In this issue:
1. Anti-Racism Advisory Committee appointed
2. Strip searches more limited, but ..
3. Studying police use of guns
4. Toronto City Council again asks for police changes
Toronto Police Accountability Bulletin No. 128, March 9, 2021.
This Bulletin is published by the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition (TPAC), a group of individuals and organizations in Toronto interested in police policies and procedures, and in making police more accountable to the community they are committed to serving. Our website is http://www.tpac.ca
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In this issue:
1. Anti-Racism Advisory Committee appointed
2. Strip searches more limited, but ..
3. Studying police use of guns
4. Toronto City Council again asks for police changes
5. Subscribe to the Bulletin
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1. Anti-Racism Advisory Committee appointed
The Toronto Police Services Board has appointed some 18 members of the Anti-Racism Advisory Committee (ARAC). They are an interesting and diverse group of people who seem ready to bring new perspectives to policing and race. Their names and brief biographies can be found at https://tpsb.ca/component/jdownloads/send/32-agendas/673-2021-02-25-agenda
The challenge for ARAC will be to get to work quickly to address anti-racism issues within the Toronto police service. The plan was for the committee to meet just four times a year, but that surely is too infrequently to have the impact that is required and to counter the reluctance of both the Police Service Board and the police service to change policies and practise.
When the Ontario Human Rights Commission proposed last August that the Board change policies and procedures to address issues of racial discrimination, the Board refused. One fears the Board will be equality evasive when it comes to recommendations of the ARAC, so there’s serious work to be done by the committee.
There are two immediate steps which ARAC should take: instituting pre-charge screening and implementing binding legal remedies for discriminatory behaviour. Both steps were recommended to the Board by the Ontario Human Rights Commission last August.
Pre-charge screening is in place in Quebec, British Columbia and New Brunswick. It means that a crown attorney rather than the police lay charges: that provides a good check on what police are doing, and can substantially reduce the overcharging of Black and Indigenous people. In Bulletin No. 104 (June 12, 2017) we reported on the study Toronto Police Accountability Coalition commissioned on pre-charge screening. Courts in pre-charge provinces have considerably lower caseloads, an average of 22 per cent lower than the other provinces, and multi-charge cases - often a sign of over-charging - are much less frequent in pre-charge provinces. Ontario has 1.5 times as many multi-charge cases per capita as Quebec. Further, in pre-charge provinces many fewer cases are either stayed or withdrawn. The full study can be found at https://tpac.ca/issue.php?id=209
To date, pre-charge screening has not used a racial lens, but if it did, it could surely reduce or prevent over-charging of Black, Indigenous and People of Colour. Provincial action would be required to second crown attorneys for this function, and while that should be requested of the province it is unlikely the Ford government would agree. But pending that approval, an informal system should be put in place, where the police service could appoint independent lawyers who officers would need to consult before charges are laid.
ARAC should request the Board to request provincial approval of using crown attorney’s for pre-charge screening, and in the interim implement the informal system noted above.
As well, ARAC should request the police service and the Board to implement legal binding remedies to deal with discrimination. These new processes should be developed with Black and Indigenous communities and organizations, and with the OHRC.
Making these important changes will not be easy, given the stance of the Board and the service in the past. We encourage all recipients of this Bulletin to email the co-chairs of ARAC indicating your hope that ARAC will push the Board and the service to make these changes: Anthony Morgan, Anthony.morgan@toronto.ca; and Ainsworth Morgan (who is on the Board), at sandy.murray@tpsb.ca noting in the subject lien that the email is for Ainsworth Morgan.
2. Strip searches more limited, but..
As noted in Bulletin No. 126 (November 27, 2020), the Toronto police service has finally changed its strip search policy to make it somewhat in line with the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in 2001. In a February 22 puff piece titled `Making Progress Together on Police Reform,’ the Board states it is “reforming the Service’s Strip Search procedures to ensure all strip searches are justified and monitored appropriately. Since the changes have been made, the number of strip searches has dropped from a weekly high of 273 earlier this year, to 35-40 in recent weeks.”
That sounds good, but in fact it is not all that good. The weekly high of 273 meant that the service was strip searching about 40 per cent of those arrested in Toronto. The weekly rate of 35 – 40 means the services is strip searching about 8 per cent of those arrested.
The OPIRD report on strip searches in Ontario (see Bulletin No. 113, April 15, 2019) found that large police services in Ontario strip searched about one (1) per cent of those arrested. So even with its new policy, the Toronto police strip search rate is eight times higher than other large forces in Ontario. This is unacceptable.
As well, the new strip search policy overlooks any guidance about strip searches done in the field. Because strip searches, in accordance with the new policy, must be documented and approved by supervisors at booking halls in each division, there is no mention of official process for documenting or accounting for strip searches in the field – and that was, exactly the kind of illegal strip search reviewed by the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Golden in 2001. This is a clear oversight. More change is needed.
3. Studying police use of guns
In conjunction with Councillors Cressy, Fletcher, Layton, Perks and Wong-Tam, Toronto Police Accountability Coalition has asked Stephen March of the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, to undertake a systematic study of gun use by police in Ontario. The letter states:
`As a follow-up to the March 2019 report your office did on strip searches in Ontario, we request that you undertake an examination and review, of a systemic nature, of the use of firearms by police in Ontario, and make recommendations regarding their use by rank and file officers.
`The review should examine how often guns are drawn, as well as how often they are fired, and for what purposes.
`It is widely recognized that police officers in Ontario, virtually all of whom are equipped with and carry a gun, rarely use that gun. Some officers claim that they have never fired a gun while on duty in their whole career.
`Yet when the gun is used, it is often with fatal results, as has happened too often when dealing with those in mental crisis. The physical and mental costs of this gun usage are high, not just to members of the public, but to the officers involved as well. If officers were not expected to carry a gun, police training could be considerably altered to exclude the emphasis on gun use, and substantial savings would accrue from not requiring the purchase and maintenance of a gun for every officer and ammunition.
`Some have suggested that it may be better to restrict the possession of guns to members of Emergency Task Forces (where they exist), or to senior supervisors. We understand this is the arrangement that is pursued in half a dozen other countries, including Britain, Ireland, Norway, Iceland, and New Zealand. London’s Metropolitan police responded to 3300 incidents involving firearms in 2016 without firing a single bullet. That police force has a slogan `policing by consent’, not by force.
`If the officer does not have a gun, and is not wearing body armour, this will send a fundamentally different message to the public about the role of police in society. The police will not be there to instill fear of danger, and they will be less danger to members of the public. It also requires police to draw on different skills and be more cautious, less likely to impulsive reactions.’
We have not yet heard back from the OIPRD on this request.
4. Toronto City Council again asks for police changes
In June 2020, Toronto City Council said it wanted to take response to mental crisis calls away from police, and enable social organizations to make those responses. Sadly, Council decided to put only a limited amount of funds in its 2021 budget for this purpose: that money will support training those organizations in the 911 call centre, but the Council decision envisions no serious transfer of responsibility until 2026, that is, far beyond the term of this Council. One fears the change will never happen.
But hope springs eternal. At the February Council meeting on the City’s 2021 operating budget, a motion by Councillor Layton was passed asking that the City manager be requested to `review the feasibility of transferring 911 operations, to also consider the following: a. crisis response and intervention for all non-violent calls, beyond those calls included in the crisis response pilot project, related to mental health response, homelessness, gendered violence and youth crime; b. traffic management; and c. parking enforcement.’
The report was requested to be filed before the end of 2021, and would include `the time and resources required to scale up capacity of City Divisions, other agencies, or institutions to take on the[se] responsibilities’, with a detailed plan and financing strategy that would facilitate the transition to these new models.
5. Subscribe to the Bulletin
To subscribe or unsubscribe to this Bulletin, please send a note to info@tpac.ca with the instructions in the subject line or in the text of the message. Our e-mail list is confidential and will not be made available to others. There is no charge for the Bulletin. Our website is http://www.tpac.ca .
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