The practice has been denounced by community activists who say it leads to racist policing and by social justice lawyers who want it stopped.
Now, Police Chief Bill Blair is calling on officers to hand out a record of that interaction to the persons involved in these encounters.
This move comes after months of pressure from both police board and community members after the Star ran “Known to Police” in March, a series that showed police stop, question and document young black and brown men at a disproportionate rate.
Blair will table a report at Wednesday’s police board meeting that says the receipts will be fully available for use in December.
Statistics on street checks, formerly called carding, will be reported to the board every three months, Blair’s report says.
Toronto Police spokesperson Mark Pugash declined to provide further details Sunday, saying Blair will answer questions from the board and the media on Wednesday.
“Maybe this is too idealistic of me, but maybe if the police officers know that they’re being publicly monitored they will themselves correct their own behaviour,” says Moya Teklu, a policy research lawyer with the African Canadian Legal Clinic.
“If it’s properly implemented it has the potential to make some really positive changes about the way the African Canadian community is policed,” says Teklu.
Activists such as the ACLC and the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition, led by former Toronto mayor John Sewell, have been hounding the board since April to make the force more accountable.
In areas of the city targeted by Toronto police, black and brown youth report that standing on the street or smoking a cigarette is enough to attract police attention.
Many activists say although the move by Blair is a positive step forward, it’s not enough.
The receipts are “just a record of an illegal detention and it’s really those illegal detentions which need to be stopped,” said Mike Leitold, a criminal lawyer who belongs to the Law Union of Ontario, an organization of progressive lawyers, legal workers and law students concerned about social justice.
“I think many judges agree that detaining individuals for the purpose of requiring ID is unlawful. I think it’s unconstitutional and a violation of people’s rights,” he said.
The Law Union is endorsing a protest organized by the Justice is NOT Colour-Blind Campaign outside police headquarters on Wednesday.
The social justice rally is also backed by Rights Watch Network, the Jane Finch Action Against Poverty, the Ontario Public Interest Research Group York and Jagmeet Singh, who is the NDP MPP for Bramalea-Gore-Malton.
“We want to see the practice of racist policing stop and that would include the process of street checks,” said Leitold. “In our view, when people are stopped by police who demand identification, they are psychologically detained even if they’re not physically detained. We would see the demands for identification as a form of search as well as the pat downs that frequently accompany it.”
Those views are shared by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association,
“The fact that they’re going to be issuing people information that’s being taken about them is very positive,” says Noa Mendelsohn Aviv of the CCLA. “There’s going to be documentation that individuals can keep for themselves and pursue.”
But she says the entire practice is questionable.
“Random street checks are improper,” says Aviv. “If police want to stop and question individuals whether or not they take their information, they need to have reasons for that. It needs to be necessary for police work and by that I don’t mean community engagement.”
That’s a term often used by Blair and others in the force to describe the practice, which he says reduces violent crime in priority neighbourhoods.
The force is conducting its own comprehensive review of street checks and judging from the report that Blair will table Wednesday, it won’t be backing away from the practice any time soon.
The review by the force says officers do need training to ensure the checks are carried out “professionally, for clearly articulated purposes, in a manner sensitive to the needs of the community.”
But it also highlights a need for more community consultation to “educate the public to better understand the purpose and to accept the interaction.”
The Star investigation found that police stop and document minorities at much higher rates across the city. The information is entered into a giant database, but only a small percentage of those people have been arrested or charged in Toronto in the past decade.
The board passed a number of motions after the series, calling on the chief to report carding statistics every three months, as well as monitor and address discriminatory practices. One motion asked that officers be required to give copies of the document card — stating the reason for the stop — to each individual.
Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Patty Winsa and Jim Rankin
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