions and businesses, which is vastly more common, is completely different from what we are led to believe. More so, these institutions actively steal from us. They steal wages and labor, choosing to harm people and the planet to expand their capital and extract profit. Theft from violent corporations and institutions, then, is not a crime but rather a moral obligation.

In a world where finding shelter for yourself and making sure you have enough food to survive is criminalized, we need to understand that crime as we know it is a construct. This construct has been built up to enforce economic inequality, keeping people dependent on wage labor for survival and profiting the propertied class above the rest. And this systemic inequality further manifests itself through the police state and the propaganda that make the War on Crime possible.

Our UW community cannot afford to fall victim to this rhetoric against the most marginalized amongst us. Instead, we must actively look for ways to fight back against the war on crime and bring power to the people. Repossessing material belongings from corrupt institutions, and directly confronting political bureaucrats—like in San Francisco—can help to protect ourselves and our communities against them. As students at the UW, direct political action like this might be our most powerful weapon.

Published: 5 / 29 / 2023