Little to no proof police carding has effect on crime

Report casts doubt on street checks A report out of Ontario casts doubt on the practice’s ability to help fight crime.

An Ontario judge tasked with reviewing the practice of police street checks widely known as carding says there's little to no proof it has had an effect on the level of crime or arrests.

The conclusion is outlined in a 310-page report by Appeal Court Justice Michael Tulloch on how a street check regulation has been implemented by police forces across Ontario.

A street check – which Saskatoon police call a contact interview – is when officers stop people seemingly at random and ask for identifying information.

Data has shown that officers in Ontario were disproportionately stopping black, Indigenous and other racialized people.

“We see a lot of negative impacts on communities that feel they’re being over-policed or that there’s being an injustice applied,” University of Saskatchewan associate professor of sociology Scott Thompson said.

“There’s this common argument that says if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear. But the problem is that these technologies themselves have built-in biases in their data collection. They have impacts in how policing will happen.

“So we can’t just say that I have nothing to hide so I should have nothing to fear, because those biases will shape how police work. And we have to have that conversation, how do we want police to work in our city?”

Saskatoon Police Chief Troy Cooper is expected to present a report later this month identifying the service’s new training and procedures related to street checks.

The service has said in the past that contact interviews have nothing to do with race, but ask people what they’re doing in an area where criminal or suspicious activity has been reported.

Tulloch says some Ontario police forces reported other ways to gather and use data they already have rather than stopping people randomly and asking for identifying information.

Tulloch has listed a series of recommendations that includes the Ontario government changing its regulation to state that no police officer should arbitrarily stop individuals to request their identifying information as well as increased training for officers on the practice.

Ontario's former Liberal government introduced new carding rules last year, outlining that police must inform people that they don't have to provide identifying information during street checks, and that refusing to co-operate or walking away cannot then be used as reasons to compel information.

Correctional Services Minister Sylvia Jones says Tulloch's report will guide the Progressive Conservative government as it reviews policing legislation in the province, adding that racism has no place in law enforcement.

With files from Ashley Field