Police reform recommendations is drawing scepticism

BY PAUL JUNOR

There has been much pressure placed on the Toronto Police Services in the wake of the death of George Floyd on May 25^th, 2020, and the death of 29-year-old Regis Korchinski-Paquet. This led to work being done to address anti-black racism and anti-Indigenous racism.

On Tuesday, August 11^th, 2020, the TPS released an important report to address racism issues. It was the continuation of earlier reports in progress and expanded to seek more public consultations from Toronto city council, contributions from community advocates, as well as the board’s advisory panels.

There were 81 recommendations in the report which were extensive and covered such areas as: reallocating TPS funds to other organizations, ensuring greater accountability and transparency, non-police alternatives for committees, changes to police oversight, and expansion of the force’s mobile crisis intervention team.

Many of these recommendations were meant to address specific concerns that members of black, Indigenous, and racialized communities had with respect to police accountability and safety. Toronto Mayor, John Tory, stated,

“We’ve put forward something that has been amended and improved and isn’t meant to be the ultimate answer, but a comprehensive series of reforms that set in motion a process that should bring about the kind of change that is needed in response to the people that have marched on the street and that have been touch with our offices and so on.”

The release of the report on Tuesday, August 11^th, 2020 stated that, “This is a recognition of the fact that we know we must revise because systemic racism in policing threatens the: equal rights, justice, opportunity, and well-being of Indigenous, black and marginalized communities in our city. This is not something that’s acceptable to me as mayor or to you the people of Toronto.”

Many believed that the mayor was too optimistic about the reforms.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) commented that it does not provide “Non-binding directions to police staff to consider additional reforms.” It notes further that, “There are important gaps in recommendations, particularly in relation to investigating and addressing officer misconduct and policies on use of force and the laying of charges.”

Paul Bailey, president of the Black Health Alliance observes that, “Even if we make reforms, even if we shift things around, we’re still missing the fundamental fact that we need to invest in the upstream and not the downstream. The system of community safety that we set up is heavily reliant on policing and is hospital based,” He is convinced that there must be a commitment to a sustainable poverty reduction action plan which would help community-based organizations to deal with other issues as: crime, gangs and drugs

John Sewell, a member of the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition believes that there should be the development of a public committee that within six months could design a blueprint for police reform.

Jim Hart, Chair of the TPSB observes that, “This report is a beginning. It begins to address some of the important issues we face as a community.”