Anti Violence Programs in Los Angeles - LACAN

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LACAN wishes to thank Roger Marshutz for the use of his images (which we've altered for our design needs) on this banner, home page, and scattered within this site.

LA CAN’s Anti-Violence Declaration

LA CAN declares zero-tolerance for the multiple forms of violence that are used within and against our community and how, together, they are used to perpetuate injustice and maintain the status quo.

To achieve this, we are committed to setting a new standard by:

First , ensuring that our anti-violence philosophy is inextricible to all of our work and campaigns.
Second , changing our own actions by “undoing” the social norms that make violence acceptable.
Third , educating the community about the types of violence used in our community, their root causes, and who benefits from the violence.
Fourth , mobilizing community members to reverse the tendency to respond to the “powerlessness” of violence with more violence toward each other and direct our collective energies to immobilize the perpetuators of violence against us.
Fifth , working collaboratively within the Downtown Women’s Action Coalition to ensure that violence against women is combated at all levels throughout the community.

Violence is any unjust or unwarranted exertion of force or power. Violence is perpetuated by individuals, institutions, and government structures; can be physical, psychological, verbal, sexual, social and financial; and is not necessarily illegal.

Anti-Violence

The long-standing prevailing political climate in our community is one of institutional and structural violence exacted against us through police action, security guards, land owners, service organizations and policy makers. The combination of these forces leads to a sense of powerlessness amongst community residents who in turn express control/power through violence because they have experienced very little actual control/power. In addition, disproportionate numbers of women have been and are currently victims of multiple forms of violence including child abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault and verbal intimidation and assault. Violence is manifested in many ways in our community, but the more startling fact is that most forms of violence are openly accepted both internally and externally.

Institutional violence occurs both legitimately by aggressive police actions and illegitimately by community security officers who garner control by use of force. Currently a very public campaign is in progress by the Los Angeles Police Department to eradicate this community of its poorest residents by any means necessary; sadly enough the basis of this campaign is to instill fear and intimidation throughout the community and, if that does not work, physical violence is exerted.

Structural violence is witnessed and felt as local bodies of government turn a blind-eye to illegal practices utilized by slumlords in our community, for example: illegally locking out tenants; forcing residents to live in disparate conditions that lead to failing health; verbally threatening women with children to have their children taken away; and direct physical assault. In addition, as a result of gentrification efforts, local government has enacted various laws and ordinances that have directly caused hardship and harm to downtown residents.

Individual violence, in its many forms, is experienced at disproportionate numbers by community residents. Poverty, in and of itself, is responsible for placing individuals at risk of violence time and time again, particularly women. As recorded in our recent study, 30 percent of women surveyed cited being engaged in “survival sex” to meet a basic need such as shelter, housing or food. The sheer lack of housing/shelter, food and services, specifically for women, has forced women to make “Hobson’s Choices.” Gender-based violence and other interpersonal violence are extremely prevalent.

Current Anti-Violence Campaigns

7 out of 10 Campaign: a community-wide effort to bring men and women together to prevent the immense levels of gender-based violence, while simultaneously fighting the contributing root causes that promote violence as a norm.

CommunityWatch: an initiative to provide an alternative private security presence in the downtown community – one trained to ensure that civil and human rights violations by Business Improvement District security guards and others are stopped.

Safer People Initiative: opposition to the City of Los Angeles’ Safer Cities Initiative that has caused the criminalization and harassment of poor and homeless people in our community.