BC human rights inquiry launched against police use of force

B.C. Human Rights Commissioner Kasari Govender has launched an inquiry that will examine police officers’ use of force, and whether it’s “used disproportionately against certain racialized communities or people with mental health issues.”

Govender says the inquiry aims to identify who force is being used against, “whether any disproportionate impact revealed amounts to systemic discrimination,” and what can be done to mitigate any issues that are found.

“There is a direct connection between equity and community safety. Systemic discrimination erodes the foundation of trust between communities and law enforcement, jeopardizing the safety of all residents,” she said Friday.

The inquiry comes after a 2021 report revealed what the commissioner describes as a “disturbing pattern of discrimination in policing in the province.”

Govender tells The Leader Spirit work has been ongoing around oversight on policing, with particular examinations of “systemic racism in the context of policing.”

“In the past, we wrote a report called Equity is Safer, and we looked into certain policing practices, for example, detentions, police detaining people, and looked at the racial breakdown of who is being detained. What we didn’t do in that report was look at how force is being used, and that’s a gap in B.C. There is nobody in B.C. that is responsible for or is collecting comprehensive data that’s publicly available about how police are using force. This inquiry aims to fill that gap,” she explained.

The human rights commissioner says data will be collected from the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, which collects data from policing agencies about use of force. Her office does not anticipate at this time that it will be collecting data from police directly, she adds.

“There’s a statutory requirement for police agencies to provide that information to the government,” she said. “We’re going to see if we can discern racial data on that basis and have a better understanding of how force is used against people with mental health issues and provide that data more publicly.”

Govender says the findings of the inquiry will likely be made public around December or January 2025.

Once complete, the inquiry will make targeted recommendations to address concerns.

Data helps to ‘bolster what is already being experienced’: commissioner

She says data her office has already collected around police activity and systemic racism shows a disproportionate impact on certain groups, backing up “what many people have already said for a long time about their own experiences in community.”

“And that can often be the power of collecting disaggregated demographic data. We often say we can’t act on what we don’t know, and policy makers won’t be able to act on what they don’t know. That doesn’t mean community doesn’t already know this, and data often serves to provide a bolster to what is already being experienced and communicated by people who are subjected to inequitable practices,” Govender said.

“The role of the Commissioner’s Office is to shine a light on inequities and address them directly to ensure justice for all. That is what this inquiry seeks to do.”

The Commissioner’s Office notes the 2021 report, Equity is Safer: Human Rights Considerations for Policing Reform in British Columbia, described how Indigenous, Black, and other racialized groups are “grossly or significantly overrepresented” in statistics around arrests and charges.

“In my view, equity makes us safer. This isn’t to necessarily undermine policing activities — this is to say policing activities should be evidence-based. And evidence-based policing practices will be what makes us safer, not policing practices based on bias and stereotyping. This is really about making us all safer in our communities, by building trust and building equity,” Govender added.

-With files from Catherine Garrett