Abstract

This article critically examines housing authorities’ use of no-trespass policies, or NTPs, as crime reduction measures. NTPs allow housing authorities to ban visitors from public housing properties based on low-level offenses, and to enforce those bans by arresting violators for criminal trespass. Critiques of NTPs have traditionally been advanced through the lens of individual rights, while communitarians have defended the policies based on their crime-reduction benefits. This article argues for a communitarian framework for evaluating NTPs, but suggests that the crime-reduction benefits of NTPs must be weighed against their potential to create barriers to reentry and to perpetuate racial disparities in policing. This communitarian perspective is justified by the legislative framework through which housing authorities developed as institutions—in particular, the United States Housing Act of 1937 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968—which envisioned housing authorities as agents of community improvement and inclusion.

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