Report confirms racial differences in perceptions and experiences with Ontario Criminal Justice System

BY MICHAEL THOMAS

The Canadian Association of Black Lawyers (CABL) and Ryerson University’s Faculty of Law have published a new report confirming significant racial differences with respect to how the public perceives and interacts with the criminal justice system in Ontario.

This report, which is called “Race and Criminal Injustice; an examination of public perceptions of and experiences with the Ontario criminal justice system,” was prepared for CABL by: Dr. Scot Wortley, Dr. Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, and Huibin Lin.

This report was paid for by Legal Aid Ontario. The researchers used an online method to accomplish this survey in which 1,450 residents of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) that were eighteen years of age or over revealed their perceptions of the criminal justice system.

Environics Analytics collected the survey data.

Public perceptions of the police and courts are important social issues. The authors noted, “In addition to stark differences in how the public perceives the criminal justice system, our research also found significant racial differences with respect to levels of contact with the police and observed that rates of police contact have not been significantly reduced by Ontario’s street checks legislation.”

“The need to address racial disparities in our criminal justice system remains paramount,” added Donna E.Young, founding Dean of Ryerson University’s Faculty of Law. “This report serves as a compelling reminder that there is still much work to do in addressing the obstacles to justice that many Canadians face. By disseminating these findings, we hope to inform critical dialogue and progressive policy change.”

Important findings from the report include:

• Black and Asian respondents perceive much higher levels of police bias than white respondents
• The perception of anti-black racism in policing is particularly widespread. The majority of white, Asian and black respondents perceive that the police treat black citizens worse or much worse than white citizens
• The perception of police discrimination against black people has increased over the past twenty-five years, especially among white and Asian respondents
• Between 1994 and 2019, the perception of anti-black discrimination within policing has remained constant among black Toronto residents
• Consistent with allegations of racial profiling, black respondents are much more likely to report being stopped, questioned and searched by the police than either white or Asian respondents. These racial differences exist for both traffic and pedestrian stops

I was privileged to speak with Raphael Tachie, President of the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers about this troubling saga, and what must be done to eliminate this age-old tradition of injustice and oppression by means of race.

Tachie was asked, “After all the recommendations over the years, what needs to be done to bring about meaningful change?” “In some cases,” he replied, “Some of these recommendations are just window-dressing, but they have not been implemented properly and that is sad.”

“Even after seeing all the police initiatives,” he said, “And the issues about hiring people from minority groups, making sure that we are always selected, there is a culture to how black people experience the police and the criminal justice system and that for us is the real call to action. We don’t need just window-dressing; we want meaningful change.”

Tachie continued, “You have to look not only at the nature of the law, but at the impact of it to see if it is achieving the right results, like not sending people to jail who are addicted but are not criminals.”

The President of the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers wants the public to know that Black Lawyers Matter, “We,” he said, “need more people from our community to become lawyers.”

Here are the pillars that the CABL are working on:

• Helping to create a pipeline of black talent in our community
• Keep identifying cases that are public policy and are focused on our community as well
• Trying to do more research because Canada does not have enough race-based data

For blacks and other minorities who are stopped more often than others Tachie said, “Know your rights.” here is a link to learn more.   https://www.blacklegalactioncentre.ca/blog/know-your-rights-toolkit-for-protesters/

Here is the complete report. https://cabl.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/CABL-Report-Race-and-Criminal-Injustice-Feb-10-2021.pdf