[sudo-discuss] Stealing Shit Policy

null null null null at revolution.cheap
Fri Jan 23 11:30:04 PST 2015


We've got a lot of big items scheduled for next week's meeting, and it'd be
helpful to start talking about them now so that the meeting itself can be
as fruitful as possible without stretching on into midnight. One of the
bigger items is the "Stealing Shit Policy," which would outline an
appropriate response to theft in the space. It might be worth extending
this into something more like the "Confrontation Response Policy," so that
it could address other situations in which someone is threatening the space
or its membership, whether they're drunkenly destroying items or verbally
accosting people.

I spoke with several people about how we could deal with these situations
without calling the police or violating our safe space agreements
<https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Safe_space>. Most of us were at a loss, but
Ryan had some good initial suggestions. I've outlined them below as best I
recall:

   - If someone is trying to leave the space with a stolen item, call all
   hands on deck and block the entrances until they've relinquished it.
   - If someone is harassing people or damaging the space, ask them to
   leave. If they refuse to leave, then call all hands on deck and form a
   human net around them. Without touching them, guide them out the door.
   - Only if someone is physically violent do we respond with physical
   force.

These responses would be absolute last resorts, and hopefully we would
never need to employ them. Still, even if we tighten down our entrance
policies, we should be ready to respond to people who are abusing the space
and its membership. This way, we'll be prepared to respond in a way that's
aligned with our values.

Are there other ideas about how to deal with these types of situations?
I've reached out to some radical spaces back in Austin to see how they
would respond. If there are other spaces in town that might have some
perspective or techniques, it'd be great to hear from them too.

-null
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