Toronto Police 's Carding Epidemic Continues

Gaines, L. K., & Kappeler, V. E. (2014). Policing in america (8th ed.). (S. Decker-Lucke, Ed.) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America: Anderson Publishing. Retrieved January 2017

Policing is a very difficult, complex and dynamic field of endeavor that is always evolves as hard lessons teach us what we need to know about what works and what don’t work. There are three different Era’s in America’s policing: The Political Era, The Reform Era, and The Community Problem Solving Era. A lot has changed in the way that policing works over the years in the United States.

Howard Morton addresses the issue around street checks used across Canada, which is also known as “carding”. In his article “Investigative Detention and Street Checks” Morton defines the street checks as “an interaction between police officers and members of the public that is generally not related to a specific criminal investigation. However, there have been controversies around this topic since it is “view by many as racial profiling or racist policing” (Morton, 2015).

The judicial system in America has always endured much skepticism as to whether or not there is racial profiling amongst arrests. The stop and frisk policy of the NYPD has caused much controversy and publicity since being applied because of the clear racial disparity in stops. Now the question remains; Are cops being racially biased when choosing whom to stop or are they just targeting “high crime” neighborhoods, thus choosing minorities by default? This paper will examine the history behind stop and frisk policies. Along with referenced facts about the Stop and Frisk Policy, this paper will include and discuss methods and findings of my own personal field research.

Imagine innocently walking down the street in a city you’ve lived in your whole life, when all of a sudden you hear the dreaded “woop woop” and see those flashing red and blue lights. The police. They interrogate you, ask your whereabouts, and finally, they “frisk” you. Of course, they find nothing; they rarely do when they search people. Although it’s wrong and demoralizing, you know it’s something you’ll have to get used to as an African American living in New York City.

Racial profiling is the act of selecting targets for criminal investigation not on behavioural merit, but exclusively on markers of personal identity such as race, ethnicity, and religious orientation (Perry, 2011, p.9). In other words, racial profiling is the by-product of subjecting individuals who are from a particular racial community to a higher degree of scrutiny and surveillance by criminal justice system agents when compared to other racial communities (Wortley and Owusu-Bempah, 2011, p.135). One Canadian community in particular has been impacted by racial profiling: black Canadians.

When it comes to the topic of police reform, many agree that our country is long overdue for it, however, the questions are how exactly do we, as a nation, go about changing one of the most powerful structures to exist in the country. While some believe that reform must come from within the individually flawed police departments, others argue that the entire criminal justice system needs an overhaul. In this Response essay about Ta-Nehisti Coastes’ essay “The Myth of Police Reform,” Coates is saying, that the criminal-justice system is not working as well as it should. They are putting people, especially African Americans in jail or killing them. Some people have a mental or physical disability or a have a drug or alcohol problem that

The stop, question, and frisk policy was implemented in the NYPD in an effort to make the city a safer place. With weapons becoming more easily accessible than ever, they are becoming more of a problem, and officers and the general public are now in more danger than ever of being killed by a firearm, knife, or a weapon. Although the policy is intended to prevent harm and protect society, it has been under major scrutiny in not only the past few years, but also the past few decades as well. Due to the fact that minorities are believed to be the main target of this policing tactic, many people have argued it is inherently corrupt should be abolished. On the other hand, it has shown to provide some positive outcomes and as a result, it is a necessary

One of a biggest problem young black Canadian experience is police carding, but the average youth seem to not even know what police carding is. Carding is an intelligence gathering policy of the Toronto Police Service involving the stopping, questioning, and documenting of individuals when no particular offence is being investigated (IN-Text Citations).According to star studies show that black people are three times more likely to be stop than white (in- text citation) which makes Police Carding seem like racial profiling. On October 23, 2015 it has been announced by Yasir Naqvi, minister of community safety and correctional that random carding by police forces across Ontario will be illegal by the end of fall. (Inn-Text citation)

The NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices raise serious concerns over racial profiling, illegal stops and privacy rights. The Department’s own reports on its stop and frisk activity confirm what many people in communities of color across the city have long known: The police are stopping hundreds of thousands of law abiding New Yorkers every year, and the vast majority are black and Latino. In 2011, New Yorkers were stopped by the police 685,724 times. 605,328 were totally innocent (88 percent). 350,743 were black (53 percent). 223,740

Subsequently, it leads to their over-policing. This concept revolves around the notion that police do their jobs ‘too well’ and uses excessive force in confrontations with certain groups (Porat, 2008:416). It is ultimately the personification of racial profiling. Wortley and Bempah’s study (2011:397) shows that racial profiling is a grave problem that black Torontonians face, as 57% respondents believed that it is a major problem. This statistic is reinforced in the same study as 47% of blacks perceived their encounters with police as unfair, in contrast to just 12% of Whites (Wortley & Bempah, 2011:400). They were not given a thorough or specific reason for their stops, as they reported that they faced hostility and disrespect in their encounters.

Apart from periodically publishing stop and search records, supervisors and managers of police force are now required to closely monitor such statistics and take timely actions if something wrong is being observed. Also stricter rules on stop and search have since been imposed, along with the requirement of police officers writing a detailed report on spot about every single incident which subjects to review seems helpful in improving police conduct (Fyfe 1979; Skogan and Frydl 2004 in Miller 2010). While stop and search practice has been somehow improved, racial discrimination can still be seen in stop and search statistics. The notion of “Black and minority ethnic groups, particularly black people, have for many years been disproportionately at the receiving end of police stop and search—a fact associated with profound community resentment towards the police” (Bowling and Phillips 2002 in Miller 2010) still largely applies today. Miller’s (2010) analysis indicate that black people are about 6 times more likely to be stopped and searched, while it is about 2 times more likely for Asians. Similar idea is seen in Bennetto’s (2009) report, which draws on police statistics that shows in 2009 “black people are seven times more likely to be stopped and searched than white”, worse than Miller’s analysis with the most recent figures in 2008. No official explaination is provided by Police, but Bennetto (2009) assumes this may be caused by simply discrimination of

Racial Profiling the assumption that someone has committed a crime based on their physical appearance and the stigma that surrounds that culture or group. Racial profiling, therefore, affects everyone in society as it is about humanity and social justice. We can all agree that everyone deserves the chance to be free of stereotypes and even those who aren’t amidst racial profiling should realise that they are affected as those who are guilty may not belong to said stereotyped racial group or those who are not guilty may be profiled without actions to warrant so. Growing evidence has shown that in a study conducted by the Canadian government “participants who identified themselves as a visible minority felt that they had been the target of racial profiling over the last four years compared to non-minority participants (20% vs. 6%). When asked the extent to which racial profiling occurs unofficially, 20% of the participants felt it happened "all the time" and 62% felt that it happened "sometimes".” (Canadian Department of Justice). These statistics illustrate that even in a country where it is claimed that we are equal and without a biased system people still are treated as if they are something they are not and due to their ethnic background. The article “Ottawa teen claims he was a victim of police profiling” featured on CBC news will only further serves as a real-life example to help justify these sociological theories that a police officer assumed him a criminal and

The policy of New York Police Department‘s (NYPD) stop question and frisk for some time been a highly controversial situation of policing under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Commissioner Raymond Kelly administration. This administration praised the stop and frisk policy as a valuable resource to the City‘s successful mitigation in reducing violent crime. A resource to removing guns from the streets as well improving the quality of life for the communities that are most affected by those

And finally the Field Information Reports (FIR) which Replaced MANIX and became the new storage for contact card data. FIR also provides details for the nature of the police contact. FIR has data that details 315,000 contact cards filled out on 242,000 individuals from late 2007 to end of 2008 (p.3). The Star analyzed the contact card data from the Toronto police. From the data that the Star analyzed the Toronto police filed 1.7 million cards between 2003 and 2008, the majority was from non-criminal encounters. According to the data, approximately 1.3 million were documented over that six year span. Out of those contact cards filed out blacks were represented three times more than the actual number of blacks in Toronto. However the rate for the “Brown” community was slightly higher. White people were carded proportionately to the white population. In the 74 patrol zones Blacks are documented at a disproportionate rate compared to the actual number of Blacks in those zones. When looking at the data for the number of young males being carded, young males of skin color are disproportionately documented. Black males from the age of 15-24 are documented at a rate 13 times more than their actual representation in the general population. Brown males are 7 times more and white males are about 5 times more. From this data young black males are documented at a rate 2.5 higher than young while males. In the data analyzed in both the MANIX and FIR, blacks are more likely to