The #NoKidsInPrison traveling exhibit themed around abolishing youth prisons, stopped in St. Paul and featured an installation noting Target's role in youth incarceration.
The exhibit was inspired by Unicorn Riot’s reporting on Target’s SafeZone surveillance program created in 2004, and the Downtown 100 (DT100) program created in 2010. Through the SafeZone surveillance system, Minneapolis police and the DID staff monitor Target-donated surveillance cameras in efforts to crack down on “lifestyle” offenses: shoplifting, panhandling, vagrancy.
The DT100 was a quarterly list of 100 names of youths, nearly all of them Black, who frequented downtown Minneapolis and had the most police contacts. Target surveillance has been used to prosecute youths on the DT100 for minor infractions that typically don’t cross the threshold for criminal offenses.
It’s not about shoplifting.