Time to talk about role of police service

If Waterloo Region was starting from scratch to create a police department for the 21st century, what would the service look like and what would it do?

Would we empower hundreds of armed officers to do everything from keeping our roadways safe and handling complaints about rowdy parties to acting as community social workers — as is the case today?

Or would we be extremely selective, assigning police to jobs more specifically geared to protecting people’s lives and property from dangerous criminals? And then would we pay more to focus more on other ways that didn’t involve the police to deal with burning issues such as poverty, domestic violence and mental illness?

These are tough questions. But they’re not just academic, not in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd — a Black man — in the United States, and the worldwide protests against police brutality and institutional racism that followed.

These questions are being asked in Canada, too, with great urgency. In recent days a Black-Indigenous woman in Toronto, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, fell to her death from her apartment balcony while six city police officers were present. Not long after, a police officer in New Brunswick shot dead an Indigenous woman, Chantel Moore, after being called to check on her mental well-being.

There is still much that needs to be known about these Canadian incidents. Yet this much is clear: the people who marched in Kitchener last week in solidarity with Black Lives Matter — and estimates of their numbers range from 10,000 to 36,000 — were demanding change. So were the tens of thousands of Canadians who also took to the streets last week in other communities coast to coast. One common thread tying together all these demonstrations was the plea for a dramatic overhaul of how police departments should operate today.

In response to this call, The Record supports an open and fundamental conversation about the role of police in Canadian society. We need to re-examine what our police departments are doing now and decide what their core functions should be. If their responsibilities should be realigned, how should that happen?

Change is in the air. Waterloo Regional Police are considering the use of body-worn cameras. Because such technology would add a new layer of police accountability, a pilot project should commence as soon as possible.

One sign of hope comes from Waterloo Regional Police Chief Bryan Larkin’s repeated assurances that he’s ready to talk with members of the region’s Black community and discuss possible changes. But the coming discussion in this region needs to be even more broad-ranging and include many, many voices. Perhaps we should boost funding for the Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council to nip problems in the bud and correct them before they require police intervention.

There could be a strong argument for better-funded social programs. It’s also worth asking whether the current police services board offers the best possible public oversight.

And, of course, the police budget — which takes up $180 million of the region’s 2020 budget — will surely be hotly debated . While some people want some of that funding redirected to other groups to meet pressing social needs, others may resist cuts that could potentially impinge on public safety.

In all this, of course, this region would not be creating a regional police department from scratch. We would, however, be reimagining and, where necessary, reforming what our police services have evolved into today.