The VPD’s Trespass Prevention Program is another deliberate attack on poor and unhoused people. Once again, police expend vital public resources to criminalize people who rely on public space.

A vigil is being called for Tuesday, January 12 at 380 East Hastings to commemorate our fallen friend’s tragic death at the hands of the Vancouver Police Department.

On patrol for less than 2 months, the VPD’s untimely deployment of the Neighbourhood Response Team was a flashpoint for the continued criminalization of poverty in Vancouver.

Last week, Vancouver City Council approved over $340 million in police funding and rejected a motion calling for a budget cut of $5 million. The failure to decisively defund the police – by both Council and the Police Board – enables the VPD to continue a longstanding pattern of interference, degradation, and harm in over-policed communities.

On International Human Rights Day, the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition and Pivot Legal Society are renewing calls for an amendment to the BC Human Rights Code to include protections based on social condition.

Pivot’s Criminalization & Policing Campaigner, Meenakshi Mannoe, writes about defunding the VPD and the importance of shifting away from criminalization and enforcement and leaning into equity, inclusion, and social justice.

Principally, we support full decriminalization. We do not support the use of administrative or other regimes to control, coerce, medicalize, pathologize, or penalize drug use.

As the opioid overdose crisis devastates communities across Canada, groups hope that other jurisdictions will follow Vancouver's lead to take meaningful action on full drug decriminalization.

Complaint to the Vancouver Police Board by Pivot Legal Society, Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users and Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society opposing VPD's new Neighbourhood Response Team

A group of community organizations serving the Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside filed a Service and Policy Complaint with the Vancouver Police Board opposing the creation of a new VPD Neighbourhood Response Unit.

Pivot Legal Society submits Freedom of Information request to Vancouver Police Department in a push for transparent data

In recognition of the October 22nd International Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and Criminalization, Pivot submitted an FOI request to the VPD.

Pivot writes to provincial party leaders, to urge them to enshrine dignity and equity within their respective platforms, party, and public discourse.

Joint letter (Pivot, CDPC) urging the City Council and Mayor to approve the lease on a prospective overdose prevention site in Yaletown. The paramountcy of public health over community input in the approval process for harm reduction services is established in law and should be followed here.

Read Pivot's new blog on how talk is cheap and local governments must Act Now! to decriminalize simple posession.