B.C.’s human rights commissioner is launching an inquiry into police use of force against racialized people and people with mental health issues.
The Office of the Human Rights Commissioner announced the inquiry Tuesday (Jan. 30), which is aimed at quantifying the use of force by police agencies in B.C. The inquiry will build on the commissioner’s 2021 report “Equity is Safer” that revealed a disturbing pattern of discrimination in policing in the province.
“There is a direct connection between equity and safety. We need police that exercise non-biased decision-making and also that we eradicate systemic discrimination from policing more generally. That will actually result in safer communities,” commissioner Kasari Govender told Black Press Media.
She added the inquiry’s aim is to better understand who is at the receiving end of use of force by police, specifically looking at demographic data and whether they can understand racial data from that.
“Any gaps that we identify in that data, may as well be recommended that they collect that information in the future,” she told Black Press Media Tuesday.
The 2021 report used an expert analysis of data from five police jurisdictions – the Vancouver and Nelson police departments and the Surrey, Duncan and Prince George RCMP detachments – to show how Indigenous and Black people are “either grossly or significantly over-represented in arrest and chargeable incident statistics.” It also found that a great deal of police activity involves people experiencing mental health issues, “in which Indigenous, Black and Arab/West Asian people are also significantly over-represented.”
“Equity is Safer” was developed as a submission to the Special Committee on Reforming the Police Act, which included several recommendations to the provincial government in April 2021. The first reforms from the committee are set to be discussed this spring after a delay in fall of 2023.
Govender said earlier work, and from listening to racialized people from across B.C, shows that potential disparities in policing demand monitoring and action.
“This (inquiry) adds an additional area of police activity, which is use of force. It looks at a different kind of policing activity, which is one of the most significant pieces of it. But it also really shifts some of the focus onto mental health, in particular, potentially a different proportion of the use of force against public mental health concerns.”
The commissioner requested the information from B.C.’s Public Safety Ministry, and she said her office has received all of the information requests. The ministry receives annual reports on use of force from police departments in B.C.
Govender’s office will analyze the data to “determine whether it shows any disproportionate impacts to racialized persons or persons with mental health issues.” She said she hopes to present a report by the end of the year or in early 2025.
“I anticipate making quite a targeted report with very practical recommendations as much as possible to allow the ministry or police to really make change, to really give them guidance on how to create change.”
Black Press Media has reached out to the Public Safety Ministry for comment.
READ MORE: First reforms to B.C. Police Act delayed to spring 2024
– With a file from Tyler Harper