Jun 8

Jun 8 Defunding the Police Is Not Enough

The murder of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. The relationship between law enforcement and Black individuals has been negative since the days of slavery and not much has changed since. Murder of people of colour, the majority of whom (proportionate to their percentage of the total population) are Black in the United States or Indigenous in Canada, at the hands of the police, are becoming more widely reported, and therefore more widely talked about. The stemmed conversations have evolved into protests of passion and anger as people around the world are taking to the streets to demand changes to the institutions that perpetuate systemic racism. One of the proposed solutions to the propagation of systemic racism is defunding the police. While that idea may be beneficial to people of colour in the short term, it just simply isn’t enough.

Firstly, I would like to acknowledge that I am a White person and my opinions and perspectives come from a place of privilege. I will never understand racism on a personal level, but I am committed to listening to the experiences and opinions of people of colour and as such I am always open to having a conversation about these topics. Secondly, it is important to emphasize that this article is an opinion piece. While the arguments here are designed to be compelling, it should be up to you to do your own research on the subject and formulate your own opinions. In addition to research about defunding the police, I encourage you to read about systemic racism and how it affects the lives of people of colour in Canada, and how you can confront your own internal biases.

Defunding the Police?

A central demand of the Black Lives Matter protests have been centred around systemic racism and defunding the police to ensure justice and equity are established for people of colour. What does that even mean? As a White person, it can seem frightening and even bizarre to hear that idea being floated around. I can assure you that the phrase sounds a lot scarier than the idea. The whole doctrine behind defunding the police stems from the history of abuse and brutality against people of colour at the hands of the police that continues today. In Canada, a massive proportion of victims of brutality are Indigenous, compared to their percentage of the population. [1]

There are many examples of unnecessary injury and/or death caused by the police against people of colour in Canada alone (not even touching on American issues). It seems that you can’t read the news and not come across another instance of police brutality. A prominent example is the alleged murder of Regis Korchinski-Paquet whose family alleges she was pushed from her balcony to her death during a routine mental health assistance call in Toronto. While these allegations have not been formally proven, the evidence does seem very stacked against the police. [2] Another example is the beating of Allan Adam (Chief of Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation) over an expired licence plate by the Wood Buffalo RCMP. [3] It is not uncommon to see these stories, and the public has grown nearly desensitized to them. If we are becoming desensitized to police violence, that means we are desensitized to systemic racism as well.

“Defunding the police would consist of handing off many of the police’s responsibilities to other institutions that will be formed to serve more specific purposes”

Police officers are trained in so many things, and when you have so many things that you are supposed to be an expert at, are you truly an expert at anything? For example, police are required to attend to people at risk of suicide. They are supposed to be trained in de-escalation and providing support for mental health, but should police have to be the ones to offer that service? Under a plan to defund the police, those responsibilities that involve mental health would be handed over to experts at mental health therapy, which would ensure that people in distress would receive the best care possible, by a trained professional. I would call it diversifying the police rather than outright defunding it, because the needs that police currently address will still be met.

The issue with the police is often how militarized they are. Many wear bulletproof vests and some carry around guns and tasers. Does someone responding to a mental health call need all of that? It just makes it seem even more distressing and intimidating. Realistically, there are not many cases that would require a militarized police other than live threats to public safety such as active shooters or violent crimes in progress. Many incidents from calls that police respond to have already occurred, and only require detectives and victim supports to be present, calls such as house burglaries, that do not require anyone with guns and tasers present anymore.

Police reform does not work either. The police are still a symbol for oppression for people of colour, and have also completely severed their trust (along with many other communities such as the LGBTQ2S+ community, to even women in general). Additionally, reforms do not target the root of the issues of police brutality, which often stem from a lack of consequences for officers that engage in violence. The police system cannot be tasked with investigating members of their own union, and if they are, the investigations are often held behind closed doors that do not reassure the public that action is being taken.

The police in Edmonton take $356 million from the city’s budget, which is just under 15% of the total budget and second to only Community Services and Attractions. [4] A portion of that money could be far better utilized to empower people of colour, along with the proposed diversification of the police. It could be used to fund more community centred policing that aren’t required to carry around guns and tasers, make transit free to give people of low socioeconomic status a method of transport, increase access to mental health services as a crime preventative measure, and build more affordable housing, all of which will directly improve quality of life for people of colour while addressing police brutality. These measures will all contribute to reduction in crime. Some jurisdictions in the US have already made a transition to a diversified police, and have reported positive preliminary results! [5]

But That’s Not Enough

Defunding the police, however, is only a small step. It will solve some problems but will only put a band-aid on many.

Indigenous youth make up 46% of youth corrections admissions but only consist of 8% of the youth population, and Indigenous people are 10 times more likely to be incarcerated than non-Indigenous people, and it’s even worse in Saskatchewan, where that metric hovers around 33 times. [6] Making systemic and long lasting change can’t stop with the police. It needs to extend to our justice and incarceration systems as well!

The school-to-prison-pipeline is also present in Canadian schools, and results in students of colour being disproportionately targeted, surveilled and harassed in their schools by School Resource Officers (SROs) that also perpetuate police violence. Indigenous and Black students are also more likely to be suspended or expelled from school over their White counterparts due to rules and punishments that are designed for White students (suspensions and expulsions only work when students actually enjoy attending school). Schools need to focus on empowering and preparing students of colour rather than making them feel constantly threatened at school, leading to incarceration down the road. [7]

Immediately obvious, our justice system is extremely flawed and biased against people of colour. Our bail system is a prime example of how backwards it really is; an Indigenous person charged with possession of a banned substance (a non violent crime) is statistically less likely to be able to afford bail and would end up remaining in jail, while higher class White murderers will pay bail and avoid staying in jail until their trial (lookup Travis Vader and you will (not) be surprised)! [8] In addition, Black individuals in Canada are more likely to wait longer in remand than White individuals. [9]

In a world where White murderers can so easily return to living in public on bail but Indigenous individuals possessing a banned substance get can’t, where do we make changes? To bail and sentencing, of course, but also what causes the need for bail in the first place. Our court system is also extremely underfunded and can result in a wait time in years for trials and sentencing. It also does not take into account that many of the crimes that Indigenous people are charged with in Canada are non violent in nature, that don’t pose a threat to other people, and therefore it should be questioned if they are really crimes at all.

“An Indigenous person charged with possession of a banned substance (a non violent crime) is statistically less likely to be able to afford bail and would end up remaining in jail, while higher class White murderers will pay bail and avoid staying in jail until their trial ”

In addition, the court system is populated heavily by White people and does not include a lot of representation by people of colour. Representation of your own race during trial and sentencing is extremely important to ensure the dignity of the offender is maintained, and often, White judges may not have the best interests of people in colour in mind when making legal decisions affecting them. Diverse benches also preserve impartiality. No judge can be completely impartial because of their unique life experiences that can vary across cultures. [10]

Sentencing Circles are used in Canada for Indigenous offenders and will often involve elders, community members and the victim(s) in sentencing. They are not used very often and usually only for smaller crimes, but are extremely beneficial because they leave culture intact, are more meaningful to the offender and preserve important Indigenous cultural rituals that reflect the needs of Indigenous communities. [11] They also prove that we need multiple approaches for trials and sentencing in Canada, and a one size fits all approach does not work for everyone.

Our methods of incarceration often disconnect people of colour from their support groups and culture which can make rehabilitation and reintegration harder down the road. The Residential Schools did the same. When someone is forcibly removed from their cultural group it results in long lasting and/or permanent changes to that persons mental health and sense of belonging, and makes it that much more difficult for those individuals to reconnect with their culture. Our incarceration system needs to be reformed to keep cultural connections intact and ensure that prison is a place of healing over punishment (again, lookup prisons in Norway and you will (not) be surprised).

What Can We Do?

The proposed defunding of the police needs to happen cohesively with changes to our justice and incarceration systems. Taking action and reforming the law enforcement system alone will only solve a small portion of the problems facing people of colour. We need a massive overhaul. It’s time we start the conversation about how we can move forward with changing our ENTIRE law enforcement/corrections system. I believe that it needs to start with a federal task force (comprised of a majority of people of colour from diverse backgrounds) that is mandated to make these cohesive overhauls a reality and able to recommend specific changes to laws that will benefit people of colour. I encourage you to continue to spread information about these movements, contact your city councillor, provincial MLA or federal MP to address these changes.

Jody Wilson-Raybould (former Minster of Justice) completed a writeup of the concerns of Canadians about the justice system, and talks a lot about topics addressed in this article, but cohesive action has still not been taken. It is nice to know that these concerns have been heard but we cannot rest until we see tangible changes!

Special thanks to Kaylee Luong for providing contributions to this article