Cops Invade Campus: KPU Traffic Court

 

Connections between cops and campus, between carceral and educational, take many forms. All involve the further diversion of public resources (for non-carceral uses) into policing functions. In the case of cops and campus it means the diversion of already limited educational resources (infrastructure, space, labor, materials, thought) into already over-funded carceral agencies and institutions.

In many cases the forms are familiar—co-op and practicum placements with carceral agencies, cops in classrooms, campus policing arrangements. In others hey take less familiar, stranger, forms. Ones that might give the unsuspecting observer pause.

During the period of COVID19 Kwantlen Polytechnic University has taken the opportunity to up its already substantial commitment to the carceral campus and turning public post-secondary resources, space, and infrastructure into serving policing functions. With reduced activity on campus by faculty, staff, and students, KPU has literally transformed the campus and its building into a penal institution—a courthouse. The university has given over its Cedar Building, site of its conference centers and gym, as a traffic court (not strictly “given” since they are no doubt making money off the deal).

Showing up to campus to be confronted by multiple police vehicles and officers from several forces (RCMP, Delta Police, court services/sheriffs) is not specifically a warm welcome for the community or for current or prospective students. Especially given that KPU students regularly discuss being racially profiled by police, particularly in traffic stops. Does KPU really want students to more closely associate the institution with police power and support for systemic racism?

One might well ask how this relates to the targeting of critical faculty in the Criminology Department at KPU who have faced harassment for academic work that focuses on systemic racism, colonial violence, and class inequality in relation to policing and who speak out in defense of criminalized people against carceral agencies and practices.

Given the historic mobilizations against police power and systemic racism in carceral structures, this is a deeply disturbing development.