How does gentrification tie in to civil rights and criminal justice?
To me, it’s so simple because I see everything from this perspective that criminal justice is the new race problem. It’s the new civil rights problem. The reason that it’s so easy to gentrify communities now and nobody rises up against it the way they used to, is because crime is the excuse to do it. We’re cleaning up the neighborhood! We’re getting rid of the crime! We’re making you safer! Not we’re taking away your opportunity, taking away your housing, leaving you out. We’re making the neighborhood better. Why did you go to prison? I went to prison for a series of paper crimes, forgeries, falsification of business documents. It was all about money to support a habit. I did three and a half years. It was a one-time experience, and that was in 1997. Author Bio: Adam Klasfeld is a contributor for Art Science Research Laboratory’s media ethics project StinkyJournalism.org, and his reporting also has been published in Block Magazine, The L Magazine, Brooklyn Paper, and City Limits. He is
