How Gentrification Disconnects Law Enforcement From The Communities They Serve
He Enforces Order In A Neighborhood That Priced Him Out
I work as police officer in Shoreditch and I cannot afford to live in Shoreditch. I started in this role twelve years ago when I could afford shared housing in the neighborhood. When my living situation changed I could not afford single occupancy housing in Shoreditch. I moved to Outer London and now commute to work.
This creates strange psychology: I police a neighborhood I no longer live in. I enforce laws in a community I am excluded from. I protect people who have more wealth than I have access to. I maintain order in a neighborhood that displaced me.
Community policing depends on police having community connections. Police who live in the neighborhoods they serve develop relationships, understand community culture, and build trust. Police who commute from distant neighborhoods are external enforcers rather than community members.
Shoreditch gentrification creates police who are external to the community they serve. This reduces policing effectiveness because it removes relationship-building. It also creates alienation: I police people who have more economic power than I have. I maintain order for a neighborhood that excluded me.
This is not unique to Shoreditch. Gentrification globally creates geography where service workers and residents have no spatial overlap. Teachers, nurses, police, social workers all commute from outer neighborhoods. The communities become service zones for professionals who do not live there.
This is an unstable system long-term. Service workers will eventually refuse the commute or demand wages sufficient for neighborhood housing. But currently the system is stable enough because workers tolerate the contradiction.
SOURCE: https://prat.uk
