?‍? 21st Century Policing Social Toolkit

21st Century Policing is Surveillance.

As pressure to defund the police grows louder, and austerity budget measures continue to become more common, ways to criminalize communities will continue to adapt. 

This is not in response to community demands but instead to corporate greed.  As long as community safety is defined as the presence of law enforcement instead of strategic and targeted community investments surveillance technology will continue to be prevalent. This report aims to define the issue, name who is profiting and provide examples of places where the push back is working. 

Our five key recommendations are:

Defund the police and invest in community safety 

End police surveillance data collection and sharing practices

End all federal funding for police surveillance technology

End all private funding of police departments 

Incentivize public accountability and control of public safety

Social Toolkit

Groups to tag: @ACRECampaigns @CResourceHub

Sample Tweets:

#1 Click to tweet Racial unrest and injustice are profitable?…as it continues, the financial interest in surveillance technology companies also goes ?. The law enforcement and police modernization market is projected to reach $59.9 billion by 2025. ⚠️ That’s in four years. More here: 21CenturyPolicing.com (insert graphic from below)

#2 Click to tweet Though the rise in surveillance tech is touted as a direct response to demands for reforming or abolishing more hands-on forms of policing ?, it has instead served to ⬆️the negative impact on communities who already suffer disproportionately at the hands of law enforcement. More here: 21CenturyPolicing.com (insert graphic from below)

#3 Click to tweet The money tied to ?surveillance technology advancement have led to the proliferation of data buying and selling, a phenomenon referred to as “surveillance capitalism.” ? At all times, we must ask: “Who is paying, and who is profiting?” ?More here: 21CenturyPolicing.com (insert graphic from below)

#4 Click to tweet Axon (formerly called TASER International) saw its stock price increase after the uprisings in response to the murders of Michael Brown in 2015 and George Floyd in 2020. At all times, we must ask: “Who is paying, and who is profiting?” ?More here: 21CenturyPolicing.com (insert graphic from below)

Sample Facebook and Instagram Copy:

#1 In response to ?#defund demands,?surveillance technology is touted as the an efficient, less physical “reform”. BUT it has only “served to exacerbate the negative impact on communities who already suffer disproportionately at the hands of law enforcement.”

Surveillance DOES NOT ❌ “[confront] violent police behavior or [address] the systemic roots of poverty and violence”. Surveillance ✔️ DOES open an extremely profitable market for private tech companies and the state to buy and sell our data.

Surveillance acts only as a more ?profitable way to ??‍♂️ track and ? violate BIPOC communities. More here: 21CenturyPolicing.com. (insert graphic from below)

#2  At all times, we must ask: “Who is paying, and who is profiting?” Here’s the deal with police surveillance.

The police ??‍♂️ and private tech companies ?are profiting from buying and selling our data. It’s become such a phenomenon ?, it had to be named: surveillance capitalism?.

Black, Indigenous, and people of color ??‍♀️ are paying the violent price of increased police presence ??‍♂️ , criminalization, & the inherent biases of the tech ?itself.

More here: 21CenturyPolicing.com.(insert graphic from below)

Sample Twitter Threads

Who is profiting from police surveillance–a nearly 60 billion dollar industry?

Shotspotter is a gunshot detection co in CA contracted by police to install audio devices in communities. Even after 75% false positives, no demonstrated effectiveness & canceled contracts, they have new city contracts, 850K in fed contracts & have expanded to “crime forecasting”

Motorola Solutions is a tech manufacturer that markets directly to police & has over $1 billion in fed contracts. They make body cameras, CCTV, license plate scanners, & other tech for police infrastructure & comms. MS spends billions on police associations & lobbying electeds.

Shotspotter and Motorola wouldn’t survive #defund. Because policing & criminalizing us is their bread and butter. The #defund movement anticipated the capitalistic shift towards surveillance, in order to protect investments in the nearly $60 BILLION industry.

So who is paying the violent cost of surveillance?

WE pay the enormous cost of being criminalized and tracked in our communities. We pay the costs of faulty Shotspotter devices, edited or non-existent body camera footage, the cost of being wrongfully identified by biased facial recognition tech, & the cost of data sharing to police.

We pay the price of increased police presence, no matter what form or how visible that policing is. When we say #DefundPolice, we mean #DefundALLPolice. More here: link (insert graphic from below) #StopTrackingUs #WhoPaysWhoProfits

#2 We pay the price of increased police presence, no matter what form or how visible that policing is. When we say #DefundPolice, we mean #DefundALLPolice. Let’s talk about surveillance. (insert graphic from below & link website if possible)

Police (in all forms) are the muscle of capitalism. Tech companies have jumped on the financial opportunity that surveillance policing provides them. The collecting, buying and selling of data is nearly a $60 BILLION industry. #ProfitNotSafety

We see state and federal police budgets balloon year after year to sustain and expand contracts with these private companies, like Shotspotter or Motorola Solutions. And we see communities suffer the cost year after year.

Hence our expansion of the #defund demand: (1) Defund the police and invest in community safety. (2) End police surveillance data collection and sharing. (3) End all fed funding for surveillance tech (4) End all private?to police (5) Incentivize public accountability and control of public safety.

More here: link (insert graphic from below)

Graphics

Instagram & Facebook Graphics and Twitter Graphics

“Moneybags” TWITTER & IG/FB “Handcuffed to Cameras” TWITTER & IG/FB