With Stephen Harper’s commitment to get tough on crime, and police forces across Canada demanding new officers, the time has never been better to hire more minority officers.

The 2002 report, Strategic Human Resources Analysis of Public Policing in Canada notes, the police force is one of Canada’s least diverse workforces, both at the rank and file level and at the executive level.

This is problematic on many levels, but particularly to the implementation of one strategy proven to crack down on crime: community policing.

For Black communities across Canada, community policing has not been a widespread workable option. Our long history of tension, apprehension, mistrust, generalized feelings of marginalization and the dismal numbers of Black police officers has not allowed this strategy much latitude.

For community policing to be effective in our communities, the Canadian police forces must increase diversity within its ranks and together we must rectify the issue of community marginalization.

To begin, a 2002 report released by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics shows the proportion of visible minorities in the police force is significantly below the national average. According to the Centre, minorities represent nearly 10 per cent of Canada’s labour force, but only 2.9 per cent of all police officers. As we move up the ranks to senior officers, minorities represent an even smaller number: a mere 1.0 per cent.

If community policing is to succeed within the Black community, adequate internal representation from the Black community is a prerequisite. Community policing is effective when “barriers between the police and community members are broken downâe¦barriers that exist between the police and the community are more easily transcended if the officer is from that community group,” says Tony Altomare, a professor at Centennial College Police Foundation’s Program.

How then do we increase the numbers of Black officers? This objective has been the mission of the Association of Black Law Enforcers (ABLE) since its inception in 1992. “We offer a number of scholarships each year to young people who get into the criminal justice profession. By that, we donâe(TM)t just mean policing, but every area of the criminal justice system,” says Chris Bullen, president, ABLE.

A second strategy to increase the numbers of Black officers is for community colleges to actively recruit from the Black community.

Internally, police organizations are all too aware of the importance of recruitment efforts. In reality, however, this is not happening. Describing their recruitment procedures as primarily one of making presentations to high school students on college tours, these programs need to modernize and innovate their recruitment techniques.

One community college has done just that. “We work in partnership with Humber College to recruit students for their Police Foundation Program,” says Bullen. “They had vision and realized the demographics of urban centres are changing. They wanted their student body to reflect that change and have made tremendous strides to ensure their recruitment efforts will accomplish that.”

The challenge now is for all community college programs to catch up to the initiative shown by Humber and not wait for recruits to come to them, but to go out and get them.

Next, reducing the feeling of community marginalization between the black community and the police is also a pivotal part of achieving effective community policing.

Rightly or wrongly the Black community carries a generalized feeling of marginalization in relations to their treatment from various police forces. Over the last number of years, these “feelings” have been largely substantiated by various reports. To note a few:

  • In Montreal, a survey conducted in 2003 by the CTV show On Assignment of more than 1,300 area students found “94 per cent of black students felt they were more likely to be unfairly targeted by authorities because of their race.”
  • In Halifax, a human rights adjudicator ruled in 2003 that Const. Michael Sanford discriminated against Kirk Johnson by wrongfully pulling over and seizing his car in April 1998. Halifax’s chief of police subsequently apologized to Mr. Johnson, admitting the heavyweight boxer had indeed been discriminated against.
  • Most recently in May 2005, the Kingston, Ontario police force released findings from the first racial profiling study done in Canada which confirmed “Kingston police stop a disproportionate number of young black males” in comparison to Caucasians, Aboriginals, Asians and South Asians.

The Black community and the police have been butting heads over who bears the brunt of responsibility for our marginalization for quite some time. But this stance does not work, neither for the police nor for the Black community. If the outbreak of violence and the senseless loss of lives over the last year have showed anything, it is that we are all losing ground. Our community must let go of its resentment and begin to work in cooperation with the police.

“It’s all about respect,” says Altomare, of Centennial’s program philosophy. “We teach our students that they cannot treat people differently, they must try to understand different cultures and where people come from so they can treat them accordingly.”

This attitude will go a long way towards reducing feelings of marginalization.

A second solution is offered by ABLE. For community policing to be successful we need “the involvement of everyone in the community,” says Bullen. “That means the police, school boards, all levels of government, and most importantly parents. We must ensure ongoing communication between all parties.”

If implemented correctly, community policing can only be a positive step forward for both the Black community and the police. Developing a working, respectful and trusting relationship between the police and the Black community is a necessary step in ridding neighbourhoods of the issues that plague Canada’s urban centres: drugs, gangs, and non-discretionary violence.

Community policing is just one strategy in the struggle to take our communities back, but it’s a good one. We have to try something different. Clearly the status quo is not working.

Tricia Hylton

Tricia Hylton is a freelance writer living in Toronto, Ontario. Through her writing, Tricia hopes to provide insights to create conversation and understanding on the impact of Canada’s social, economic...