Ending the Discriminatory Practice of Police Street Checks: A Minimum First Step
**Update: City Council Passed the motion ending street checks on July 16 2020**
City of Victoria Mayor and Council
Victoria City Hall
1 Centennial Square
Victoria, BC V8W 1P5
July 15 2020
Dear Mayor and Councillors,
We are writing to inform you that we support the motion put forward to end police street checks.
Based in Victoria since 1989, Coastal Research, Education, & Advocacy Network (CREAN) publishes research on community-identified needs. We partner with other organizations to co-author research, provide education and advocacy to marginalized youth, and also provide research consulting services to the public and private sector. We have published over 100 research reports, and collaborated with numerous community-based organizations across the province of British Columbia. Our research is accessible and cited worldwide.
Street checks and carding are inherently discriminatory, whereby people are arbitrarily stopped by police based on their appearance. All residents deserve to live free from fear of arbitrary police questioning and detention.
We know street checks disproportionately target Black, Indigenous, other people of colour and people who are unhoused (Coastal Research, Education, & Advocacy Network, 2012; Society of Living Illicit Drug Users, 2015). This is the case across Canada, and right here in Victoria. Numerous reports on the Victoria Police Department and data obtained from the VicPD confirm this. Although VicPD’s recent report claims that racialized people were not disproportionately targeted from January 1 - December 31 2017, Freedom of Information Checks provide a larger picture and contradict such claims. 9.9 percent of people included in VicPD’s street check reports between 2007 and 2017 were Indigenous, and 2.4 percent were Black, when Indigenous and Black people respectively make up 5 percent and 1.4 percent of Victoria and Esquimalt’s population.
An important thing to note is that VicPD’s report leaves out the fact that street checks disproportionately target people who are poor and unhoused. In 2011, we conducted a community-based research project titled “Out of Sight: Policing Poverty in Victoria, Coast and Straits Salish Territories” (Coastal Research, Education, & Advocacy Network, 2012). Our findings show that disabilities, mental health issues and illicit drug use are inextricably linked for many street involved people. People living with certain disabilities, illnesses and illicit drug use have distinct vulnerabilities and needs when it comes to policing. Mental health issues and drug use cannot be policed away.
Ninety-one percent of respondents had been approached by police at least once in the past year, and 20% had been approached more than once per week. Sixty-five percent of respondents perceive themselves as being treated unfairly or unequally by police based on their status as street-involved, poor, homeless, or using drugs. 32% of respondents reported having safer drug use supplies confiscated by police. 52% of respondents reported having personal belongings seized (including photos, sleeping bags, money and identification cards) (Coastal Research, Education, & Advocacy Network, 2012; Society of Living Illicit Drug Users, 2015).
This study’s findings suggest that immediate action must be taken to end the disproportionate and unjustified interference with the daily lives of the most marginalized members of our communities, and to re-allocate resources to alleviate rather than criminalize poverty.
“Police act different ways with different people depending on how you look. They judge by appearances.” (Coastal Research, Education, & Advocacy Network, 2012)
"Who’s treated unfairly? Anybody that's not in a business suit, that doesn't look clean or professional.” (Coastal Research, Education, & Advocacy Network, 2012)
Ending the discriminatory practice of police street checks must be a minimum first step as the City of Victoria considers ways to combat systemic racism in our institutions.
Sincerely,
Staff & Board of Directors
Coastal Research, Education & Advocacy Network (CREAN)