TO CARD OR NOT TO CARD?

If you are a black or aboriginal Edmontonian, there’s a significantly greater chance that police will stop you for no apparent reason as you walk or drive down the street. Data obtained this week by activist group Black Lives Matter show police “carded” 22,689 people in 22,969 street checks in 2016. The numbers show black people and aboriginal people, especially women, were questioned and documented in street checks at a higher rate than their share of the population warrants.

Despite aboriginal people making up just over five per cent of the population, they accounted for 21.6 of street checks. Similarly, black Edmontonians are three to five times more likely to be street checked than white people in the city.

In a street check, an officer stops a person but does not have grounds to arrest him or her. The stopped person is not required to provide any information and may leave at any time although you could hardly fault the average person for not knowing that.

Police say there’s a reason to randomly stop people; street checks are a useful tool in solving or preventing crime. They deny charges that the stops are racially motivated and explain that the numbers are skewed by geography and demographics. Nearly a quarter of street checks came from higher-crime areas covered by footpatrol officers in downtown division, where there are larger-than-average numbers of black and aboriginal people.

That may be the case, but such a technical and abstract explanation isn’t likely to assuage fears from minority groups that they are being racially profiled. No matter how reasonable the rationale, the statistics remain alarming and the optics appear damning. For indigenous people and newcomers buttonholed by officers for no cause, perception of police persecution quickly becomes reality. What’s worse is that these are the very communities with which police seek to build bridges.

EPS overhauled its street-check practices in late 2015, after controversy over carding in Ontario, to reduce the likelihood of racial profiling with measures such as supervisory oversight on stops and regular audits.

Some activists now call for the provincial government to prohibit street checks, but the danger is that an outright ban could hamstring police in investigating or suppressing crime.

Alberta Justice established a working group with representatives from Alberta’s police services to study the issue back in February 2016. The ministry wants to reach out to community groups before forming a policy. Let’s hope that consulting both police and communities helps Justice Minister Kathleen Ganley come up with a wider provincial guideline that balances both liberty and law enforcement.