Posted February 8, 2011 in News
Despite the gross over-representation of crime stories in the news media and the constant push from the Conservatives for ‘tough on crime’ policies, Canadians still prefer a rational approach to reducing crime. According to a recent Environics Institute survey, 58% of Canadians prefer preventive strategies toward crime reduction, compared to 36% that prefer harsh punishments. These results shouldn’t be all that surprising in light of the 2008 federal election that saw the Conservatives win a mere 38% of the votes cast by the 59% of the electorate that actually voted. If the federal opposition parties care to act in accordance with the will of Canadians, they should push for a more humane and evidence-based approach to crime. Not only will they potentially win more votes, but they’ll get the fringe benefit of actually reducing crime.
Click here to read more about the results of the survey.
Posted January 27, 2011 in News
The 58 new Winnipeg police officers promised by Mayor Sam Katz as part of his re-election campaign will cost $4.2 million per year. This comes at the same time the city won’t guarantee they’ll continue gang diversion social programs being cut by the federal Conservatives (CBC, Free Press).
From the CBC piece:
Liz Wolff of New Directions said Wednesday it costs $13,000 a year to keep one of the program’s 35 boys in the program, where they receive counselling, access to educational resources and also help for their families.
Prison and jail, on the other hand, costs roughly 10 times as much, Wolff said, adding the program has boasted success in working with the boys.
Posted December 9, 2010 in News
Two weeks ago marked the twentieth anniversary of the death of Neil Stonechild (pictured), who died of hypothermia after being picked up by members of the Saskatoon Police Service and left in a field on the outskirts of the city when the temperature was -28C. His death and similar incidents culminated in a formal inquiry in 2003.
But so many years later, accounts of this police practice are still coming out in Winnipeg. Last Friday, Evan Maud “was taken to the outskirts of Winnipeg by city police, threatened with a Taser and then mocked as they made him run away.”
Recent research by Elizabeth Comack and Nahanni Fontaine has revealed a number of other recent stories of police dropoffs in Winnipeg, challenging the claim by former Police Chief Ewatski that such tales were simply “urban lore.”
A recent study by University of Winnipeg professors has found that at least 76 people have been taken on starlight tours by Winnipeg police, and that Aboriginal men are often targeted.
The Winnipeg Police Service say they will not investigate the incidents since they have not received a formal complaint.
Many people are reluctant to make formal complaints to the Law Enforcement Review Agency (LERA), or the police’s Professional Standards Unit (PSU). Complainants often don’t feel taken seriously by the process, they fear being re-traumatized in being questioned by PSU police officers, and many who approach Copwatch for help fear police reprisals for speaking out. A third body that will take complaints against police, the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), has not yet been formed.
“In taking no action, twenty years after it became apparent that this is a problem, the police are ensuring that this kind of incident will happen again, quite possibly resulting in more deaths,” said Winnipeg Copwatch member Macho Philipovich.
Posted November 28, 2010 in News
A Copwatcher in San Francisco was assaulted by a plain clothes police officer on November 18, 2010. The incident was videotaped:
Posted October 21, 2010 in News
Despite somewhat differing views on the root causes of crime, mayoral candidates Sam Katz and Judy Wasylycia-Leis have both promised to hire more police officers if elected, and have made safety and crime reduction central to their campaigns. Manitoba has one of the highest crime rates in the country, with crime disproportionately affecting Winnipeg’s working class and racialized communities, as well as women, at least 75 of whom have gone missing or been murdered in Manitoba in the past two decades.
In boosting the number of police, though, both candidates, to different degrees, are following the path of the so-called “law & order” politics of the federal Conservative party, who’ve used a non-existent rise in crime to justify construction of expensive new prisons[1]. Research has consistently shown that incarceration actually increases crime, so the Conservatives may end up getting the stats they need not far down the road.
But Judy and Sam should both be looking at more creative solutions to crime prevention than a ramping up of the status quo, and consider working with the province to follow in the footsteps of Ontario’s recent decriminalization of sex work, in response to the ongoing crisis of missing women. New Zealand decriminalized sex work in 2003, and in the time since then, they’ve seen a modest decrease in the number of sex workers on the street, and a significant increase in the likelihood they’ll report crimes committed against them.
In 2001, Portugal took the visionary step of re-framing their drug policy as a public health issue, rather than one of crime. They decriminalized all drugs, setting up users with treatment and harm reduction services instead of costly prison sentences. In the years since, teen drug use dropped, as did contraction of HIV, as well as heroin overdose deaths. Twice as many people are now seeking treatment as when drug use was criminalized.
These two policy changes would undercut gang violence more than could 1,000 new police officers, depriving them of their reason for warring over turf, as well as of their economic reason for existence.
Another top crime problem in working-class Winnipeg communities is, of course, police misconduct, brutality, impunity, and racial profiling. Reports have repeatedly raised these points over the last 20 years[2], and have repeatedly been ignored by politicians. Some simple ways politicians can work to solve these problems include
- ending the practice of police investigating police
- implementing the recommendations of the Manitoba Aboriginal Justice Inquiry, which found the justice system had “failed Manitoba’s Aboriginal people on a massive scale”
- seeing that the police respond to community feedback and engage in dialogue, such as recommendations made jointly by Copwatch and the Manitoba Association for Rights and Liberties, and backed by the Law Enforcement Review Agency of Manitoba, the Canadian Association of Journalists, and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association that the Winnipeg Police Service adopt policy to prevent illegal camera confiscations by police[3]
- allowing communities an accessible process to prevent repeat problem officers from patrolling in their neighbourhoods
- offering Law Enforcement Review Agency complainants, who are always up against the best lawyers the police union can buy, free legal representation from the start of the complaint process
- not allowing police officers the right to decline to testify at LERA hearings
- revoking the right of the Downown BIZ, a private police force policing public space, to enforce the Intoxicated Persons Detention Act
Neither mayoral candidate has addressed any of these issues, at least so far as we know. Everyone deserves the right to safety, but Sam and Judy have both made a lot of noise in this campaign about the issue of crime without showing an understanding of the problem, its causes, or its potential solutions.
Image: CTV News
Notes
- Despite an overall trend of decreasing crime over the past ten years in Canada, the Conservatives have argued for the need for more prisons based on a Statistics Canada increase in the category of unreported crimes, though StatsCan have said that the Conservatives are misusing those numbers.
- See, for example
- The Report of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba (1991)
- The Racialized Communities and Police Services interim report (2007) included a number of stories, for example:
- “Two officers put me in a car and took me outside of the city. I thought I’d done something wrong but didn’t know why they were taking me out. They called someone on the radio and when we stopped somewhere outside Winnipeg another car pulled in. They raped me, took turns. They were cruel and disgusting and when they were finished they left me there. I had to find my way back.”
- The Taman Inquiry (2008)
- Newcomers report, by the Winnipeg Police Advisory Board (2009), which cited:
- “Lack of respect by some police toward the newcomer community in general”
- “General harassment of black youth during everyday activities”
- “Unwarranted combative/assaultive behavior… used by some police officers in the early stages of a contact, or after arrest”
- “i.e. stories of being beaten with a phone book so no marks are left”
- In the past six years, the Winnipeg Police Service have confiscated the footage of a Genie award-winning filmmaker, have arrested a CBC cameraperson for filming them, and have confiscated the camera of a Winnipeg Sun photographer, among a number of other incidents.
Posted October 20, 2010 in News
Researchers from the University of Manitoba and the Southern Chiefs Organization have completed a study calling for aboriginal people in Winnipeg to share stories about their interactions with the police.
Among dozens of other stories, they heard of a woman being driven to the outskirts town and left there as recently as December of 2008.
Posted October 13, 2010 in News
On Monday, October 18th, from noon to 1pm there will be a free speaking event, Racialized Policing in Winnipeg, at the Urban Circle Training Centre, 519 Selkirk.
Nahanni Fontaine is the Justice Director of the Southern Chiefs’ organization which represents 36 First Nations in Manitoba.
Elizabeth Comack is a Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology at the University of Manitoba and a Research Associate for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives – Manitoba (CCPA –MB).
This event is part of the Urban and Inner-City Studies Speaker Series.
Posted September 28, 2010 in News
Earlier this year, a disturbing trend was emerging 
in the US states of Illinois, Maryland, and Massachusetts: people were being charged simply for filming the police.
In June, Gizmodo’s Wendy McElroy did an excellent writeup called Are Cameras the New Guns? in which she pointed to the case of Anthony Graber, a motorcyclist whose helmet-cam captured a plainclothes Maryland State Trooper (pictured) waving a gun around at him while pulling Graber over for speeding.
After he posted the video on YouTube, Graber was arrested, charged, and faced up to 16 years of jail time simply for having filmed an on-duty police officer. McElroy pointed out that the police did this through a bizarre invocation of US laws against wiretapping.
Yesterday, a Maryland judge dismissed the charges against Graber, denying his actions fell under Maryland’s wiretap law, which was “originally intended to protect citizens from government intrusions into their privacy.”
The decision can always be appealed to a higher court, but this is good news for US copwatchers.
Posted September 20, 2010 in News
Radley Balko published an article today that discusses cameras to use when copwatching. It looks mostly at tools to keep your footage safe from police who might want to confiscate or delete it, which has been a big problem in Winnipeg, among other cities.
One of the things mentioned is new software for iPhone or Android-enabled phones that can let you upload your footage to the internet at the same time as you’re recording.
Posted July 18, 2010 in Events,News
Winnipeg Copwatch is hosting a free workshop on how to safely and effectively witness police interactions. It will include sections on camera and recording skills, de-escalation techniques, knowing your rights, and more. Whether you’re interested in witnessing on your own to prevent police misconduct, starting a copwatching group with friends, participating in Winnipeg Copwatch patrols, or just learning more skills, this workshop is for you.
Come to the Rudolf Rocker Cultural Centre, on the 3rd floor of 91 Albert Street, Wednesday, July 28, 2010 from 7:00-9:00PM. The workshop is free, and volunteers will be there to provide childcare.
