Toronto police want to rebrand carding practice
Requirement to purge database among recommendations in newly released 95-page report
Toronto police are proposing a major rebranding of “carding” — stopping, questioning and documenting people in mostly non-criminal encounters — and adding purging requirements to a controversial database.
Known as Form 208s, “street checks” or contact cards, police would now call them “community safety notes” and the data recorded on them would be purged after seven years, according to a report posted late Friday afternoon on the Toronto Police Services Board website.
Police also propose that the cards be monitored for racial bias and are looking at changing the way they are assessed, placing more emphasis on quality information over quantity.
“Systemic pressures” to card people often result “in a complete focus on quantity, not quality,” says the 95-page report, which is to be presented to the board Monday at its regular public meeting.
“The social cost of obtaining a (contact card) with little-to-no value to public safety or crime prevention is detrimental to the Service and may contribute to a loss of public confidence and trust,” states the report, the result of an internal police and community engagement review led by Deputy Chief Peter Sloly.
Yet, card counts will still matter in performance evaluations, which can affect promotions and increases in salary.
The report contains 31 recommendations, including additional training and changing how officers interact with the public.
Police conducted nine community consultations and said participants see the internal review and discussions as a “turning point.”
Whether the report will come close to appeasing the numerous social justice groups and agencies that have made carding — likened by many to the New York police stop and frisk program — a major issue for Toronto police remains to be seen.
The force has been reviewing carding since March 2012, when the Star published an investigation that showed blacks were more likely than whites to be carded by Toronto officers in each of the city’s 70-plus police patrol zones.
The likelihood increased in areas that are predominantly white.
Afollow-up investigation published by the Star last month showed that the number of young black males carded exceeded Toronto’s young black male population.
Police board chair Alok Mukherjee called the situation “devastating” and “unacceptable.” He is expected to introduce a report on carding and the “issue of profiling” just prior to Monday’s meeting.
From 2008 to 2012, carding increased by 23 per cent, despite crime falling last year for the seventh year in a row.
Police search the contact card database following crimes for personal connections and possible witnesses and suspects.
They say it is an invaluable investigative tool.
But they also acknowledge the interactions can go badly and cause damage to public trust.
“The Service risks losing public trust when operational practices result, intentionally or unintentionally, in the alienation of individuals or groups within society,” the report said.
John Sewell of the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition is also calling for the latest version of the form to be made public, a request that has been repeatedly ignored by the force.
“If any headway is to be made regarding carding or street checks, it will start with the Police Service being clear and open.” JOHN SEWELL TORONTO POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY COALITION
Form 306 replaced Form 208, which had become a source of controversy due to the nature of some of the questions asked by police, such as whether a person’s parents were married or divorced.
Sewell says the new form should be made “public without delay.” “If any headway is to be made regarding carding or street checks, it will start with the Police Service being clear and open about the kind of information officers are gathering on people they stop to question.” Police officials say the carding statistics on race published by the Star are a reflection of intelligence-led policing and not racial profiling. “The reality is we put our officers in areas that are high in crime specifically, violent crimes, and our officers will engage with those particular communities and the members of those communities,” Deputy Chief Mark Saunders told the Star. The board has passed a number of motions since March 2012 in an attempt to change carding practices, but Sewell said there has been little “substantive change.” The report does not delve into how the recommendations might be implemented. That would come over the next several years. Sloly told the Star carding is down 25 per cent in the first half of this year, compared to 2012, but Sewell noted that means “there will be some 300,000 incidents where police card someone in Toronto.” The coalition says the force should “cease the practice of carding” and destroy all the records collected in the last decade. The personal information recorded by an officer during a street check is added to an investigative database and retained, even when there is no suggestion that an individual has been involved in a crime.
“It is entirely inappropriate that the police service holds records of those illegally stopped even though they have never been involved in criminal activity,” Sewell has written.
The board had asked the city’s auditor general to conduct an independent review of carding, including the its impact on public trust. But that review was put on hold when police made the extent of their internal review public.
The board meets 1:30 p.m. Monday at police headquarters, 40 College St.