Postcode Criminals

Abstract

Postcode Criminals was the second phase of an international participatory community arts project challenging negative stereotypes of urban youth. Concerned with the impact of zero tolerance community policing strategies in the UK and USA, artists Joann Kushner and Dread Scott developed an art-based project with a social justice agenda. To give voice to an underrepresented group, the project invited high academic achievers with no history of criminal behaviour from economically and socially deprived urban communities to participate. Postcode Criminals focused on regions of Liverpool and New York, typically sites where community policing strategies had been in force for some time. The findings of this project reveal that relationships between young people, their communities and the police force have been damaged as a direct result of community policing strategies, despite the reported success in crime reduction figures. Fear of crime was found to be a greater problem in urban communities than crime itself. Young people's experiences of 'ephebiphobia', the fear of teenagers, were articulated, creating alternative, positive representations of themselves and providing a catalyst for improved community relations.

Collaboration in Visual Culture Learning Communities: Towards a Synergy of Individual and Collective Creative Practice

“…Freedman ; Herne et al . ; Hiett & Kuschner ). The democratic practices of VCLCs may contribute to

schools transformation of, or engagement with, the physical space of classrooms, corridors and the wider community [and] can be a useful strategy for the artist teacher to investigate the collaged discourses of their particular context.

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