Decriminalizing public space governance: The role of the police

This article is directly related to the First African Regional Conference on Law Enforcement and Public Health, held in Pretoria, South Africa, December 2024.

Abstract

Punitive criminal justice responses towards essential life-sustaining activities, such as sleeping, bathing and trading in public spaces, have a detrimental impact upon the most vulnerable and marginalized groups in society. These groups include people experiencing homelessness, people who use drugs, migrants, sex workers, LGBTIQ+ persons, persons with disabilities, informal traders, human rights defenders and racial and ethnic minorities. Gender, class and privilege play a key role in enabling and perpetuating these discriminatory processes within the criminal justice system. Laws that criminalize life-sustaining activities, driven by attempts to survive poverty, are often justified on the basis of public health and public order objectives. Unfortunately, law enforcement officials have often been used as a blunt instrument to enforce these laws that target socio-economically vulnerable groups. This approach, of criminalizing poverty and status, has failed to positively address increasing levels of homelessness and poverty while entrenching systemic disadvantage. These laws are found across the Global South in Africa, the Caribbean and South Asia and are frequently based on vague, dehumanizing language while providing law enforcement officials with wide discretion. This article explores strategies to foster non-punitive, human-rights-based approaches to public space governance. It also explores how law enforcement can play a role in preventing crime and violence while enhancing the human capabilities of vulnerable groups in a gender-responsive manner.