“I conclude that random street checks, which take considerable time and effort for a police service to conduct, have little to no verifiable benefits relating to the level of crime or even arrests,” an Ontario judge concludes after an 11-months review, including extensive consultation with members of the Ontario Black, Indigenous and racialized communities, as well as police representatives.
This morning the Halifax Board of Police Commissioners got a preview of a report and recommendations about police checks and race, and it’s all super secret. Not good, I say.
The NDP continues to push its Bill 36, a private members bill that would stop the racist practice of police checks in Nova Scotia. The proposed legislation is now in second reading, but will need Liberal support to proceed any further.
Didn’t hear much about the police check study over the summer, but the NS Human Rights Commission recently launched an online survey asking all HRM residents about their encounters with police. We have long argued that what is needed is not yet another study, but an immediate stop to the racist practice, but maybe the survey has some redeeming qualities.
Jason MacLean, president of the NSGEU, was pulled over for driving with a tinted window. At least, that’s the police officer’s story. MacLean is convinced he was pulled over because he is Black.
Four videos on carding in Halifax, made by then NS Community College journalism student Matt Brand, featuring former boxer Kirk Johnson, social worker Lana MacLean, CBC journalist Phlis McGregor, and several people who were street checked and didn’t like it at all. There’s more on the website he created.
Halifax police much more likely to arrest Black people for marijuana possession. Oh no, what could possibly explain that?
Don’t like carding in Nova Scotia? You can print a petition, and collect signatures as you go about your day.
As police street checks continue unabated in Halifax and all of Nova Scotia, members of the African Nova Scotian communities and their allies are collecting signatures for a petition asking that the racist practice be banned province-wide.
I went home mad after listening to Black Lucasville and Upper Hammonds Plains residents talk about racist police behaviour in my neck of the woods. Shame on the politicians who feign surprise and can’t come up with anything better than an analysis that will go on forever.