Undergraduate Research & Scholarships

Eshal Syeda Naqvi Social Science

Town and Gown: Exploring the Politics of Crime Control in Berkeley

Scholars Journal

In 2020, a growing number of students, faculty, and alumni began questioning UCPD’s legitimacy after UC administration increased surveillance technology and policing power, justifying these developments through newly emerged notions of 'public safety' (Rodríguez, 2025). Eshal’s research strives to examine this evolution, focusing on UC Berkeley’s discourse on safety over the last 5 years and the development of a narrative of ‘crime'. Has this narrative grown in relation to statistical increases in ‘crime’ on or near campus, if not, why? How have these narratives centered the unhoused? Who is the 'public' protected by the established ‘public safety’ discourse? Using a mixed methods approach of interviews, critical discourse analysis, and archival research, Eshal’s project focuses on the impacts of rapidly growing ‘crime control’ tactics and surveillance policies to explore UC Berkeley administration’s usage of this narrative of ‘crime’ to increase control over public spaces, justify othering the unhoused, and the impact this has on student-community coalitions.