This post exposes how Santa Fe’s media and law enforcement spin criminalization while ignoring systemic economic abuses. Through a close reading of a recent news segment and the lens of Karakatsanis’s “copaganda,” it reveals the hidden mechanisms letting employers steal wages and vulnerable residents fall through the cracks. Combining investigative insight with a well-researched thesis, this autoethnographic account challenges the city to confront its inequities head-on.
Santa Fe’s Real Safety Crisis: Fear, Lies, and Wage Theft
The public conversation around safety in Santa Fe has grown increasingly heated. A recent newscast by KOAT-TV — “Santa Fe businesses say homelessness is out of hand” — zeroes in on the Midtown Shelter, Pete’s Place, and frames it as the cause of nearby business woes.
Yes, the housing crisis in Santa Fe is out of hand. But this broadcast goes further, implying that unhoused people themselves are the source of crime and disorder. That narrative starts to collapse the moment you look at the data.
What We’re Actually Seeing: Copaganda at Work
This newscast is a textbook example of what Alec Karakatsanis calls “copaganda” —
“A special kind of propaganda employed by police, prosecutors, and news media that stokes fear of police-recorded crime and distorts society’s responses to it.” (Karakatsanis, 2020)
From January to August 2024, the Santa Fe Police Department recorded 1,876 calls for service around Pete’s Place. That may sound alarming at first — until you learn it’s only 3.6% of all police calls citywide during the same period.
Pete’s is a 24/7 shelter serving hundreds of people in crisis. Naturally, there’s activity there. But 3.6% is not a “public safety emergency.” It’s not even a red flag.
Meanwhile, so-called “close patrols” — proactive police surveillance of the area — skyrocketed from 93 in 2022 to 347 in 2024. That’s a 270% increase. More patrols lead to more reports, not necessarily more danger. This is increased surveillance, not increased crime.
Framing Is Everything
The KOAT story fails to:
- Compare Pete’s Place to other neighborhoods.
- Distinguish between violent incidents, noise complaints, or welfare checks.
- Offer context or real analysis.
Instead, it gives vague numbers and a broken window as stand-ins for evidence. That’s not journalism. That’s fear-mongering.
This fits a familiar cycle:
- Visible poverty and disability = framed as danger.
- Shelters = blamed for systemic failures.
- Police = positioned as saviors.
A Copaganda Checklist
Karakatsanis identifies three key tactics:
- “Bad people” framing: Unhoused folks are cast as dangerous nuisances.
- Police as heroes: Law enforcement is framed as the “solution” despite no evidence that increased patrols make the area safer.
- Erasure of root causes: No mention of the housing crisis, economic inequality, or underfunded mental health systems.
The Equal Justice Initiative adds another layer—media bias in crime coverage:
- Sources: Only business owners are interviewed. Unhoused people are spoken about, not to. (As the disability movement says: “Nothing about us without us.”)
- Language: “Out of hand” is a loaded, sensational phrase.
- Images: A single broken window loops repeatedly, intercut with footage of unhoused people sleeping outside, in the snow.
- Omissions: No rent data, no breakdown of crimes, no systemic context.
What’s Actually Dangerous
This isn’t just bad reporting. It’s actively harmful.
- Santa Fe isn’t in urban decline — its economy and public spaces are thriving.
- Pete’s Place isn’t uniquely dangerous — the data doesn’t support that claim.
- Most unhoused people are disabled — ignoring this is both cruel and ableist.
- Shutting down shelters without alternatives is not a solution — it’s a failure.
Meanwhile, as public fear is whipped up over a broken window, wage theft quietly robs workers of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Real Crime: Wage Theft
Let’s talk about numbers that actually matter:
- $300 million lost to minimum wage violations in 2021–2022 (Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, 2023).
- $1.3 billion stolen from New Mexico workers over 20 years (New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions, 2024).
- 86,000+ New Mexicans affected in just two years (Associated Press, 2024).
- 505 Burgers Farmington LLC paid $100,000 to just two workers for 3,000+ hours of unpaid labor.
Compare that to… a single broken window at a car dealership. Spare me.
Wage theft is real, systemic, and devastating — and it targets the same communities now being criminalized when they fall into homelessness.
What KOAT Didn’t Tell You
The story ignored:
- Perspectives from Pete’s Place staff, residents, or social workers.
- The real crisis: skyrocketing rents, chronic housing shortages, and underfunded services.
- Community-based solutions like mutual aid, Housing First models, and grassroots mental health care.
And from my own perspective, rolling in a wheelchair: I’m nearly hit by drivers multiple times a week, even in daylight, even at crosswalks with the WALK signal. I’ve never seen those drivers stopped by police. But sure—let’s focus on the “threat” of someone asleep in a doorway.
In Conclusion
Wage theft is the silent monster. It quietly destroys lives while being ignored. Meanwhile, copaganda screams about visible poverty and broken glass, stoking fear, hate, and bad policy.
Wherever you see copaganda:
- Look deeper.
- Flip the narrative.
- Follow the money.
- Turn over the rock—real life is teeming underneath.
References
- AP News. (2024, February 14). New Mexico attorney general wins settlement over wage theft by burger chain franchisee
- Equal Justice Initiative. (2023). Understanding media bias: Crime coverage and racial injustice
- Karakatsanis, A. (2020). Usual Cruelty: The Complicit Media. The Justice Collaborative.
- KOAT Staff. (2024, March 5). Santa Fe businesses say homelessness is out of hand
- New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions. (2024). Wage theft in New Mexico: Twenty-year retrospective report.
- Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations. (2023). Minimum wage violations in the United States: 2021–2022.
- Santa Fe Police Department. (2024). Calls for service data: January to August 2024. City of Santa Fe Open Data Portal.
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