Marie-Eve Sylvestre

Disorder and Public Spaces in Montreal: Repression (and Resistance) through Law, Politics, and Police Discretion

This study shows that the control of disorder in Montreal, Canada, and its consequences for the occupation of public spaces by the homeless, are neither directly dictated by the law nor rely only on the law as a source of legitimacy and authority. They also depend on other forms of expression of state power expressed through local policies, architectural changes, political demands, police discretion, and policing practices, which in turn have connections to the law. This combination of factors sheds light on the multiple sites of law and repression, and opens new possibilities for ensuring homeless peoples rights and for resistance.

Policing the Homeless in Montreal: Is this Really What the Population Wants?

Since the 1990s in Montreal, the implementation of community policing and the enforcement of anti-disorder programmes has had dramatic consequences on the homeless. Relying on empirical evidence from fieldwork conducted between 2005 and 2007, I examine the police contention that disorder policing is justified because it is based on a community consensus. Analysing how the Montreal police measured the citizens’ needs, I show that what the community wants is not clear and that there is no evidence in police data that citizens demanded such interventions. I then make a post-structural argument suggesting that the police created a self-fulfilling prophecy based on a perception of what the community wants. Such a perception does not reflect an expressed and quantified desire from the population in general. It is more in line with the demands of certain interest groups of that community and is shaped by the police bureaucratic reward structure and mission.