A question I continuously revisit is if increased surveillance truly makes a population feel safe. Does the camera on every corner, police car in every lot, and metal detectors in schools actually make community members and students feel safer? I remember being in the 5th grade, and constantly worried about getting caught doing something wrong, and the inevitable dreadful punishment that would come with it. Though I had no logical reason to fear getting into trouble– because I wasn’t doing anything that went against my teacher’s rules– the mere idea of being surveilled as constantly as I was made me live in paranoia that no matter how obedient I was, those above me were waiting for the day I messed up.
Though this example of surveillance is on a micro level because it describes my individual experience as a student, I wonder how this materializes on a macro level. There are intensified versions of surveillance that exists within our communities, and it instills the same level of fear. Fear that we are “bad people” doomed to do “bad things” which is why we need someone else to watch over us. Now going back to my example in schools, instilling these fears in students, children as young as age 5, creates an environment for children to feel like they are inherently bad, and that there is no room for change. This idea of surveillance—policing – is not what safety looks like. Safety is community accountability, allowing people to make mistakes and grow from them, supporting and uplifting those who don’t have the access to equal opportunity, not following a close eye on someone waiting for them to make a mistake. It is integral to a movement that we start to reimagine what safety looks like and who is in charge of determining what safety looks like, and the reality is, safety looks differently for everyone.
