The auditorium at Toronto police headquarters is a grey, irregular-shaped hall at the north end of the second floor. During Police Services Board meetings, its shades are drawn, choking off natural light.
In the middle is a long table where the board members, police chief and a handful of support staff sit. There’s a gallery on either side: the public sits in one and the police in the other, viewing each other across the table. The very layout of the room sets up an adversarial relationship.
On Monday, October 7, 22 chairs had been put out for the public, and the introduction of a long-awaited review of police procedures involving “carding” meant they were all filled. At the media desk, which comfortably seats four or five, three spots were occupied by reporters from the Toronto Star. But they had arguably earned that larger presence.
Much of the recent discussion around carding – the police practice of arbitrarily stopping or pulling over a person for questioning and to record his or her information – has resulted from the Star’s investigative work. By analyzing data from street checks, the paper discovered that young black men are carded to a grossly disproportionate degree: the total number of unique 15- to 24-year-old black men carded between 2008 and 2012 “actually exceeds by a small margin” the number of 15- to 24-year-old black men currently living in Toronto.
It is as though Toronto police have spent the past several years working toward compiling a database of every young black man in the city, regardless of whether he has any connection to a crime. Under current protocols, the information is retained indefinitely.
The Police and Community Engagement Review (PACER) report – quietly released via a small link on the board’s website last Friday afternoon, October 4 – puts forward 31 recommendations intended to improve the practice and minimize the effect of officer bias [pdf]. If all 31 recommendations were implemented, it would likely improve the situation. But whether it would make the policy fair, or even acceptable, is quite another matter.
The report recommends, for example, limiting data retention to seven years, which is undoubtedly a step up from keeping it forever but doesn’t exactly address the issue.
“Sounds to me like we’re going right back to where we’ve been,” grumped Councillor Mike Del Grande, a police board member.
Indeed, the report’s second recommendation is that carding be “rebranded” (their word) as the keeping of “Community Safety Notes.” Another recommendation concludes that because police are frequently asked why they are even doing this in the first place, they need better corporate communications.
The report largely focuses on refining the technique to minimize unwanted outcomes rather than questioning if the value of gathering intelligence on ordinary people can actually outweigh the damage caused by the casual criminalization of certain populations.
“Police officers, as part of being human, hold bias-based beliefs in the same manner as members of the community,” says the report. “The Service continues to strive to mitigate inappropriate application of such bias through training, adherence to Core Values, supervision and disciplinary sanctions.”
In a way, yes, acknowledging bias and taking active steps to tackle it is as much as anyone can do. But there is a much larger issue with regard to whether police should be generating these opportunities for bias in the first place.
Rather than attempt to do the same things better, John Sewell said in a scrum outside the meeting, police should consider whether the very “idea of stopping all these people and asking intrusive questions is wrong.”
The former mayor and long-time leader of the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition thinks police have pretty much missed the point. “They say it’s all legal, but in fact there’s a power imbalance,” he said. “So you’re a young kid and a cop comes up to you and says, ‘Hey, I wanna talk to you. I call it community engagement, but I got 10 questions for you. You don’t have to answer them.’
“Well, of course the kid has to answer them: that’s the problem. That’s what’s creating all the hostility right now.”
Police Chief Bill Blair became testy when board chair Alok Mukherjee demanded an explanation for a Star chart showing that carding increased by 62 per cent in the seven years following 2005, when Blair became chief.
“There was a 62 per cent reduction of violent crime in that period there was not a 62 per cent increase in further activity during that period,” Blair said.
“So this graph is wrong,” Mukherjee said dryly.
“I don’t know what graph you’re pointing to, sir I can’t read it from here,” Blair said.
The chief is particularly proud of TAVIS, the Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy, which intensifies police presence in neighbourhoods that are, as per its website, “experiencing an increase in violent activity.” For others, however, the initiative is cause for particular concern.
Roger Love, advice counsel for the African Canadian Legal Clinic, asked the board to especially look at “the role TAVIS officers have played in the over-representation of African Canadians in carding statistics. The most recent data revealed that TAVIS officers have the highest black card rate per officer compared to any other unit.”
Board member Marie Moliner – after assuring police command she has no doubt that their desire to solve the problem is genuine – worries that TAVIS may have little net benefit. “I appreciate that the policing through TAVIS has reduced crime,” she said, “but the quality of that policing has eroded trust.”
Deputy Chief Peter Sloly responded by directing Moliner’s attention to four recommendations for operational adjustments to TAVIS, including enhanced recruitment, supervision and training.
Sewell is skeptical. “You must remember, the police have been [doing] training about all these things for about 20 years.” Police culture, he said, “eats that training for breakfast.” The service has to become more collaborative and less insular.
The board, at least, is hoping to do just that. Due to the late publication of the report, members decided to call a special meeting in November to receive more thorough public feedback.
That meeting will be held at City Hall, quite possibly in the council chambers, a room where the public encircles and looks down on their officials, a reminder of who’s ultimately responsible to whom.
jonathang@nowtoronto.com | @goldsbie
