Race and Crime
STAR INVESTIGATIVE TEAM: Jim Rankin, Jennifer Quinn,
Michelle Shephard, John Duncanson, Scott Simmie
Blacks arrested by Toronto police are treated more harshly than
whites, a Toronto Star analysis of crime data shows.
Black people, charged with simple drug possession, are taken to police
stations more often than whites facing the same charge.
Once at the station, accused blacks are held overnight, for a bail
hearing, at twice the rate of whites.
The Toronto crime data also shows a disproportionate number of black
motorists are ticketed for violations that only surface following a traffic
stop. This difference, say civil libertarians, community leaders and
criminologists, suggests police use racial profiling in deciding whom to pull
over.
The evidence is contained in a massive police database recording more
than 480,000 incidents in which an individual was arrested, or ticketed, for an
offence dating back to 1996. It included almost 800,000 criminal and other
charges. The Star obtained that data through a freedom of information request,
marking the first time access to these numbers was granted to anyone outside the
police community.
Police are forbidden, by their governing board, from analyzing this data
in terms of race, but The Star has no such restriction. The findings provide
hard evidence of what blacks have long suspected � race matters in Canadian
society especially when dealing with police.
Chief Julian Fantino disputed the findings, saying the colour of a
person's skin has nothing to do with how they're treated by his officers.
"We don't treat people differently," he said in an interview yesterday.
"Nor do we consider the race or ethnicity, or any of that, as factors of how we
dispose of cases, or individuals."
The chief emphasized the need to understand all the elements that affect
policing and crime rates. Environmental, economic and social conditions "all are
factors beyond our control that clearly, in certain areas (and) circumstances
require a police response," he said.
"You don't know the origin of these arrests, you don't know the
socio-economic circumstances involved. You don't know the other factors that
play into why people have encounters with police.
"We're not perfect people but you're barking up the wrong tree. There's
no racism."
And, Fantino emphasized, "we don't do profiling."
But Toronto's black community has long worried about being singled out by
police � especially its young black men.
"I don't think a day will come, in my lifetime, when I won't be profiled
or identified for who I am, and what I am," said Jason Burke, 28.
Employed as a buyer in the fashion industry, Burke is suing Toronto
police after being accused of dealing drugs, pushed to the ground, pepper
sprayed and forced to rinse his burning eyes in toilet water while in custody.
He was held for three days.
No drugs were found. All charges against him were dropped just before he
was due for trial.
"I was violated that night for no good reason," Burke said, adding that
just being black puts young men at risk of undue attention from police.
Nowhere in Canada has debate over keeping, and analyzing, race-based
crime data been as angst-ridden as in Toronto � a city boasting of its
multicultural identity with a motto declaring diversity its strength. Latest
census figures show that blacks make up 8.1 per cent of the city's population.
Fantino said his department has a good relationship with Toronto's many
ethnic communities. "We're working well."
Last week, the force accepted an international award as one of the
leading policing agencies in promoting civil rights and enhancing relationships
with the city's communities. Fantino accepted the award at the International
Association of Chiefs of Police annual conference in Minneapolis.
Yesterday, he told The Star that good relations have included a
commitment to avoid collecting race-based crime statistics that might cast some
groups in a negative light. "We don't keep (that) data. We're not supposed to."
Toronto's police board banned the keeping of statistics linking race and
crime in 1989. It was feared that such information would be used to reinforce
racist stereotypes and label certain ethnic communities as criminal.
The board acted after Fantino, then a staff inspector, triggered a
controversy by reporting to a race relations committee that blacks accounted for
most crime in the Jane-Finch area.
The community erupted in outrage, underlining the taboo that surrounds
collection of these statistics.
While Toronto was rejecting such data, police and lawmakers in the United
States and Britain were adopting an opposite strategy, embracing the numbers as
a way of shedding light on racial bias.
Toronto officers have complied with the police board's order and don't
collect crime statistics for the purpose of ethnic analysis. Arrest documents,
however, do record descriptions of most people charged. And that usually
includes their skin colour and place of birth.
Using these arrest records, The Star conducted an in-depth investigation
of how minorities are treated by police. The database, showing every arrest in
the city, from late 1996 to early this year, was subjected to extensive computer
analysis. Results were submitted to an independent consultant who checked The
Star's methodology and pronounced it sound.
To measure differences in treatment of blacks and whites, The Star
focused on Toronto's more than 10,000 arrests for simple drug possession over
the six-year period.
Blacks more likely to be refused
bail than whites
|
Most people arrested on this charge �
63.8 per cent � were classified by police as being white. About a quarter � 23.6
per cent � were described as black.
Remaining skin colour classifications in the database are "brown" and
"other." In most cases "brown" is used to refer to people of South Asian descent
while "other" mainly represents people of Chinese and other Far Eastern origin.
Together, these racial categories accounted for barely 12 per cent of simple
drug possession charges, and analysis showed "browns" were released in much the
same way as whites, while "others" were treated more like blacks.
Simple possession of an illegal drug was chosen for study since it's a
relatively minor crime, as opposed to trafficking. That makes simple possession
a "high-discretion" charge, meaning police officers at the scene of an arrest,
and in a police station, have considerable leeway on how they handle a
suspect.
A person could be charged with drug possession on the street and simply
sent home with instructions to later report to a police station to be
fingerprinted and to appear in court.
Or a person is brought to a police station for immediate booking and then
released.
Or the suspected person could be taken to a station, booked, and held
overnight in jail for a bail hearing, where a judge would determine conditions
of release.
It's up to officers to decide.
And six years of internal police records show their decision has often
fallen harder on blacks than on whites.
Most people charged with simple drug possession were free to go home, on
a promise to appear in court and at a police station. Whites were released on
the scene 76.5 per cent of the time while blacks were released 61.8 per cent of
the time.
The difference in treatment was even more apparent at the next level of
police decision-making. Of those taken to the station, blacks were held behind
bars for a court appearance 15.5 per cent of the time. Whites were kept in jail
awaiting a bail hearing in 7.3 per cent of cases.
The Star also looked at traffic data, focusing on "out-of-sight" offences
such as failing to update a driver's licence or driving without insurance.
Police usually discover such violations only after a motorist has been
pulled over. And, in the absence of any other charge, it isn't clear why drivers
involved in these offences are stopped in the first place. The rate at which
minority drivers are charged under these conditions has become a bellwether in
the United States for racial profiling � the practice of targeting racial
minorities on the assumption they commit more crimes.
The Star analysis of the police traffic data shows a disproportionate
number of blacks charged compared to whites. A detailed look at the data will be
published in tomorrow's Sunday Star.
Fantino was emphatic in declaring his force had no use for racial
profiling and that he was firmly opposed to such practices.
"We don't do profiling at this police service � we never have and we will
not do it," he said. "We respond to activities. We don't know, at the front end
of anything, who we're dealing with."
The Star's analysis "doesn't reflect the reality of what we're dealing
with here," Fantino said. "It doesn't make any sense."
But University of Toronto criminologist Scot Wortley, an expert on race,
crime and policing in this city, said The Star's findings provide clear evidence
of what, until now, has been based largely on assumption.
"It's an important contribution," said Wortley, who has studied racism
within the justice system and found blacks in Toronto are denied bail more often
than whites, due in large part to negative assessments made by arresting
officers. "It shows that police influence extends from the street into the
courtrooms."
The pattern is familiar to Bev Folkes through anecdotal evidence �
stories of how a white boy caught breaking the law gets a ride home, while the
black kid is taken to the station.
"We've seen this," said Folkes, of the Black Inmates and Friends
Assembly. "I say that with no reservation. One of the phrases guys use in prison
is: `It's not justice � it's just us.' And, somehow, you can believe it."
In analyzing drug charges, The Star took into account a number of factors
that might influence police decision-making, including a suspect's age, criminal
history, employment, immigration status, and whether or not the person had a
home address. But different handling of blacks and whites � with similar
backgrounds � remained consistent.
Why?
Black community leaders, civil libertarians, and lawyers who regularly
defend clients involved with police, say the answer is simple: police
discrimination against blacks.
"We have long suspected police bias," said Alan Borovoy, counsel to the
Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
Racism is evident at all levels of Canadian society, said Borovoy, but
it's especially worrisome in a police force, since officers are a powerful group
exercising a great deal of authority.
"We give police so much more power over us than we do other sectors of
society," Borovoy said. "That's why any hint of racism in the police department
becomes all the more disturbing."
He is calling for creation of a provincial body with power to
independently audit police files, at any time, to ensure officers aren't engaged
in racial profiling or showing bias in arresting minorities.
Such bias can sting well after a charge is laid.
Hiring seen as major goal for
better race relations
|
Criminologist Wortley studied the
treatment of people in two Toronto bail courts and found blacks were 1.5 times
more likely to be detained than whites. His results were published in the
British Journal of Criminology earlier this year.
Wortley, and co-author Gail Kellough of York University, examined court
records involving 1,800 criminal cases. They were also allowed to look at
confidential crown briefings, including notes from arresting officers about an
accused.
"We found that officers write much more powerful character assassinations
of black defendants than white defendants," Wortley said. "Things like: `He's an
a--hole. He's psychotic. He's a threat to society.'"
Crown attorneys put great store in an officer's assessment, concluded
Wortley. The harsher an officer's assessment, the greater the odds an accused
would be denied bail.
And, with no chance of bail, an accused is far more likely to plead
guilty, he said.
A 1995 Ontario commission also found blacks, accused of drug offences or
robbery, were three times more likely to be refused bail than whites facing the
same charge.
The Commission on Systemic Racism in the Ontario Criminal Justice System
sampled Toronto police files from 1989 and 1990 and found that white people were
"significantly more likely" to be released after their arrest than blacks.
Jason Burke's release didn't come easy.
The young black man's problems began while celebrating a birthday, with
friends, during Caribana two years ago. While walking in a laneway, from one
downtown nightclub to another, Burke, then 25, and a friend were challenged by
two white police officers. They accused Burke of selling drugs to his companion,
and one officer grabbed his wrist.
"I said, `What are you talking about? Who told you that?'"
One officer said their information came from two doormen at a club just a
short distance away. Burke happened to know those men, and he slipped from the
officer's grip and ran to them to ask if they had claimed he was a drug dealer.
They denied telling police any such thing. Burke returned to officers in the
laneway and loudly accused them of unfair arrest. "I was furious. I was
screaming."
More police arrived and he was pushed against a wall, then he fell to the
ground. He stiffened his body, "like rigor mortis," to avoid being handcuffed
and was pepper sprayed in the face. "I wasn't able to resist any longer."
Taken to a police station, he was charged with threatening bodily harm,
resisting arrest, escaping custody, and causing a disturbance. And he was kept
in jail for three nights � two of them at the Toronto (Don) Jail. While at the
station, he pleaded for water to rinse pepper spray from his eyes but was
denied. Eventually, desperate for relief, he rinsed his eyes with toilet water.
No drugs were found in Burke's possession. No drugs were found in the
laneway. And his friend, the suspected drug buyer, wasn't charged with anything.
Burke prepared to clear his name at trial, convinced his skin colour was
the only reason officers had given him unfair attention. "I was profiled."
Just before his case was to start last February, he was told all charges
against him were dropped.
Now he's suing the police force, seeking $2 million for malicious
prosecution, negligence, assault, and violation of his rights and freedoms. His
statement of claim contains unproven allegations that have not yet been tested
in court.
"I don't want to live in fear," Burke said. "I have to show that people
can't take advantage of me."
"Most people join the police force to do good work," said Barry Thomas,
senior consultant with the Urban Alliance on Race Relations. "Most police
officers are good people, they don't get up in the morning to say, `Whoa, it's a
good day to be a bigot.'
"So how is it they end up, every day, having more people of one race in
jail than another?"
Thomas blames lingering racial stereotypes, and a stubborn police culture
that didn't keep pace as Toronto evolved from a staid Anglo community into a
world leader in diversity.
The force's main strategy to improve race relations centres on hiring
more people from visible minorities. But it lags far behind in such hiring, said
Thomas. And, of those already recruited, very few are being promoted into
senior, more visible jobs.
Last year, 51 of 332 recruits � or 15 per cent of the total new hirings �
represented visible minorities in one of the world's most multicultural cities.
This year, only 11 per cent of the class is a visible minority. The force could
not tell The Star how many of those recruits are black. Nor could it say how
many black officers are currently on staff.
Thomas, who works in the pro bono office of the Law Society of Upper
Canada, said a deep-rooted police subculture poses a barrier to minority
officers.
"If you want to push black issues you won't get promoted. And the (black
officers) who do get promoted are basically promoted because they buy into the
police subculture."
Julian Falconer, Burke's lawyer and a prominent race relations and
policing activist, said he regularly hears from black parents afraid for their
children at the hands of police, not because they are law-breakers but because
their skin colour puts them at risk.
He credited police commanders, like Fantino, with good intentions, adding
they sincerely want to cleanse racism from the system. "The problem is, they
have no idea how to fix it."
