Give us proof

Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders insists the toxic practice of carding has been useful to law enforcement. That’s why he wants it reformed instead of outright rejected.

And the province evidently agrees, describing these street checks in an online document as a “necessary and valuable tool for police” when properly conducted. That’s deeply flawed assumption.

Carding has been suspended in Toronto, pending reform, but it involved having officers stop people who had committed no apparent crime in order to ask a series of intrusive questions. Their responses were recorded on special “contact cards” and entered into a massive police database.

As reported by the Star’s Wendy Gillis, Saunders, a former homicide investigator, said there were “numerous times” when he used this database to achieve an arrest. And Toronto Police Association president Mike McCormack has also defended carding as a vital source of information.

Here’s the problem: there’s no proof that any law enforcement benefits provided by this practice outweigh the immense harm it has wrought. Anecdotal evidence, such as that supplied by Saunders, falls well short of confirming the overall value of carding. But the damage it has done is undeniable.

A series of Star investigations has found that people with black or brown skin were being carded at disproportionately high rates in a pattern consistent with racial profiling. Members of Toronto’s black community have expressed growing concern over that noxious pattern. Previous attempts at reform have failed, and outrage over any continuation of carding has now become so bitter it’s difficult to see how this could be countered by whatever benefit street checks could provide. That’s why there is a strong case for eradicating carding.

Authorities, including Saunders, who still want this practice reformed, should feel duty bound to produce solid evidence of its worth. Provincial officials say they need a change in police regulations to access this data and do a proper study.

If so, they should proceed with drafting such a change. But one would think it’s in everyone’s interest — including that of the Toronto Police Service — to have carding’s real worth determined through an expert study by impartial academics before opting to maintain even a reformed version of this widely detested source of information.