Abstract

Excerpted From: Kanika Samuels-Wortley, The “Unusual” Suspect--Race, Class, and Crime: A Critical Discourse Case Study of Nova Scotia's Mass Casualty Event, 39 Canadian Journal of Law and Society 180 (August, 2024) (80 Footnotes) (Full Document)

Concerns over racial bias and discrimination in Canadian policing have been raised for decades, as demonstrated by various provincial reports dating back to the 1970s. However, the issue gained federal attention following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. In response to global discussions around race and policing, the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security engaged in a comprehensive study exploring how racial bias--the favouring or preferential treatment of people from one racial group over another--may permeate through Canadian law-enforcement agencies, including within its own national police agency, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). After a year-long investigation involving testimony from experts, community members, and police leaders, as well as a review of racially disaggregated data exploring interactions between the police and Black, Indigenous, and racialized communities, the Standing Committee released a groundbreaking report concluding that racial bias, but more specifically systemic racism, is and continues to be a problem within Canadian policing.

Systemic racism--often the result of racial bias and the perceived inferiority of racialized people--is a form of bias that is embedded within social institutions through policies, practices, and procedures that disadvantage some racialized groups while benefiting others. Thus, the Standing Committee's conclusion that systemic racism in policing is engrained within Canadian policing agencies lends additional insight into emerging evidence that suggests Black and Indigenous people, in particular, are disproportionately overrepresented in police stops and searches, excessive use of force, strip searches, and charges for minor crimes compared with their White and other racialized counterparts. While much of the research exploring racial bias in Canadian policing traditionally focuses on the negative treatment and surveillance of Black, Indigenous, and other racialized people, less discussion is on who benefits. Who does not attract the attention of the police and is not perceived as a threat?

In describing how they define their work, police officers will often highlight their role as law enforcers. When describing this role, they frequently stress the importance of criminal profiling and focus on “what doesn't fit” to determine signs of suspicious activity and potential lawbreaking. Although officers will argue that they are guided by their professional “instincts [when they] profile criminals,” there are concerns that these instincts are influenced by racial and class biases. To illustrate, in a Canadian study exploring law enforcers' perceptions of where crime is more likely to occur, when describing a high-priority neighbourhood that is distinguished as having a high crime rate--an impoverished area in Toronto, Canada--an officer states: “[in] Jane and Finch traditionally [ ... ] there is a mostly black or immigrant population there [ ... ] certainly not typical white. And if that is where the crime is [ ... ] go where the fish are if you're going to catch fish.”

While this declaration does not explicitly state that Black and other racialized people are criminals (although it comes close), the officer's statement exemplifies what legal researchers have argued for decades--that the colour of justice is White. They maintain that “if you are not white, you face a much greater risk of attracting the attention of law enforcement officials.” Further, while differentiating criminality from “typical White” people, the officer's statement reveals that differential enforcement may be based on not only race, but also social class. Therefore, with emerging studies suggesting that Black, Indigenous, and racialized communities are subject to increased police surveillance due to their race, this raises critical questions into how Whiteness, and to an extent socioeconomic status, may serve as a benefit and protection from the police gaze.

This line of inquiry is an area of interest, as a growing subset of criminologists argue that the discussion surrounding race and crime is narrow in focus when comparisons are made between Black (and/or racialized) and White racial categories. As a result, discussions around race and policing fail to view any differences in individual characteristics within these racial categories. They argue that there is a hierarchy of Whiteness, and that a White person's position in society and perceived criminality within law enforcement are also influenced by contextual factors, including geographic location, gender, and socioeconomic status. While it is acknowledged that, regardless of intersecting factors such as gender, sexual orientation, and abilities, for Black, Indigenous, and racialized people, their race is a master status that is most likely to attract police attention, some scholars argue that intersecting factors among White people do influence police interactions. To illustrate, in their review of the 2011 Bureau of Justice and Statistics Police-Public Contact survey, researchers Motley Jr. and Joe found that Black men and boys with an income of under $20,000 were most likely to experience excessive use of force by the police, but being male and within a similar lower socioeconomic status also increased the risk of exposure to police use of force among White residents. Highlighting this finding is in no way meant to undermine the mounting evidence that supports the notion that law-enforcement officials' stop-and-search practices, as well as engagement in excessive force, disproportionately impact Black and racialized populations; rather, this finding suggests that there may be a hierarchy within White populations in which the “typical White” (i.e. a cis-gender, heterosexual, and within a higher socioeconomic bracket) is rendered non-threatening and therefore avoids scrutiny from the police. Might race and class biases impact police decisions? If so, may police surveillance and documentation practices involving higher-classed White people differ from those of Black, Indigenous, and racialized people in Canada? An examination into formal police documentations involving the perpetrator of Canada's worst mass shooting in history aims to explore this further.

[. . .]

The documented interactions involving the perpetrator and the police may be easily dismissed and believed not to prove in general that Whiteness and socioeconomic status protect one from police surveillance. However, it is difficult to ignore the disparate treatment in comparison with the stories, experiences, and documented data demonstrating that Black, Indigenous, and racialized people are viewed with increased suspicion and are therefore subject to increased police surveillance and documentation. The reverse--and what this case study demonstrates--is how White people may instead be given the benefit of the doubt as resources and attention are disproportionately allocated away from investigating White suspects, especially if they do not fit the stereotypical profile of a criminal. This results in more rigorous scrutiny for racialized and lower socioeconomic people while neglecting potentially dangerous individuals such as the perpetrator.

Some may argue that the two reviewed incidents involving the police and the perpetrator are coincidental and do not demonstrate differential treatment based on these biases. However, when considering race, the research in Canada on police stops and racial profiling consistently demonstrates that Black, Indigenous, and other racialized people are much more likely to be subjected to involuntary police contact, and subsequently documented within the police system, than their White counterparts. Furthermore, how can one explain the perpetrator's ability to evade any form of accountability let alone criminal liability, when explicitly demonstrating aggressive and intimidating behaviour toward a law-enforcement official, on numerous occasions? While the current analysis reviewed the intersection of class and gender, race is a salient factor. As noted by a Black Nova Scotian, from the Street Check report: “Black people in Nova Scotia have always suffered from inequality and discrimination and the police are a major part of that oppression [ ... ] We have always suffered from criminalization, false arrests and brutality. The justice system has not protected us the way it does the White community. The police [ ... ] keeps us down and maintains the status quo.”

A young mother expresses a similar sentiment when she states: “Our kids don't get a second chance with the police like White kids. You mess up once and it is going to impact you for the rest of your life. You'll get a record and then the police will always track you.” This sentiment demonstrates the systemic barriers experienced by Black people because of police practices in their communities. If the data suggest that people from Black communities are subject to over-surveillance through stop-and-search tactics, are more likely to experience use of force by the police, and are more likely to be impacted by harsher arrest decisions through the process of formal documentation, then people within these communities are criminalized. The current analysis suggests that White people are protected from similar scrutiny.

When considering additional infamous White Canadian criminals who escaped police attention for long periods of time, including Bruce MacArthur, who was responsible for the murders of both racialized and White gay men; Russel Williams, who murdered and sexually assaulted multiple White women; Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, also responsible for the murder and sexual assaults of White women; and finally Robert Picton, convicted of murdering Indigenous and White women, the similarities are worth noting. Much like the perpetrator of the mass casualties, these White predators may have escaped police attention for long periods due to the protection that their race may have provided for them. But, without access to previous police interactions involving these individuals, a thorough exploration is not possible.

Could fair police documentation practices of public citizens have alerted the police about the perpetrator's violent nature sooner, perhaps changing the initial course of the mass casualty investigation? By no means am I advocating for an intrusive police state in which all citizens are forced to provide their personal information and details to be subjected to unnecessary surveillance. I simply aim to highlight that, when the police engage in differential surveillance and documentation practices that target racialized communities, law-enforcement officials not only help to perpetrate long-standing disparities, but also compromise our collective safety.

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