From racial profiling to racial incarceration

THE CANADIAN “WAR ON DRUGS”: STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE AND UNEQUAL TREATMENT OF BLACK CANADIANS 14

5.3 STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE: STIGMA, GLOBALIZATION, AND FUNDING POLICY POLICY

5.4.1 From racial profiling to racial incarceration

In 2010, Statistics Canada recorded 25.1% of young people aged 15 to 24 years who used cannabis during the previous year, compared with 7.9% of adults. A much smaller segment of the Canadian population used at least one of five illicit drugs: cocaine or crack, speed, hallucinogens, ecstasy, and/or heroin. Among people aged 15 to 24, 1.2% used cocaine, 0.5% used speed, and 0.9% used hallucinogens. Since 2004, the prevalence of most illicit drug use has remained steady, while crack and cannabis use has declined concurrently with a decline in the seriousness of youth crime (Statistics Canada, 2012).

Nonetheless, unequal treatment before the law has become a pervasive reality because of the drug war’s focus on Black communities. The first contemporary reports of officially sanctioned discrimination surfaced in the 1990s. Police officers were trained to explicitly profile certain ethnic and/or racial groups for law enforcement purposes (Bobo &

Thompson, 2006; Operation Pipeline and Racial Profiling, 2002; Tanovich, 2006). Canadian law does not explicitly permit this behaviour; arbitrary stops and searches are specifically prohibited by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (ACLC, 2012; Commission on systemic racism, 1995). However, such unwarranted searches, seizures, and arrests happen frequently (Ontario Human Rights Commission, 2003).

Blacks in Toronto experience ongoing racial profiling—being stopped, questioned and having their personal details recorded on cards known as “208s" between 2 and 17 times more frequently than Whites (Rankin, 2011). It has been argued that Blacks are effectively circumscribed in both being able to drive or walk without prospects of unwarranted stops, sometimes referred to as “driving whilst Black” and/or "no walk lists” (ACLC, 2012).

Without reasonable cause, police stop Blacks on the pretext of enforcing traffic laws but

actually in search of illegal drugs (Rankin, 2002a). African Canadian Legal Clinic (ACLC) lawyers have argued that, “our young men are being profiled, monitored, over-scrutinized, and (no matter how politely it is done) treated like criminals” (2012, p. 3). Unreasonable dominance and submission are common features of such encounters (ACLC, 2012;

Commission on Systemic Racism, 1995).

Disproportionate levels of remands, arrests, and incarceration have all been recorded, and continue two decades into the WOD. Toronto Star studies (Rankin et al., 2002) on race and crime reported:

Blacks are treated more harshly after arrest than their White counterparts … [with]

White offenders more likely to be released at the scene, while Black offenders are more likely to be detained, taken to the station for processing, held in custody until their bail hearing (Wortley & Tanner, 2004, p. 197).

5.4.2 Incarceration

Such policing has led to disproportionate numbers of Blacks being incarcerated, especially for non-violent crimes involving drug possession. Extreme difference in admission rates, running along racial lines, is another stark indicator of the unequal treatment of Blacks before the law (Alexander, 2012; Commission on Systemic Racism, 1995). The available provincial data indicates that by 1993, Black males were admitted at about five times the rate of White males (Brennan, 2011; Commission on Systemic Racism, 1995).

Effectively, Canada practices segregation in a socially acceptable form of long-term punishment for criminals (Alexander, 2012). In Ontario in the 1990s, 15% of admissions to prison were Black offenders, although Blacks made up only 3% of the province’s population

(Roach, 1996). According to the earlier findings of the Ontario Commission on Systemic Racism (1995), “one effect of the war on drugs, intended or not, has been the increase in imprisonment of black people…[because] of the intensive policing of low income areas in which black people live” (p. 82-83). By 2011, the federal incarceration rate for Blacks, who account for about 2.5% of the population, was over 9%—a 52% increase in a single decade (CBC News, Dec. 15, 2011). In Ontario, the Black incarceration rate reached approximately 20% (Brennan, 2011).

5.5 EFFECTS

The burdens that follow from violations of the right to equal treatment before the law are extensive, resulting in damaged individual and family lives, and devastated Black communities forced to cope with increasing violence over generations of incarceration. They also suffer discrimination and poor access to health services. The mental health and well-being of poor Blacks is well-being undermined by the WOD. The pejorative associations of Blacks and crime have intensified levels of stigma that have existed for decades but remained tangential to the lives of Black Canadians. Diminished self-esteem, perceived discrimination, and internalized stigma are likely the biggest health risk factors borne by Black men and youth (Caldwell et al., 2004; Seaton, Caldwell, Sellers, & Jackson, 2009).

More than one out of ten (13%) male offenders in federal custody have been identified with mental health problems at admission; this proportion has almost doubled since 1996/97, increasing from 7% to 13% (Correctional Service of Canada, 2010). An Ontario Human Rights Report, Paying the price: The human cost of racial profiling (2002), reported that the harms caused by racial profiling include increased fear, a sense of

intimidation, reinforced anxieties, and enhanced feelings of helplessness and hopelessness that can lead to suicidal thinking, depression, and drug abuse (Caldwell et al., 2004; CAMH, 2007). Although Canadian data is not available to quantify the harmful health effects of everyday encounters with the police, studies conducted in the UK and the US have reported that Blacks have more anxiety disorders involving unreasonable fear of persecution (Annoual, Bibeau, Marshall, & Sterlin, 2009).

The Black health burden includes a disproportionate share of addictions mental health problems that go unaddressed due to a lack of documented research, lack of services, and delayed help-seeking. Addictive behaviours are criminalized early, rather than treated early. Of all Black inmates, between 40% and 60% have substance use disorders. Their untreated disorders have contributed to their criminal involvement and exposed them to disproportionate police attention (Alexander, 2012; Drucker, 2006). Many young Black men have also been traumatized by their interactions with militarized police units enforcing the WOD (Kerr, Small, & Wood, 2005). Drug sweeps involving violent forceful interventions at gun point in the middle of the night, with doors being broken down and family members handcuffed and verbally abused, have taken place below the public radar. The effect of experiencing such trauma on mental and physical well-being can contribute to decreased functioning, isolation, and increased dependence on drugs for relief (Small & Rankin, 2012).

5.6 A MORAL IMPERATIVE

The net result of the WOD has been an intensification of racial stigma and structural violence. The need to create public justification for the war meant that Black men were demonized across North America along with their drugs of choice, cannabis and crack,

despite equivalent use across most levels of society (Tanovich, 2006; Wortley, 2007).

Current high rates of imprisonment mean that Black communities are being systematically deprived of significant social capital, resulting in ongoing socioeconomic harm and cycles of violence (ACLC, 2012; Alexander, 2012). Discrimination is also apparent in schools where Black youth experience different treatment than their White peers (Alexander, 2012;

Wortley & Tanner, 2004). Promoting such conditions that prevent Black people from fulfilling their human potential, violates their human dignity (Roberts, 2012).

The criminal justice system has gone from a tangential institution in the lives of most Blacks, pre-drug war, to one that is now shaping and sustaining modern Black identity in Canada (Galabuzi, 2001). Blacks with criminal records and no qualifications are as systematically segregated from mainstream Canadian life as their early 20th century ancestors (Erickson & Goodstadt, 1979; Walker, 2005). These men and women face inordinate discrimination and have few resources available to them with which to advocate and overcome obstacles (Alexander, 2012). The WOD, purportedly aimed at reducing the harms associated with illicit drug use, has become a source of multiple harms undermining the fabric of life for many of Canada’s most vulnerable Black communities. The WOD must be stopped, especially the sub-campaign against cannabis. Criminalization has proven ineffective in eliminating and/or reducing drug use and has instead resulted in much health-related harm to drug offenders. We know that the decriminalization of drug use does not necessarily lead to any increases in drug-related harms (e.g., Portugal) (Alexander, 2012;

Wood, McKinnon, Strang & Kendall, 2012). Ending the WOD will not be easy; a new global social movement, akin to and aligned with the prison abolition movement, is needed to move

this agenda forward given the various laws and international agreements that the WOD violates.

It is essential that Black communities make greater efforts to take control of the

“Black Experience.” Data gathering is critical, as without such basic information, the police and criminal justice authorities can ignore political and legal challenges. This is especially true in the Canadian context where data on the unintended consequences impact of the WOD on Black communities in Canada is scant. Black communities must challenge the persistent media bias (Henry & Tator, 2000) and the patterns of policing that sustain it, in part by demanding a pro-Black public relations campaign, given the decades of negative messaging.

Most importantly, however, Black communities must recognize the important role played by poverty and class discrimination in creating the current set of circumstances, and how they have internalized racial stigma (Alexander, 2012; Wortley & Tanner, 2004).

Educational7 authorities must be challenged to fulfill their obligation to develop rather than mis-educate Black youth. There are numerous strategies available to achieve such ends: from mandatory anti-Black racism training for educators, nursing home visits during early elementary school years, enriched and revised culturally-relevant curriculum to after school programs.

The criminal justice system should also address the consequences of its decades old implementation of a flawed “War on Drugs” policy. Social justice considerations demand systemic efforts to rectify the thousands of unnecessary criminal records and damaged lives and careers for non-violent drug possession offences through automatic pardons, alternative diversion programs, rehabilitative education and career support etc. Decision makers should also consider giving public acknowledgement, and apology, to the Black communities that

have been consistently harmed by this demonstrable policy failure and unequal treatment before the law.

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TRANSITIONAL CONTENT

The previous chapter explored how structural violence, justified by the WOD, has also had devastating effects on individual mental health as well as collective racial identity.

It has been argued that the disempowering and traumatizing relationships with those in power, especially the police, are among the major structural factors affecting mental health of youth of colour in Canada (Nestel, 2012). According to the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC), those who have experienced racial profiling, activities that have multiplied precipitously on account of the WOD, reported feelings of embarrassment and profound shame in their identity. This was echoed in common description of their reactions

In document Three Decades of Epidemic Black Gun Homicide Victimization in Toronto: Analyzing Causes and Consequences of a Criminological Approach (Page 149-167)