End the pain, quit carding
A tipping point has come in the debate on carding. Multiple efforts at reform have failed. A targeted community’s concerns remain unaddressed. And outraged voices from every level of society agree that this controversial practice must be stopped — not reformed, not fixed, but terminated.
As recently as last week, we urged Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders to overhaul the troubling practice of having officers stop people, ask intrusive questions and file a record of the interaction. People with black or brown skin were being disproportionately singled out in a pattern consistent with racial profiling. And if reform didn’t happen, we said, Saunders should dump the policy.
Today, we go further. There’s been discussion enough. The needed change hasn’t arrived. And a now coalition of former mayors, civic leaders, legal authorities, rights activists and political insiders has raised its voice to demand an end to carding.
It’s rare for an issue to spark concern from such a broad crosssection of people, including former chief justice Roy McMurtry; three previous mayors: Barbara Hall, David Crombie and John Sewell; and key supporters of Mayor John Tory. And today, Alok Mukherjee, chair of the Toronto Police Services Board, argues forcefully on the opposite page that information collected through carding should not be held in a central database for fear of creating a “surveillance society.”
All this shows that debate on the issue has shifted. It’s no longer about how to reform carding. It’s about ending it before more innocent people are alienated by officers who stop them for no apparent reason and demand personal information.
Carding in Toronto is currently suspended, pending reform. But rather than continue trying to fix the irreparable, Saunders and the entire police services board, including Tory, should resolve to finally and forthrightly terminate the practice.
The cost of continuing, even under a reformed system, clearly outweighs any good that might come from this approach.
The policy’s stated goal is to help officers better understand the neighbourhood they’re patrolling by making them familiar with people in the area. And, according to police officials, there have been instances where Toronto’s massive carding database was useful in tracking down suspects involved in subsequent crimes.
Saunders’ belief that carding still has real value explains why he’d like to retain it, albeit with “fundamental change.” But bitterness on the part of those being carded, and broad public discontent over the program, have come to overshadow any benefit a reformed carding system is likely to provide.
Better understanding of a neighbourhood does officers little good if that’s accompanied by growing resentment and a firm conviction that residents are being unfairly subjected to police interference. The occasional apprehension of a wrongdoer can’t compensate for alienating entire communities and fuelling lasting hostility to the forces of law and order. On balance, carding needs to go.
There is an important caveat here. In addition to providing a record of individuals stopped by officers, carding does shed light on police conduct. The explosive revelation that officers were disproportionately documenting people of colour on “contact cards” was revealed by Star investigators analyzing data from those very cards. With carding banned, this monitoring tool would be lost.
Police checks would, no doubt, still occur. A young man on his way home from a club, passing through an affluent neighbourhood, might still be stopped if he encounters a police officer; he might still be sized up and questioned before being allowed to go on his way. But in the absence of carding, there would be no readily searchable record of that interaction.
There’s no comfortable way around this. Toronto’s carding program has become radioactive. The hostility it stirs across entire communities has rendered the policy untenable. It simply can’t be sustained.
But it’s important that Toronto police go beyond just dropping carding. They need to redouble efforts to root out systemic bias in their organization, and all traces of outright or subconscious racism on the part of officers.
The spectre of racial profiling stands revealed by carding — but it wasn’t simply caused by carding. There’s a deeper problem here. So, by all means, let’s ban this pernicious practice. Its day is done. But let’s also look further. Eliminating carding won’t change even one bigoted police officer’s toxic attitudes.
A broad coalition of prominent Torontonians is calling for a ban on the pernicious practice of police carding. We agree