Pacifying the Homeland by Brendan McQuade

Author:Brendan McQuade [McQuade, Brendan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780520971349
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2019-08-06T04:00:00+00:00

EXTENDING THE REACH OF POLICE POWER

These efforts often drive the drug trade off the streets and into homes. To extend the reach of police power into “private” spaces, police agencies seek to enlist civilians in their program. They pressure some to become complicit in the operation of police power. They create specialized a system of penalties and fines to govern the conduct of households, individuals, and third-party service providers, administratively subsuming social reproduction practices. A good example of this process is the landlord training, trespass affidavit, and narcotics eviction initiative in New York’s Albany County. Here, the District Attorney’s (DA) office, working with Albany Police Department (APD) and Albany Crime Analysis Center (ACAC) developed two interconnected programs to bring the drug war inside homes. The initiative compels landlords and tenants to become agents of police power. Under threat of fines and investigation, police pressure landlords to monitor “problem tenants” and threaten them with eviction. These programs discourage both landlords and tenants from either tacitly or explicitly accommodating the drug economy, thus disrupting moral economies of poverty and encouraging residents of hyperghettoized communities to accept “honest work” in the formal economy.

Albany County’s landlord training, trespass affidavit, and narcotics eviction initiative revolves around two connected programs: Safe Homes–Safe Streets, a community outreach program run by the DA’s office and, Operation Reclamation, an ILP effort of the APD. For Safe Homes–Safe Streets, the DA’s office assigned a dedicated assistant district attorney (ADA) to train property owners to screen tenants in order to “identify criminal behaviors.” The ADA also provides examples of “Zero tolerance leases with clauses for criminal behavior” and encourages landlords to rely on the DA for support in evicting “problem tenants.”37 The “zero tolerance lease” permits landlords to evict tenants for several reasons: “Any criminal, violent or drug-related activity on or off the leased premises that the Landlord determines may interfere with or threatens the health, safety, or right to peaceful enjoyment of the premises by other tenants;” the use of “a controlled substance, or abuse of alcohol that the Landlord determines . . . may interfere with the health, safety, or right to peaceful enjoyment of the premises by other tenants, or persons residing in the immediate vicinity of the premises or persons legally on the premises”; and the “display, use or possess[ion] of any firearm (operable or inoperable) or other offensive weapon that is illegal or is used . . . [il]legally.”38 The program not only encourages landlords to evict tenants, it penalizes them if they do not. “In cases where the landlord fails to act in a timely manner, the DA’s Office will step in and execute the eviction. When the DA’s Office takes this step, it will also name the landlord as a respondent to the action subjecting the landlord to possible fines of up to $5,000 plus legal fees.”39

The ADA also organizes the trespass affidavit component of the program. The ADA recruits landlords to provide lists of all tenants, post a “No Trespassing” sign, and encourages tenants to report trespassers.

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