Audio transcript: Unsettling Racism in the Present, Imagining Different Futures

This transcript is based on automatic captioning and has been corrected for accuracy, but not yet for punctuation, etc.

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Audrey Macklin:
Good afternoon. Welcome everyone. My name is Audrey Macklin and I’m the director of the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies. I’m delighted that so many of you who have joined us for the first of what we hope will be an ongoing conversation convened by our centre on these urgent issues. There are almost a hundred of you who have joined so far, and we expect many more. We’re meeting online today, but most of us I think are in Toronto. And, and so we acknowledge the land that most of us are situated on as the traditional territory of many nations,including the Mississauga’s of the Credit, the Anishinaabi, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples. Toronto is also now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Metis people. We also acknowledge that Toronto is covered by Treaty 13, with the Mississauga’s of the Credit. There’s much about the past few weeks that is unprecedented. The uprising in the United States, Canada and around the world. Against anti-Black racism and police brutality has mobilized movement. That is spreading and gaining momentum. It is bringing into mainstream conversation ideas like police, defunding, and abolition for the first time. ideas that have been spreading in the Academy. And an activism and in activist communities for awhile. But what isn’t unprecedented at all. Are the events that sparked this, the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The death of Regis Korchinski-Paquet here in Toronto. Most recently, the police killing of two Indigenous people. Rod Levi. Chantel Moore in New Brunswick. These are the lethal expressions of systemic racism within an institution of the state authorized to inflict violence in the name of protection and security. But whose protection and whose security? It’s been going on for as long as Canada has had a police force. My colleagues at the centre for criminology and sociolegal studies research here Sociolo- Socio legal studies here at the university of Toronto Research. Write and teach about racism, law and the criminal justice system in Canada and elsewhere. And they do so from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. And today we focus on policing, but in future forums, we hope to explore other dimensions of systemic. Racism within legal, social and economic institutions. So let me introduce our speakers, our panelists in the order, they will speak as well as our moderator. First professor Ayobami Laniyonu is a political scientist here at the centre. His research interests include criminal justice reform. Urban politics and statistical methodologies, his current projects explore police use of force. Against the homeless and individuals with serious mental illness. The effect of gentrification on eviction rates in large urban areas and the effect of police violence on political behavior. Dr. Beatrice Jauregui, an anthropologist, She researches international police and military actors in India. Maldives the UK, the U S and elsewhere. Using ethnographic and historical methods. She’s the author of the 2016 book, Provisional Authority: Police, Order, and Security in India Her current research projects include an ethno history of police unions and uprisings in post-colonial India. Julius Haag is professor of sociology at university of Toronto Mississauga and a doctoral candidate at the centre. His research explores individual and community level impacts of policing and criminalization on young people from racialized and marginalized backgrounds, especially young people of Afro Caribbean descent. Professor Scot Wortley is criminologist whose research focuses on policing, youth and racism in the criminal justice system. Dr.Wortley has been a leader in public criminology in Canada since the 1990s. Most recently he authored the Halifax street checks report, which grew out of longstanding complaints of racialized patterns of street checks. By police in that city. Dr. Wortley was also retained as the expert by the Ontario human rights commission in its inquiry into racial profiling and racial discrimination of Black persons. Against Black persons by the Toronto police service. Professor Kamari Clark. Is jointly appointed to the centre and to Diaspora and transnational studies. And she recently joined us at the centre for Criminology and socio legal studies. Dr. Clark is a legal anthropologist who over the last two decades has conducted research on issues related to legal institutions. International legal domains, religious nationalism, and the politics of globalization and race. Her newly published. And acclaimed book is Affective justice, the international criminal court and the pan Africanist pushback. So. The way we will proceed is as follows. I will begin by asking questions of each of our speakers. You are invited to pose questions in our chat room. After the questions are done or after the speakers are done, professor Clarke will moderate the Q and A, and then offer closing remarks. So, let me begin the questions with professor Laniyonu. Ayo, can you share with us your thoughts about the present moment in light of your own research?

Ayobami Laniyonu
Yeah. Thank you for the introduction. You know, I come in. To the present moment, you know, it’s a, it’s a bit of a mix of the personal and the professional and academic. As someone who grew up in the United States but was born in Canada and you know currently resides in Canada, you know I feel a mix of conflicting emotions, right, the pain, the grief at the event, right. The hopefulness that this moment will lead to. Measurable and meaningful, impactful change. And, you know, kind of. An interesting relationship to coming to grips with and understanding of these issues in Canada. You know, my research really focused – a lot of my initial research focused on the political consequences of overpolicing in communities of color. focusing specifically on electoral consequences and the effects on political participation. So looking at these current protests I’m really kind of amazed at how widespread they are. How multi-racial, at least in the United States, the protest movement has been. And I think consistently about the effects. And we know the political science literature that protests can have on electoral outcomes in terms of policy and then moving on political elites. Right. So, There was a period. During the event when the media was covering looting, looting violence. That sort of thing and my mind had turned to the debates in political science research literature on the effectiveness of violent versus nonviolent political action. Of course, what we saw in the looting was a mix of political violence, right? Expressive political violence. Opportunistic looting. It was a mix of a provocation by far-right folks, and so on and so forth. But I was really kind of drawn back to this literature because it suggests that both violent and nonviolent demonstrations or protests can actually swing policy makers towards more redistributions. I’m thinking here. Researched by Ryan Enos who studied the Watts protests in Los Angeles and demonstrated. The positive effect it had on social spending in that instance, thinking of dr. Gillion at UPenn who characterize as the manner in which. Even violent protests can possibly affect the demands of protesters. So what was at the forefront of my mind. You know, I’ve also also been thinking of, have been having conversations with colleagues in Hong Kong about protest movements there. And the significance of a protest movements among young people. Right. So again, Bleeding to the personal, I have a younger sister who’s quite young. And, you know, my colleague in Hong Kong teaches middle school. And we were both thinking about the impacts that growing up in a, in a social movement era and, you know, This please make no mistake about it. This is one of the most pronounced movements for civil rights. It shows against anti-Black racism. In a generation. You know, we were thinking. And discussing literature that characterize the effect on young people, social act in these movements. That characterizes the effect that these movements can have on them. On lifelong political engagement and participation model. among young folks. So I’m really thinking about my little sister in that regard. As someone situated in Canada, I can also, I’m also constantly thinking about the impact that Black politics in United States has on Black communities, Afro descendant communities in other. National contexts. Right. And so my work will, it looks at the ways in which Black politics in the United States affects political opportunity structures and other national contexts. There’s a fantastic work, a book by a sociologist [name]. That characterizes the influence of Black NGOs, intellectuals, international organizations. Knowledge networks on. Land reforms for Afro Colombians in Colombia. And on on the. Preventive action based in Brazil. And so, of course in Canada, we have terrible case of a Regis and. Numerous of these killings of Afro. Canadians of Black comedians, but I think really about. Protests and demonstrations toppling. Statues of King Leopold, the slave traders in the United kingdom and thinking about what this moment might mean for transnational Black politics. Interest in sort of diasporic politics and flows and the sort of. ebbs and flows and, and, and for me, this is a really interesting moment in that regard. as a criminologist, I’m really interested of course, in. The policing of Marginalized individuals and socially vulnerable individuals, homeless individuals, folks with mental illness. And of course, I’m really interested in. Hopeful. That the present moment might bring about important and what I would argue are very needed changes in the policing of these vulnerable individuals. But I, you know, I’m reminded that all the work that demonstrates that policing and other sort of criminal justice institutions work in part to manage. Inequality. Right. And so I’m concerned and interested in the extent to which procedural reforms, administrative reforms. Even sort of deeper structural reforms within police departments per se. Address this fundamental inequality, right? I view police violence really as a, as a symptom of a deeper structural disease of Anti-Black racism, systemic racism and inequality. And you know I’m a bit concerned or I’m interested in the extent to which this movement leads us to sort of address deeper structural issues that produce, you know, the policing of marginalized individuals and, you know, in my capacity as sort of an empirical quantitative social scientist, I’m interested in the data that will come from this and the potentials and pitfalls of this data. Right. You know? It’s disapointing. That. Police in the United States. I’m sorry, police. In Canada. Don’t sort of collect statistics that can help us characterize racial discrimination and Racial treatment and Make that publicly available or haven’t been doing that for Quite a long time. But I’m also thinking of work, my work, which sort of characterizes the. The ability of police officers to misrepresent. The folks that they stop, errors in police data. You know, Purposeful mis. Classification of the identities of people who are stopped. And the ways in which these sorts of problems or these sorts of issues produce what we tend to believe are pretty gross underestimates of racial disparities and police contact. So. You know, interested in you know a lot of dimensions of this issue? Hopeful. For the most part, but really grappling with the role that research scientists play in this sort of movements A colleague. Reminded me that, you know, justice and truth are inseparable. And so in our capacity as researchers, you know, producing knowledge or what we’re doing our best to produce knowledge, you know, I’m hopeful that, you know, The research that. We produce here at the centre, it can be useful. In our society’, pursuit of justice and equity.

Audrey Macklin:
Thank you. Thank you, Ayo . Thank you for both the breadth of your comments and for reminding us those of us who are academics of our responsibilities. Moving forward with this Bea, I’d like to turn to you next. To ask you the same question. What,in light of your own knowledge and experience and research, you have been thinking about over these last few weeks?

Beatrice Jauregui:
Thank you. I think similar to Ayo in some ways it’s. A mix of things. On the whole, that’s certainly personal and. Professional, scholarly. I’m also, I’m a transplant from the U S from Philadelphia to here to Canada. And it’s very interesting to watch from the other side of the border. What started in parts of the U S but now clearly has exploded and expanded so far beyond that in a way that I feel. Mostly also like I am hopeful about and energized, and certainly this is punctuated by. you know, sadness. Depression, even sometimes fury, exhaustion. But as you said in your introduction, Audrey of course these issues, and these kind of events are not at all new, they’re are centuries old, even if the forms have shifted. Across time and space. But while systemic racism. Discriminatory violence by police. Even mass discontent. And protests are not new. You know, many people have been expressing that this still somehow feels different. This moment, even for those of us, either with deep knowledge of history or whose awareness and. Action perhaps has increased. In terms of anti-racism. Activism since the rise of the Black lives matter movement over the past seven years, the past decade. Which, you know, as they say, what’s really just a revitalization of ongoing, you know, ongoing Black liberation movement. So I think, and I think it’s not just, you know, an effective difference or something that feels different, but there. There really are structural differences and also differences in, you know, again, and who’s participating. As Ayo alluded to. So I’m certainly, you know, structurally, we are in the midst still of this global pandemic. Which certainly didn’t cause, but has I think increased. The movement of an economic depression. So both of these things together have in many ways highlighted or exacerbated, exacerbated existing inequalities. Yeah. So it is a different kind of moment in which all of this is happening. And I also I’ve, I’ve been, again not just amazed, but, but energized by just seeing vastly more people. Participating in the uprising in many more places, internationally and many more small towns. And specifically more white people putting pressure on their fellow white people to acknowledge and fight white supremacy. But also allowing just more space for that to be okay, too. So there really is something that feels very global about this. I feel in a way that it hasn’t felt before, you know, we’re seeing protests, not even just in the Anglo world, but. In many countries across the world and images of things like, you know, artists in Pakistan, painting the image of George Floyd and calling for. Peace and justice. So I’m, I really am. I’m hopeful. I don’t wanna say cautiously optimistic, but you know, I do, I do feel like this. This global surge does represent a real potential for massive and substantive change that we can realize. Of course, I’m also concerned about things like. You know, short attention spans rapid news cycles and such. And so I think it’s. It’s really crucial that we keep the spotlight centreed here on these issues. And indeed, hopefully realize some kind of systemic transformation.

Audrey Macklin:
Thank you. Thanks. Bea. both of you have, have spoken. With a sense of. Hopefulness. While recognizing the potential roadblocks or limitations or obstructions that lay ahead. Julius. I’m going to turn to you and ask you to speak about your, your. Kind of. Thoughts about the present moment?

Julius Haag:
Thank you, Audrey. Thank you. Ayo and Bea. I think at the – A lot of the things I wanted to say, I think we’re very well encapsulated by Ayo and Bea in their comments. You know, there’s a mixture of the deep anger that comes from seeing what’s happening now, but also that mix of hopefulness that we’re in a sea change moment. A moment. In our histories where. There is a broad based support for systemic change and not just. Analysis and not just potentially even reform, but fundamentally changing the composition of our social safety net, about how we fund institutions and the public sphere. But, you know, as Bea and Ayo both know it’s a very complex moment because we are in a global pandemic. That’s changing so many aspects of our public life and that’s also. A very particularly divisive moment, ideologically in our political history that has pushed, you know, some very dangerous extremes. I think. But, you know, these, these, and I think Bea’s comments speak very well to this, that I, I hope that this is not something that comes and goes. I don’t think it is, but you know, the, the movement too. Defund the police under other names, the movement to reprioritize funding, to communities and to initiatives and communities and the people who need those supports and to change those, the structures it’s not new, right? This is something that has been galvanized because of. The death of George Floyd because of the death of many other Black and Indigenous people. I think what’s important about this moment. is that It has serve to both unite people and galvanize the resolve towards these initiatives, but also to draw in constituents particularly. Political constituents. I think that for a long time,have sat on the fence about this, or payed lip service to these issues, but have not actually pushed for any kind of. Real systemic change. And. You know, there’s no shortage in our history. And I think of Toronto specifically in this context of reports and recommendations and even attempts to constrain the power of the police. Or to cut police funding for a more specific example that have proven largely ineffectual. And the police. have Shown themselves historically that they’re able to weather. Attempts to change emanating from the political sphere and from the public. As those regimes come in and out of power, as, you know, Bea pointed out we are in this 24 hour news cycle where people’s attention span tends to move off events very quickly. And, you know, the police. Particularly within the subculture of the police internally. It’s largely resistant to attempts to change. So, you know, now we have a myriad of calls for defending the police. They’re not new questions, but they are United under this banner that is gaining momentum nationally and globally as well. Part of that concern. And a lot of the questions I think we hear about this is that the language of defunding, the police sounds like punitive language, and I’m not opposed to language being punitive in its nature. You know, if we want to call it refund to communities or reallocating funding. You know, that’s not new in our public sphere. If we look at the last 30 years of public policy here in Ontario. All other social institutions have faced budget cuts and defunding. The police have been resistant to those efforts. And we’re seeing that borne out right now in some of the conditions, some of the social and structural conditions that people now face. In our city and our province. It’s also not a new time in terms of these calls from Black organizers and Black communities and Toronto open calling for the reduction of the police funding for constraining the scope of police powers for greater police oversight for disarming the police. For reinvesting in communities for decades now. So in that sense, I’m happy to see this movement picking up traction now and to pick up ally ship and to pick up broad-based political support from actors who have not been involved with it. But I want to recognize that it’s. The continuation of an ongoing struggle that has been faced by, you know, different generations of people who have taken up this fight. It’s very complex issue, ultimately because the police do play a role in crime prevention and the presence of the police does have an impact on crime rates. But I think in a longterm sense what we’re trying to do through a movement like this is to reduce the reliance and the police by improving those social and structural conditions that contribute to crime. In the longterm. So. You know, I think about just sort of closing thoughts here that Toronto right now is facing a billion and a half dollar shortfall in relation to COVID and the impacts of the coronavirus. And. A significant amount of cuts are going to need to be made. And the way it’s being tabled right now, a significant number of those cuts are going to come to the programs and services that people rely on. To make a modicum of success in society to have mobility, to have services, to get the supports that they need. Very little of that is going to come out of the police budget. And maybe thinking about COVID something that is taught us is that. Massive reallocations of public funding changes to social programs, changes in our laws and our policies that once seemed impossible or that we were told were impossible are actually within reach. And I am bouyed by A lot of the support we see among young people and the movement of young people, because we know that criminalization from the research has the effect of reducing the political participation of young people and disenfranchising them. But I’m, I’m very hopeful for the support I see from our students here at U of T who have reached out to me to talk about it. And I’ve been vocal on campus and, and other spheres, but also more generally speaking that this is a movement that is. Driven largely I think by many young organizers who are pushing this forward. So, you know, at a time that. As academics. I think there’s a very particular importance in us, in both educating and advocating and sharing the information that we have on these issues and our research and our perspective. Because we are at this counterfactual time where the narratives right now, are not being driven by the evidence that I think we have a duty to disseminate. Beyond just academic sphere. So I’ll leave it on that point and thank you.

Audrey Macklin:
Okay, well thank you. Thank you for bringing to the fore. I think the, the kinds of structural economic fiscal challenges that accompany so much of the push for equality that involve the police. But certainly don’t end with the police themselves. I’m going to turn it over to Scot now who has spent a lot of his career. Doing the kinds of reports that you have been talking about? That document. Conduct of police, the relationship to Black communities and the possibilities for internal reform. So Scot. In light of your research. What are your thoughts about the present moment and the possibilities for the future?

Julius Haag:
Scot you’re muted.

Scot Wortley:
Sorry. Technology. It’s been both an emotional time and a time to reflect further on you know our intellectual ization of, of race and crime and racial bias. And the research that myself and my students have been conducting over th last 20 years. Emotionally. You know, obviously the immediate images that we’re seeing and the anger and. Sadness and frustration that they produce has impacted me a great deal because I’ve got two young children and particularly my nine year old, trying to explain to her. What is going on in the streets, you know she can live in a little bit of a bubble at that age and this is the first time she’s been exposed to. You know, what has been an ongoing. Issue since the beginning of, of, of Canada and beginning of the United States. At the same time, I’m getting a sense of deja vu. I started examining these issues as a graduate student back in 1993. With the commission on systemic racism in the Ontario criminal justice system. And at that time, there was a lot of public unrest in both the United States and Canada. In the U S it was largely produced by the Rodney King case and, and the riots. That took place. Not only with the case itself, but it’s adjudication. And also some cases in Toronto at that time, there was a very high number of. A young Black man who had been shot in questionable circumstances that led to. Great protests and the formation of this commission in the early nineties. There was even what was referred to as the young street riot. Which did not, you know, reach the, the level of some of the urban unrest that we’ve seen. This time around, but you know, still it garnered, a lot of media attention. So I’ve got these feelings again, like think like everybody else has a hopefulness, you know, What has changed over the last 22 years? I do think. The, the demonstration seems much, seem much more global and importantly. I think they seem much more diverse. Then they were, you see a larger cross section of the population. Out on the streets expressing themselves. That that gives me, it gives me hope. Unfortunately, I’ve lived through many, many of these. Previous rounds of crisis where, you know, reports are tabled, recommendations are made. And it’s almost as if these commissions and these inquiries are used to buy time until the issue falls out of the media cycle. Then, you know, they buy more time by saying, we need to think and reflect on these recommendations. And then by the time. You know, a couple of years is past that particular commission or that particular effort is, is on the backburner and something new emerges. I think what I’m also worried about in my cynicism is I keep waiting for the counternarrative too. To emerge and I don’t think it has yet. And the counternarrative that I see. And I’ve seen again and again is a crime wave So a particularly. A heinous crime will take place. Sometimes involving minorities. And this will be used by the police to say, this is why you need public safety. And this is why you need to fund us I found that always with these crime waves. Funding for the police actually increases mainly because I think politicians see it as the only way in the short term to address public fears about theirown safety. Some of the community development angles which we know would work in the longterm. Aren’t on politicians radar, because they want to show that they’re doing something right now to make a difference and get results. And the institution that seems to step into that void again and again and again, and they’re very effective at it. Are the police and law enforcement. So I worry about what is going to happen and will the commitment of. You know, many of the people we see out marching now. To defund the police. or reAllocate police funding. Will that commitment be there. Will it be there when. They start and racialized fears start to re-emerge about crime. Guns and gangs and how will this movement continue. In the face of that counter narrative and we haven’t seen it yet. I think we’ve started to see a bit in Atlanta this past week. Where the police are, you know, engaged in what we might call depolicing, saying They’re not going to respond to 911 calls. They’re not going to engage in these. We’ve had threats of depolicing by the Toronto police association right here. You know, in, in the. 2003, 2004. You know, when they said, well, we’re not going to go into those areas. We’re not going to police I do think I’m really Really on kind of pins and needles waiting to see that counter narrative emerge. And I think it will eventually.

Audrey Macklin:
Thank you for that sobering a note on this and. Indeed this idea that. Institutions have their own longterm interests that they have long been able to sustain. Sometimes in the face of what you, we, as academics do, which is marshall data and evidence. And. And so this really does bring us to the question of. The role of evidence and data, the things that we as scholars produce and the ways in which they can be used or brushed aside. And I think that the. Inquiry model gives us lots of evidence of ways in which inquiries can become the policy response rather than the vehicle for policy responses. So, let me turn now to talking about evidence and data and the kind of knowledge that is generated by the work that each of you do. So Ayo I’m going to begin with, with you, we know emerging out of the death, for example, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, but not only her, many others, we know how mental health issues are treated as policing matters too often. And the ways in which that is too often, Too often leads to disastrous outcomes, particularly among those who are racialized. So what, what do we know from the data about how race. And mental health play out in the violence and the lethality of police encounters.

Ayobami Laniyonu:
Yeah, there’s. You know, taking them separately and then maybe the intersection. There’s basically consensus, right? That. People of color in the United States and in Canada as well, disproportionately bear the burden of police violence and injury in interactions with. Law enforcement. In the United States, it’s about three to five times the risk of White Americans for, for Blacks and Latinos, and for Indigenous Americans, it’s actually several times greater. You know, the relative risk that Indigenous American will experience police violence or injury in an encounter with law enforcement is. It’s the best of our knowledge is greater than that of a Black or Latino Americans. A little bit less research on that front. With a colleague in New York, we tried to estimate the same sort of disparity among folks with serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia or. Bipolar disorder, mania, those sorts of serious sorts of. Disorders. And it’s actually, I think we estimated between 12 and 20 times. Right. So the disparity there that the folks with serious mental illness face, relative to population without serious mental illnesses is Several times larger magnitude. And then at the intersection. It becomes even even greater. You know, the, the calls for defunding the police to me bring up. You know, a really important historical example of what’s. Defunding without reinvestment can do. Right. So the rates of contact between the police and folks with serious mental illness in the United States it’s partly a consequence of deinstitutionalization. Right. Which was this process where individuals or the public and policy makers in the United States viewed the state of mental institutions as having failed their mission. Right. The conditions in those institutions, you know, actually Geraldo Rivera. Now a Fox news, anchor or reporter, his big break was a story about the. The utter horror of young people detained in a mental state asylum. Right. So. The institution had failed. And. The idea was okay. We’ll we’ll create community based institutions. Where individuals can be better treated, right where the outcomes are going to be superior, where communities can hold these institutions more. To account. They were, you know, cuts to funding, these, these institutions closed, but no money was reinvested into the community. Right. And that produced a large number of homeless folks with serious mental illness or at a greater likelihood of contact with law enforcement. There was no treatment for these folks. And, you know, in addition to roll backs in. Federal funding for, there were also rollbacks for federal funding for housing. Right. So for me, you know, this research on polilce contact with. Folks with mental illness is a reminder that it’s not just defunding, it’s defunding and reinvestment, disinvest, reinvest. And I share Scot’s concerned that there might be some sort of. Disinvestment without reinvesting into the structures institutions. Practices of care. Rehabilitation and uplift that longterm are better for folks and better for our society and our community. There is, you know, similarly there’s a research on. Sorts of trainings that you can provide police officers so that they are a little bit more aware of. What a person in an acute mental distress kind of looks like, right? So that they are police officers are trained for the most part to increase the level of force that they apply. The more that a person resists, right. And in a situation where a person is having a mental disorder. That logic just simply doesn’t make any sort of sense. Right. There are trainings to increase officer awareness. Typically these are like 40 hour trainings. Or a week long training. Police department may roll out data collection to measure the number of times their officers come in contact with police. You know, the literature actually, there is not. Super hopeful that. Just a 40 hour training is going to get us to the place where. We, you know, we don’t have situations like we had here in Toronto where we don’t have situations that can occur in Los Angeles, that we don’t have situations that occurred with. Anybody in New York where a person with serious mental illness, was just sort of shot by a plain clothes police officers, right. Where the community knew that this percentage mental illness, but officers responded to the incident. So simple training of police officers. Again, this was like procedural form or. Short-lived training to me is not. An aggressive Or hopeful response, right? But the moment I think calls for is greater investment in institutions. And practices and policies that might reduce conflict in the first place. Right. So, you know, I’ve heard you know the statement that affordable housing is police reform, right. Investment in mental illness is police reform, right? Don’t simply train police officers. Be more aware of what it looks, what someone. Experiencing acute mental distress looks like, but invest in those sorts of institutions, resources and practices that will prevent that contact in the first place. That’s what, you know, kind of the direction. I think that we need to move in, you know, the. The, the literature suggest that police officers themselves feel overburdened and like, frankly, like. Unhappy. With having, you know, having to send a person with a mental illness to jail rather than to a hospital, because all the hospital beds are taken. Right. So, you know, Julius also brought up the sort of a punitive sort of phrasing the combatative phrasing of defunding the police and. You know, as a reminder, as a reminder to participants, a lot of what police officers are tasked With doing vis-a-vis. our most vulnerable compatriots. It’s work that they are ill-equipped to do. Don’t want to do and don’t do particularly well. Right? So, you know, displacing homeless persons from a public park, responding to someone with serious mental illness. That’s not work that, you know, That the research literature suggests that police officers want to be doing in the first place. So why have them do it? Again, the reform, isn’t simply the training to be better, but to really invest in institutions that would keep police from those interactions.

Audrey Macklin:
Thank you. Thank you. And I think we’ll come back and build on this idea of de-funding the police and be funding and reinvesting in other institutions in our next round of questions for the moment, I’m going to turn it over to you, Bea, and say and ask you this. So Canada’s history as a settler society is, is specific, but also unexceptional in the ways that racism and policing are entangled, and also the ways in which police and military institutions are entangled. So what, what might we learn or come to understand better from taking a global perspective on policing and militarization of police?

Beatrice Jauregui: Yeah, I think that understanding. police and policing as a global form. which is the approach I take in both my teaching and my research. This is really vital. Considering how social inequality and violence are really woven into. The fabric of policing as practice and also into other institutions of governance. And we’ve already started talking about some of these linkages between police, welfare, other social services. And I know we’re gonna come back around to that. So thinking about policing again, something. That’s both similar and different across time and space and something that we need to learn more about both at the very micro level. Which involves gathering some of the kinds of empirical data that Ayo just spoke about, but also kind of stepping back and thinking about it from a macro level. So considering policing historically and transnationally, I think this is the only way that we can really make informed comparisons. Between different kinds of policing and various parts of the world. And at various moments. Both past and present, which is necessary for generating. Imaginative and . Productive dialogues. Around these issues of whatever language you want to use of reform defunding dismantling and abolition. So I think. In a way that one of the keywords in your question was entanglement the entanglement of policing and racism and of police and military institutions. So. Policing and racism are not the same thing. They can not be reduced.
You know, one cannot be reduced to the other, but historically they are so deeply intertwined that it seems. You know, they’re now just impossible to separate. And I think the same thing is true also of policing and military institutions. So I want to. Just a couple of minutes, which isn’t some ways impossible, but I’m just gonna try to quickly address each of these. Kind of Gordian knots. On policing and racism. I think many of us have already indicated, you know, BIPOC Black Indigenous people of color, the poor LGBTQ and other marginalized people have always been. Both over and under policed and not just here in Canada. But certainly if we think about the specificities of what has happened here, historically, You know, I mean, the policing here, it’s still, it’s very different from other parts of the world. You know, we do have municipal police forces, like here in Toronto. Some other large cities, Vancouver, Montreal, there are a few provincial police services, not even in all of the provinces and territories, but still the, I mean the vast majority of policing here is done by a national police. You know, the Royal Canadian mounted police RCMP. And, you know, this is very different from say in the U S where I think the Latest count I heard was something like 18,000 different police forces are there with sheriff systems and, you know, all sorts of different things. And so we’ve seen that this has come up here in Canada and I just say more broadly in North America, that policing has emerged as part of indeed enforcing. Systemic racism. And we can’t separate this from, of course. The other key word, which I think we hear a lot more here in the Canadian context, then still then we here in the U S which is colonization, you know, the history of colonization. Which of course has taken a different trajectories in different parts of the world. So, you know, in some ways you could say white supremacy itself is global, but it is. Going to look different in a place like here in Canada, settler colony, that it might where I work, for example, in South Asia, where there is certainly a. You know, racism like skin color, appearance based Discrimination, but you know, in that part of the world, and inequality and discrimination manifest specifically through police violence. In other kinds of social divisions, either religion or caste or socioeconomic class. And other kinds of status positions. But I think keeping our eyes, not only on a systemic racism, but also on the, the colonialism, that is still present today is crucial, which. Can you bring us around to also to this issue of, of the entanglement of military and. Police institutions. Because, I mean, if you look at the history, they, these institutions arose, they emerged together. This idea that there is a distinct sphere of, of civil policing and military. Operations is a relatively recent invention. And I think if we. If we learn from history, but we can, I think better understand is that there’s been an ongoing Demilitarization remilitarization of these institutions that we, that we call police. You know, previously. End of the 19th and early 20th century police were in many ways, private armies working on behalf of various kinds of elite power holders, including of course slave owners in the us, but also others like organized crime bosses. And over the course of the 20th century, this changed police seemingly became supposedly more public service oriented. They became professionalized and. Later in the eighties and nineties, when you saw these calls for community policing coming back to the community, because professionalization has separated police too much from the community. So there’s just been this constant policing itself as a, a shifting thing. And it most recently in the, you know, the era of the war on terror. If, if we’re even post that there’s been a remilitarization of police, all of this decommissioned to military equipment, we know going to police. So I think when we talk about the problems of. Of a militarized police and the need to demilitarize. We’re going to have to be very careful about what that even means. And you know, this idealized division between police and military. That’s expressed and all kinds of discourses of democratic policing and as such, I mean, this was really never a reality in practice, which we can witness and all kinds of cases. It’s across the world. I mean, another place where I worked, in the Maldives. There was just one, it was called the national security service, a few specific paramilitary, a fused policing. A military institution. And then that was there until 2004. When the dictator who had been in power for 30 years, suddenly wanted to perform to the international community that he had democratic. You know, intentions and designs. On the flip side, we have this of course, very interesting moment. Just a couple of weeks ago, we had Donald Trump threatening military action against. The protesters and, you know, the national guard was called up in many States and it was so interesting witnessing, you know, the department of defense and military leaders breaking. With him, you know, criticizing this saying, no, it is not our purpose to put down protests of our fellow citizens. So it’s a very interesting kind of thought experiment nowadays. I think like what if, what if Trump had actually ordered. Military troops over and above the state national guard troops to come in and then try to suppress these. I mean, what would this look? How would the military leaders have responded? What did you know, what would this have said about. Things, but not just civilian control of the military, but I mean, it would be really ironic kind of military deescalation of force. If, if they refused right to, to intervene. So then, you know, again, looking globally that might’ve played out very differently in a place like Pakistan or Turkey. So, again, just kind of, again, we have to keep returning, I think, to history as we, as we consider what we mean with these terms of especially disarming. And demilitarizing police. Well, I look forward to more conversation about that.

Audrey Macklin:
Right. Well, thank you. Thanks. So, and I know we will return to it. I see that there are, there’s lots of action in the chat room. So I know that there will be a lot of conversations to be had. I’m going to turn it for the moment to Julius. You conduct research with Black youth in Toronto. And I want to know what does your data and your research tell us about their perspectives on policing and the impact of police practices on them, on their lives, on their experiences.

Julius Haag:
Thank you for the question, Audrey. So I do a lot of qualitative work with Black young people across the greater Toronto area. And I’ve been doing this work for several years now with different projects. And, you know, across the greater Toronto area, across Toronto, specifically across different spaces in time. Yeah, there’s among many of the Black youth I speak to there’s a wide spread, severe lack of trust and confidence in the police. For many Black youth and in particular, those who brought preside and socially and economically marginalized communities with higher crime rates, but also higher rates of police surveillance. The police are not seen as guardians of public safety to them, but they’re seen as an additional source of risk or danger in their communities. They’re not seen as somebody that they can turn to for help or somebody they would think to report a crime to, or to cooperate with police investigations if they have a problem, because there is this long standing. Intergenerational trust deficit between the police in our city and Black communities. And particularly among Black young people who, if we look at the data from the Toronto police service from carding and from other. Few sources of data points that we have on the nature of their practices. You know, young, Black men particularly are disproportionate representated in police. There’s some context. And they’re disproportionate representation in those contexts where the police are doing. So it’s not because it’s relate to a specific criminal investigative purpose just because they’re stopping and what people call it, checkup on them. They’re pressing upon them. They’re asking them questions. They’re carting them. They’re harassing them their field interrogations. So these are very common practices that young people have either experienced directly or they’ve experienced vicariously. So they’ve seen it happening in their communities. They’ve heard about it from friends from loved ones. And in that regard, the police are often seen as being uncaring or unsympathetic to their needs. And particularly, as I mentioned, when it comes to being responsive, to calls for service, that leaves them big unbelieving to contact the police. If they have a problem or unwilling to cooperate with the police, if the police are coming to ask questions about a serious crime. So. You know, one of the narratives we’ve seen from the police recently in Toronto is that. Because of codes against snitching, what they say here are codes against compliance with the police that they can’t solve serious crimes in communities because people won’t come forward with the information. But I think that completely disregards this history of police practices that have. Led to this deficit of procedural injustice and this climate of legal cynicism and alienation from the police that makes it. Impossible and undesirable for people to come forward and cooperate with the police. So, you know, many of them experienced those direct negative contexts. I’ve mentioned the harassment, the illegal stop to searches, the unjustified arrests, police brutality, but. A greater number of witnessed or heard about those issues. Experiences of that nature. And this is consistent with scholarship in the U S as well. These are socially transmitted between peers there intergenerationally transmitted between family members. They transmit in terms of what the conduct norms are when you’re dealing with the police, you know, in the states it’s often refered to as the pock, you know, what do you do when the police stopped you? How do you defer to them? How do you avoid police scrutiny? For many young people that’s contributed to an abridging of their social and geographic mobility as they take practices into their own hands to avoid the scrutiny of the police. Right. And this is. Generally contributing to their marginalization even further. But what I also see, I think it’s important to keep in mind is that these experiences extend beyond those communities too. Black young people across Toronto. Right? So whether they live in those communities and the traveling outside of those communities, to different parts of the city, or they live in different parts of the city, they still attract police attention and they attract police attention. That is not based on any kind of reasonable suspicion it’s based on how they look and where they are. So be mentioned the role of the police in. Enforcing hierarchies and enforcing sort of the structural differences that we have. And. You know, very much, we see accounts. I’m hearing about that are very consistent with this ecological dimension of crime that Black people in certain parts of the city you’re supposed to be out of place and then more fit for police suspicion. So, you know, in response to many people that I’ve spoken to, many young people have taken on themselves to protect themselves when they feel like the police can’t keep them safe. And that could be things including not going out at night or not going to certain parts of the neighborhood, traveling together for protection or even carrying a weapon, right? And these are many of the same activities that actually perpetuate the cycle of further attracting police attention. Right? Because these are things that, along with the race of the person, the police inherently see a suspicious. And as I mentioned, in many ways, it’s experiences and I’ll close on this point that I’ve learned about in Toronto are very consistent. What we know about experiences in the U S and I think that we need more research of this nature that will help to dispel this Canadian exceptionalism that we have. This idea that the issues that are happening in the States right now with the protests they’re facing, they’re not the issues that we have here. We’ve seen that from different actors in the political sphere and in the media that those are American issues. And historically that claim has been used to diffuse or dismiss or deflect issues of racial profiling and racial bias or misconduct in our own police services here in Canada. And it’s not to say that there isn’t demand for police in these committees because young people and their families, I’ve spoken to an informal conversations and otherwise. They do want to see police in their communities, but they want to see a move in the right things. They don’t want to see them involved with the kinds of tactics that have contributed to this place that we are now. They don’t want to see the carding, they don’t want us to excessive surveillance and police violence. They want to see police responding to what they feel are the real issues in the community. And they’re not seeing that right now. So I’ll, I’ll leave it on that point.

Audrey Macklin:
Okay, thank you. And thank you for, for explicitly addressing that, that sort of the myth of Canadian exceptionalism that I think is still a kind of romantic. Romantic idea that too many Canadians still revert to.I’m going to turn it over to Scot. You’ve been studying these issues related to race crime and the criminal justice system for a long time. Has anything changed over the last two decades? Is there any, are there signs of. Forward movement. Is it stasis, backward movement?

Scot Wortley:
I think there’s been progress made in certain areas. And I definitely think that discussion over. Race crime and policing has changed dramatically over the last 25 years. Although there are some things that have remained, unfortunately, unchanged. When I first started researching this issue with the commission on systemic racism. You had a number of police chiefs led by, chief Bill McCormack, who was the, the Toronto police chief at the time. Local politicians, provincial politicians who had a press conference and basically announced the formation of a commission to investigate. Bias was insulting to, to. All the good men and women who were putting their life on the line every day. And. he said an interesting thing. He said in my mind, And in my experience, almost all Black people and Indigenous people have 100% trust. In the police. And it was only radicals, any pointed directly to Dudley Laws and the Black Action Defense Committee. Who were stirring up trouble and had garnered some sympathy from a socialist NDP government. Now mandated this inquiry. And we thought it was a good idea at that time to conduct a public perception survey, to see if you know, the chiefs perception that there was discrimination or are not even a perception of discrimination. And we did a survey that, you know, Serveying 500 Black, 500 white 500 Asian individuals from Toronto. And we found about 80%. Of Toronto Spock population felt that the police treated Black people worse or much worse than others. At the same time, and this is consistent with what Julius just said. We also found that, you know, other than that, Black people thought that police were doing a pretty good job. Some of the specific duties. So it was possible to be. Both. Understanding the nature and the lived experience with racism, but also acknowledging the utility of what the police did. In their communities. And that was kind of a shock, I think when we released those findings and it changed the, a lot of the discourse about this. Sense, because I think before there was this complete. Denial of the problem. And kind of this feeling that this is Canada, this is the land of multiculturalism. This is the land that, you know, the, the terminus of the underground railroad, we’ve never had slavery. These are what you would hear a lot. From. police professionals and police leaders at that time. And this kind of contradicted that narrative by demonstrating that, you know, 80% of the Black community actually perceived discrimination. And we asked this question in a variety of different ways. Some of the excuses right away where, Oh, well this is because of American media. And I think we still hear that today. Yeah, this is Canadians being influenced by American television and not understanding that that’s not the way that we are here in Canada. And we had a lot of blaming on immigrants. So one of the narratives that emmerged the police at that time was that. Many minorities, including many people in the Black community are recent migrants from other countries that have poor unprofessional, corrupt police officers. Once they get to know us. Our ratings will go up. Research was able to show that. That’s fundamentally a flawed explanation. In fact, recent immigrants have the best perception of Canadian policing that trust in police errodes with time in Canada. And Canadian born Indigenous and Black people have the worst perception. Of Canadian law enforcement. So now I think this conversation has changed from. There’s no problem at all. Two in some police services, at least most police services. Now, acknowledging that there is quote unquote, a public relations problem. They may debate. And I think the debate is still quite. Profound right now on whether those perceptions are correct or not. I think there’s still kind of a feeling in police circles that those perceptions are exaggerated. The next thing that we started to examine what would be looking at racial disparities. When we first started this work and, you know, I was kind of asked as somebody with a little bit of a background in quantitative. Analysis at the time to kind of. Look at the statistics on race and, and outcomes in policing, the courts and corrections. And there was none because we systematically did not collect any data on, on race, on crime, on policing decisions on correctional populations. On court outcomes. And. So some of the work that we did was pioneering in Canada. And I think what we’ve done is demonstrated that these disparities in many different points of the criminal justice system. Are just as profound in Canada as they are in the United States. And in some cases the racial disparities are larger. And I think that that has also changed the conversation. Once again, the debate is there. I, you know, Out in Halifax. Last year. Often the perception was what it was. Those disparities may exist. For good reason. Because of racial disparities with respect to. To crime. And there’s still a very strong reluctance, I think within law enforcement, too. Admit or identify where the biases come in. So I think that that is where we are, but I think we’re still a long way off. I’ve been reminded, you know, this past year. Sitting in meetings with police police officials. And them expressing frustration that this is still a thing, this is still an issue. And this kind of, well we’re really working hard, we’ve got training where we’re more diverse than we used to be. We are really working hard to try to engage in community policing and increased trust. So it’s really disheartening for us. It’s really hard on police morale. When we hear that this is still an issue. And I find that. One of the things that they said, you know, back in 1992, I remember going to a meeting and the police saying. Well, we’re working on it. We’re much better today than we were in the 70s. We’re much better today than we were in the 60s. And in 2019, I was having the same conversation. They would say we’re much better today in 2019, we were in the 1990s. So there’s always this kind of argument that we’re trying our best. We’re doing our best, but without any real effort to collect the data, ensure the data is of high quality and to address and introduce. Initiatives that will reduce racial disparities in criminal justice outcomes. And I have to say, we’re talking about police here today. I actually think the research in the courts and in the system is far worse than the Canadian data on policing. At least policing. There’s been a little bit of inroads. Recently the Toronto police services board has started a pilot project on collecting race. Race-based data. I think that the courts and corrections are even further behind with respect to this. So there is some hope. There has been some progress. I think the discussion and the debate has changed. But we’re still a long way and have a lot of work to do before even coming close to. Reducing. The racial disparities and the, and the bias that contributes to them.

Audrey Macklin:
Thank you. I think you and, and actually everybody has highlighted both. The need for knowledge, what kind of knowledge is out there? Questions about accountability, even if one has information and meaningful, realistic prospects for reform of institutions as they currently exist. And. And with all of that, what I’d like to do is really move from in a sense that. You know, our understandings of the present moment, how we got here, what we know about how we got here. And move to questions about the future. And so I’m going to turn back to Ayo to start us off. You’ve all been sort of referencing the talk of defunding police and talk also abolition. And I think it’s one of the things that is significant about this moment is that of course that’s about changing an institution that that is a move away from. discussions about so-called bad apples as a response and about. Altering. An institution that may be structurally flawed in itself. So, I wonder if, if you could just elaborate on what you began and others began talking about with respect to the funding, the police, police abolition, what does it mean? What could it look like?

Ayobami Laniyonu:
Yeah. You know, I think the calls for abolition among a broader public today. Reflect a sense, you know, in a generation. That maybe this is the work that this institution does. Maybe, you know, maybe this is, you know, maybe those people saying all this time that this institution. Engages in violence against people of color, engages in violence against marginalized communities. Were right. All along. When people talk about defunding, the police, right. There are there seems to have, this seems to be levels to it, right? Ranging from more consensus to more and more intense. It’s more sort of policy oriented, to more radical. Right. And I think there’s one version of. Defunding that says. What that might look at the number of nine one, one calls that the Toronto police department. Receives four. Mental health emergencies for drug overdoses for domestic disputes, between partners for idle youth, so on and so forth. For homeless persons that are obstructing the use of a public park. The door or something like that. And says, you know, it’s really expensive to send in our member of law enforcement to this call is our member law enforcement doesn’t achieve outcomes. You know, that we view as favorable. Why don’t we send someone who’s better at doing this job, right. So if you think about. The tools that a police officer might have on their belt handcuffs, a Baton flashlight. A taser and a gun. How many of those are tools that might help resolve with the domestic dispute? Right. How many of those are tools that might help someone who’s experiencing a drug overdose? Right. So there’s a, there’s a, a greater sense. I think in the, sort of the defund the police. For folks who are calling for a version of defunding, the police that says let’s just send the best person for the job. Right. Let’s send someone who’s trained to resolve domestic disputes to a domestic dispute, let send someone that’s trained or who knows about the services that a homeless person might utilize to a call about. Someone sleeping in a public park, let’s send a youth counselor, or you’ve worked to a young person or young people that are congregating and disrupting the use of a public park for other people so on and so forth. Right. And I think there’s. You know, there’s a. Understanding of defunding, the police that says, you know, let’s reassign the task and responsibilities. That are currently assigned to police officers, to individuals, institutions that are better equipped, simply better equipped. To work on it, right. That’s greater. Return on investment. For citizens and our tax dollars, so on and so forth. You know, there’s a more maybe structural version of defunding. The police. That says. Well, not just that, but we need to address systemic inequality in our society that produces this in the first place. Right. There’s a version of defunding, the police that says, well, let’s, let’s think about where the money is and where the money has gone that says. We’ll know to solve these problems with let’s say homelessness or. Please contact with the homeless plus contact with the mentally ill. We need to fundamentally readdress fundamentally address access to affordable housing and access to healthcare. And I’m thinking specifically about the United States here. We need to fundamentally address concentrated disadvantage. And poverty in the United States and in doing so, we’re going to unearth the history that produced concentrated poverty in the United States, right. Which is the history of red lining and segregation and. Police involvement in maintaining sort of. Racial boundaries. You know to Systematically address that issue. You know, there’s not enough money necessarily potentially in the police budget. To, to deal with widespread segregation in American society. Right? So we’re talking about a larger [inaudible]There’s a, there’s a version. That says, well, no, like. You know, Of course we can identify institutions and practices and policies that are better at handling. Like homelessness or, or, or, or youth idleness or whatever, but don’t beat around the bush here, right? policing and incarceration or institutions that have historically. And seem to continue to perpetuate violence against people of color. Right. And so what needs to be done is to get rid of this institution. And reimagine our approach to public safety, to quality and the freedom. And sometimes when I think about the word defunding and abolition together, I think people imagine. Maybe an ink pen writing away the institution of policing rather than the abolitionist. Right? So abolitionism is a disposition or an orientation towards the political system that says. I adopt the position of Frederick Douglas. I am project Douglas. I am Harriet Tubman. I am John Brown. Right. And I think when you adopt that sort of imaginary, you don’t. Run into the sort of. 24 hour news cycle problem. You don’t run into the problem of short governments because when you identify yourself, As you know, John Brown, Frederick Douglass. And you think about. How the institution of slavery that they fought. Right. You’re not thinking about a four year election cycle for your window. You know, to your mayoral terms on so forth, right? So the abolitionist perspective or the abolitionists paradigm. Is to think about the conditions of unfreedom that our fellow citizens, other people in our community are experiencing And thinking about, okay. Yeah. Doing our best to imagine the society that we want a society in which everyone is equally a member of our society. And then thinking about and directing ourselves towards those institutions that prevent that. Right. And, you know, if. You know, As these incidents continue to happen. And I think we should steel ourselves to the fact that there will be more of this Right. There should be a, you know, abolitionism abolition is arguing. Is that. You know, our orientation towards this institution should be one that increasingly recognized that. Appears to have the capacity to do this. Yeah. Over and over and over and over again. And isn’t it more sensible and maybe also desirable. For our society in our community. to tear, the thing down. And build up a new way of. Of delivering public safety and. Given what we’ve seen, you know, it strikes me. As less. As more pragmatic. Potentially right. And so sort of conversation about what’s the pragmatic approach. You know, if you believe that this institution. Has this capacity to keep on murdering people, innocent people, and isn’t more pragmatic to rid yourself of the sunk cost fallacy. Start all over again. So. Right. Oh, I guess the last sort of reminder. That I’ll leave people with is. That abolition has got us this sort of, even though the sort of pragmatic return on investment point of view in terms of defunding the police, right. If a weren’t for abolitionist, we wouldn’t be thinking of the Oh, very sensible approach to you know sending a public health care worker to someone with serious mental illness. So even though the package of policies that seem to garner the most consensus, these are abolitionists, articulations of. Of how we might change the world. So, you know, in another piece, You know, Yeah. Yeah, abolitionism got us this far. And the idea of abandoning it, abandoning it as at least a way of being hopeful in imagining the future to me doesn’t strike me as pragmatic. Or justified.

Audrey Macklin:
Thank you. Thank you for, for. Sort of illuminating how. What we, what we make thinkable is the first step in making what is possible. Thank you. I’m going to turn next to Bea and ask sort of a more limited question. About the possibilities. When we talk about whether it’s defunding or abolition or just imagining a future in which police have less. Violent power. A lot of commentators have identified police unions as a powerful obstacle to change, to dismantling existing racist structures and practices associated with policing. Can you speak to police unions in relation to that?

Beatrice Jauregui:
Yes. So indeed, it’s been really interesting to watch, you know, the, the discourse around defunding and abolishing police unions, specifically as a key step toward. You know, broader. Defunding and abolitionist aims of police institutions more broadly. I’m very conscious of time and I know we want to get questions. And so I’ll try to be brief on this. The one, one point I want to get across is that I think here, here in North America, especially in the US and Canada, We tend to see police unions as these universally powerful, conservative white male dominated groups. That resist civilian oversight of police misconduct and other forms of action and activism around social justice. And this extends, I think also too many, certainly in many parts of Europe and especially other settler colonies like Australia and New Zealand. But as I’ve been finding in my own research, this is actually not how it is in most of the rest of the world, especially in the global South policing and don’t look the way they do. Here. In India, for example, where I work well they’re, in fact, they’re, they’re banned by a federal statute and yet still active. I mean, you find many police trying to unionize arguing that because of the way that you know colonial history played out and structured policing in that country, that lower level rank and file police more than 90% of the force are actually themselves kind of exploited workers. Who were abused by their senior officers and by other social elites. And they’re working very hard to be recognized by law. And you will also find there some police unionists actually collaborating with. Social justice movements. For example, the anti-corruption movement that arose in India in 2011. In South Africa, we, we saw strong unions formed in the post apartheid era with a then restructured and majority Black police force. And these unions very much did not want to be identified with an oppressive state, considering that countries particular history. There’s some great work on this by the scholar, Monique marks. Brazil, another region where some police unions had actually taken on a relatively, in some cases, at least progressive set of, of leftist platforms and also garnered significant support from various sections. Of the public, in fact, in Brazil, there’s, there’s a group that’s emerged last few years. The Policiais Antifascismo. Anti-fascist Police which I think for many people seems like this. Complete contradiction in terms or paradox, but it’s a real thing. And I think something really important to follow. And there are many other cases in places like Argentina, Nigeria. Where, you know, police unions are not necessarily this obstacle to progressive transformation. So I just wanna say that it’s not inevitable that police unions look the way they do here in the U S and Canada. And indeed, even in the ones that do exist here, or there are some actors that may be more open to substantive change, than we may give them credit for, and don’t want to be written off as you know, the enemy, even if indeed many of these groups. do engage in the kind of stuff we’ve been seeing, for example, in Minnesota. You know where that particular union and Bob Kroll the leader, have just. Have become kind of these icons for what, for all that a police union can be. But there is, I think, a different potentiality for. What police unions can be. You know, I was talking to a left leaning police union leader in the U S just this morning who I mean, he was himself formerly a police officer and police union leader in the sixties and seventies, and he thinks things really are. Starting to change and that a tipping point in part, not only thanks to the differences of this moment that I spoke about earlier, but also to things like increasingly active and powerful sub-organizations of Black Latinx women, LGBTQ police associations. Again, some of the members, some of the members of which identify with and support Black Lives Matter more than more than we think. So I think if we can understand. And appreciate and harness this different potentiality. Then maybe we can mobilize different ways of thinking. And different ways of being that, that can allow a space for collaboration between. Some police at least and other working people. I know for many people, especially in our environment here in North America, that that feels like compromise. It feels like it is just going to be more of the same. And there won’t be real transformation because you know, the conversation will somehow be co-opted and that is certainly a possibility. But I do think it’s also possible to structure different forms of identification. And social relations. Then the one that we still generally assume, which is this us, them, you know, police versus the people. Dichotomy because even police, union ideologies and actions are variable and shifting things shaped by their. You know, specific cultural context. The, you know, particular political and legal history of a place and emergent events. So in this, which again, I know me seem very counterintuitive. I, I mean, I see another reason perhaps to have real hope in this moment, that things, things may really shift in this realm too.

Audrey Macklin:
Thank you. For many of us who are candidly cynical about police unions here. It’s really, I think you’ve really demonstrated the importance of drawing back the lens and having a comparative and historical perspective on. What is possible. And directions that, that one might. Potentially be able to move in. So thank you. I’m going to turn to Julius now and pursue the discussion about defunding or police abolition. often when people are talking about defunding. And I think Ayo alluded to this, they’re really talking about. Funding or refunding or redirecting funding to institutions and programs were supportive. Support was either diverted into policing or, or absent in the first place. I wondered if you could speak more. From the ground level up about what de-funding or abolition would mean in relation to Black youth in Toronto, that the group that you work with. In your research.

Julius Haag:
Thank you for the question, Audrey. So I’ll just, easy answer. It would mean a lot to a great many people. Very simply said. What we’re seeing in Toronto, what we’ve seen since the 70s, and this is from work conducted by David Hulchanski here at U of T and by the United way of Toronto, that poverty and Toronto is increasingly racialized. It’s increasingly being concentrated in communities outside of the downtown core. We see that looking at the data for Black persons in Toronto, that they face lower levels of educational attainment, graduation rates, lower levels of participation in the labor market. And. What, you know, it’s been mentioned before that the funding for the police has vastly out stripped funding for commitments to other municipal agencies and other areas that are meant to address these issues. So. Toronto is facing now a multibillion dollar backlog of repairs for Toronto community housing for socially assisted housing, our shelter system is at capacity night after night. And the funding that we’ve seen specifically directed towards responding to issues like crime or preventing involvement with crime, or to intervene in the lives of young people who have been criminalized. Those are typically fixed term initiatives. They’re not subject to renewal. So, you know, in my own experiences, working around these programs, that many of them get situated in the communities where they’re providing services. They have a two to three year funding commitment, that commitment ends and suddenly the program has gone from the community. Right. So the opportunity for them to. Generate sustained meaningful longterm relations with these communities is compromised, right? Because they have these fixed term funding commitments. And when we look at other organizations, especially grassroot organizations, many of them operate on precarious or contingent funding or no funding at all. And they’re providing a lot of important services on the ground for young people across the GTA. We have our own youth equity strategy here in Toronto, that was approved in 2014. And since 2014, it hasn’t been fully funded. It’s been operating on less than $500,000 a year and city staff estimate that it needed nearly $16 million a year to be fully funded. It’s only just recently. In 2019 that a full funding commitment has been made by council to work that initiative. But if we look in the wake, and Scot mentioned this,I think very well, but in the wake of high profile incidents like shootings, like gun violence particularly, those events are the events, the critical events that spikes in funding, the police also come. Right? So. We had a wake of high profile shootings in 2019, and suddenly there’s four and a half million dollars allocated almost immediately for a police suppression strategy, essentially, Project Community Space. And this is from all three levels of government. Recently in analysis was shared by Claire Wilmot, a former colleague of mine. That looking at provincial funding for community safety, there was $200 million, between 2019 to 2022 allocated for that 99% of that funding has gone to the police. By her own analysis, about $360,000 of that actually went to community organizations. The rest of it went into tasers surveillance, staffing, IT. And extreme event response, right? So this is supposed to be supporting community safety. And now, and in the relation, as I mentioned, to gun violence, those drive significant amounts of funding towards the police. We’re seeing commitments now for additional funding, sort of $25 million for increased police. Staffing’s for specialized prosecution teams. Many of that fund, much of that funding does not come down to the level of the community where people are actually in need of those supports. Right? So what do young people talk to me about these issues? They need services supports that responsive to their particular needs that come from the ground up that are culturally responsive and culturally competent that are driven by the community. We have had specific initiatives in Ontario to support the life outcomes of Black youth. But these are not sustained ongoing funding commitments. These are commitments that in the short term, recognize that there is pervasive and widespread impacts from criminalization of Black youth in their communities. And it recognizes the social harms caused by policing, but it’s not carried through in a meaningful longterm commitment. So, you know, in closing, it’s not enough to simply recognize that crime has systemic roots and that prevention is more viable than reactive enforcement oriented solutions. This actually needs to be borne out in longterm policy commitments, but because of the nature of governments, You know, it was mentioned before because. You know, government mandates are short, you know, they’re four years, maybe eight years at best. It’s politically unpalatable for many people to pursue longterm solutions. That won’t bear fruit for potentially decades to come. Where are very politically expedient response is to immediately turns to the police when we have critical issues and I’ll leave it at that.

Audrey Macklin:
Thank you. I want to alert people that we are coming to the end of our, our 90 minutes, but we are willing to stay on line here. And we’re going to give Scot a chance to, to answer his question as well and leave time for Kamari to present some of the questions to the panel. So if you’re able to hang around, we’re going to hang around too. So with that, I’m going to ask Scot. You’ve been working over the years with the police doing a lot of seminars, presentations of your findings meeting with them. What is your sense of police accountability as it exists and what potential there is for internal reform in the future?

Scot Wortley:
I suppose I’m cautiously optimistic with respect to. Where the potential for change is. And also the obstacles. You know I kind of alluded this, alluded to this earlier. With my first response, but. I worry a little bit about how the response is going to be framed with respect to the defunding and Abolish the police. Movement. And this is where academics may come in and make the, the conversation. Productive. It almost seems now that the narrative is as we’re going to punish the police by defunding them. And. I think we’ve got to strengthen the argument that we’re going to defund the police because we can spend the money. In a better way that is going to lead to better results and a better quality of life and improve public safety. So I think that that is an argument that we have to. Start making when we’re explaining what is meant by defending the police. Because I think the emotion. Surrounding the current demonstrations is bound to ebb and we don’t want to lose that momentum with respect to change and accountability. I do worry at what I’ve heard recently, you know? One of the things I’ve heard over the last 25 years, when dealing with issues of racism, dealing with issues with allegations of racial bias in policing is training. We’re gonna bring in training. And in the early days, 25 years ago, that might’ve been an hour session. With a Constable who talked about, talked about training. I have a Toronto police anecdote. The first training. I heard that they put a picture up of a criminal and then put up a picture of bill Cosby and said, you know, this is a criminal. This is not, that was clearly before bill Cosby’s recent troubles. And it, it was not taken seriously. I think that if you’re going to introduce training, You have to. Have some form of evaluation. It has to be something that officers pass. There’s many training aspects that police have to show a competence. Knowledge level with respect to become a police officer and with respect to retain their status. Police training in my concern, in my. Observations has been something that police officers have to tick a box. They have to tick to say that they’ve got it. Without evaluating whether it does any good, whether it helps improve public confidence, whether it. Reduces bias and reduces disparities. I also think, you know, we need stronger systems of public accountability, civilian oversight. I think we have the illusion of civilian oversight in Canada. I think we have a politicians refer to our accountability structures as civilian oversight when civilians actually have very little power. To both investigate and adjudicate. Police, Complaints against the police or other matters. The police still hold the balance of the power there. Although it may be veiled. I think we need a, a much stronger accountability process. Finally, I think to make a comment about police culture. I really think. Traditional policing still exists in Canada, I think that officer’s still feel that they’re evaluated on their ability to solve crimes. Make arrests. And produce numbers. And as long as that system exists, you’re still going to have a culture that is going to emphasize those things. Officers need to be rewarded for their abilities to build real relationships. And strong relationships within communities and be rewarded for it. And until that culture starts to change and a lot of that has to come. Internally. And finally, I think within the Canadian context, In particular, if we are ever going to really deal with these issues. We need better. Race-based data collection. Throughout the system. On all aspects of policing the courts and corrections, so that we can identify where significant disparities exist. Conduct further research to identify why they exist. And develop programs and initiatives that can reduce these racialdisparities. And we need ongoing research to evaluate whether those initiatives are effective or not. I think we’ve. Over the last 25 years, I’ve seen numerous community policing, police, accountability, and training programs pronounced by the police. But I’ve never seen a systemic follow up on whether or not these initiatives are making a difference or not. What’s the data that this is improving. What are the objectives and how. What improvements have been made. And without that type of a dedicated data collection, And dissemination and analysis. I just don’t see a. Us being able to document changes.

Audrey Macklin:
Thank you. Well, thank you. I want to thank all of the speakers for really thoughtful, insightful. Answers to questions that. Took us to many levels of Thinking about these issues. What I’m gonna do now is turn it over to Kamari, Dr. Clarke, who has been waiting in the wings as it were. Formulating synthesizing questions that she has drawn from the chat room and is going to direct to the speakers. So I’d like to hand it over to you Kamari.

Kamari Clarke:
Okay. Thank you there, Audrey. And thank you. Of course. To the speaker’s thus far. We are running out of time. And what I’ve done is I have grouped the questions into four general sets of themes. And I’m going to ask one question from one of the sub themes. That I think is, is relevant and key to much of the discussion today. And then if people could answer very, very briefly and then I’ll give some closing remarks. The time that’s left. So the one of the general things, the conversation. Thank you. Of course, to the. The people in the chat room. Those who have posted comments. it was quite a vibrant and engaging set of discussions in the chat room. And for those who haven’t had a chance to look at it, do flip through it. Different participants, responding to each other people with different forms of experience here. Some of them in policing, some PhD students. Scholars some activists. So a very. Nice range. And certainly it gives us a lot to think about the, one of the general themes had to do with systematic racism. And the role of culture. And I was struck by. Something that J Grant said, she said, training police without a change in culture is like pouring clean oil in a dirty, dirty lamp. And in many ways that statement in the chat characterizes A significant amount of the sentiments that circulated there. The people were, were asking us to think about systemic challenges. Lori-Anne Beckford said that focusing on policing actually hides the structural problems at play, that if our lens is policing and police reform we miss actually the much larger sort of systemic challenges that, that shape the very police curriculum and the forms of everyday imaginary that. Shape everyday life. And I thought that those were quite profound and characteristic of the, of the questions that were being posed around systemic racism, the role of culture. The narratives that erase, the systemic nature of inequality in our life. And so that’s, that’s one. Direction and certainly a direction for us to pick up in one of our next. Forums that we plan. A second had to do with the curriculum. Very specifically the training of the police, the education of police, who are they? Where did they come from? What did they learn? How did they reinforce practices? How do they regulate each other? How do they back each other up? And then Scot’s. Last comment about Training training, training and insisting that, that maybe we think more creatively about. This training. So what are the competencies that are necessary? And so there were a range of questions that emerged there. Some people in the chat with part of the, themselves were in the police force, in different countries, in this country. And so there was a wealth of experience there around. What they are actually trained. And if training is, is enough and. Many of the comments really go back to the first theme that of systemic, the systemic nature of inequality in our world. Once you train people, then what if they’re operating in. In a pot that is a flawed and, and tainted, and that needs complete rethought. Reform and overhaul. Of the third theme. And this is. One of the, I think quite exciting set of questions emerge from this and, and it really, I characterize it as sites of change. And so the, the idea that we’re seeing these multi ethnic coalitions around anti-racism. There is some facetiousness in, in the questions of people asking whether or not white participation is actually simply performative. Is it just performative or. And, and therefore, will it lead to anything, but the kind of white, young participation or. Is it substantively different? Are there radical elements that actually can produce the basis for change. And there, there was an interesting comment about. Some senior scholars and senior activists are hopeful because we’re seeing today progressive senior leadership taking on the work of reform And that they should be encouraged is the message. And the question. To what extent should they be encouraged? How do we encourage them? And some might agree or disagree on the extent to which that is where our focus should be on older Statespeople who are taking up the mantle now who have become awoken and are, are willing to help to, to produce change and, and. And so the. One of the, I think radical questions here for the, for our panel has to do with. How to balance those who are experienced, who are committed to reform. With the more radical elements of youth and young people who, for whom the sky is the limit. who Are not willing to accept before, but in fact, want to overhaul the system. And, and so what are these, these sites of change and how do we make sense of who people are? The young people who people are skeptical. Are they performatively engaging in selfies at the marches? Or should we be hopeful because they’re there? What did we do with that? And so that was the third set of questions around these sites of change. The the final, and this is where I want to turn to each of you for a brief response. It has to do with the role of research. And you know, of course, as university professors, we all, we think that the work we do is important and we hope that it. It can be used to produce the forces of change that we hope for. And if not that it can be documented. And one day someone will dust it off the shelf and. And, and operationalize the work that you do. But the, the comments in the chat where on one hand, people were interested in what role can this faculty research play? But there was, there were some questions about how do we avoid. co-optation of our work. Because once you publish something, your findings are out there. It could be used for multiple purposes. Do we really see scholarly work? the kind of. Research driven data driven work that we do. As emancipatory, can it be used toward positive ends? And maybe if each of you could talk about very briefly, you know, what, a minute or two, just a quick reflection on. To what extent do you think that you can prevent the form of co-optation That would be contrary to the work that you do? And in doing that, what would that involve and what do you hope the afterlife. Of your scholarly work will offer. So I’ll, I’ll ask those question and then I’ll come back with some closing remarks. So maybe we’ll start with Scot.

Scot Wortley:
No, I do think research on this topic can make a difference. In certain, in certain ways, just as an illustration, one of the things that. The surveys that we did back in 1994, and we replicated the survey in 2007 and we also. Replicated it again last year in 2019. One of the things that was interesting is. When Black people were asked, do you think the. The police treat. Black people differently than they treat white people. About 80% of the Black respondents in each year, 1994, 2007, 2019. Indicated that they thought the police treat Black people worse. So there really wasn’t any change. And I think that that reflects you know the lived experience, the personal histories the multi-generational trauma on these issues. You know, within Canadian society. Where we saw the real difference. However, was the increase in the proportion of Toronto’s white population that thought that racism was a problem. It jumped from in the mid forties, back in 1994 now approaching 70%. In 2019, where 70% of the white population believes that there’s anti Black racism within policing. We’ve seen this replicated in a number of other recent surveys. I think that might be one of the roles of this research is, is playing is informing a public that. Negative experiences with policing may not be part of their personal or vicarious experience. So I think that. That research, however, Also needs to be properly communicated in a way that is going to address lay audiences and the role that the media has played in disseminating and discussing this research. Is also really important. So I’ll stop.

Kamari Clarke:
Great. Thank you. Beatrice.

Beatrice Jauregui:
Sorry had to unmute. Thanks. All great questions and certainly not nearly enough enough time to address them all. I, I did want to quickly speak to, I think it was the part of the third theme of the, you know, especially the. What we’re seeing as much more. really much more participation by white people. In this moment, which, you know, some wonder is this just performative? Is it really substantive, but what is even behind it? And just say that, yes, it’s, it’s, it’s always a challenge. And this is, this is been an issue in social movements more generally, you know, for, for a very long time. And I guess one thing I’d say is the first, just sometimes we find that what, what in fact starts out as merely performative, maybe even ill informed or ignorant. You know, or, or perhaps misdirected participation over time itself can transform hopefully to, you know, someone, to some participants being more educated and, you know, learning how to be. A better or a real ally in a movement. So even if yes, even if some of this is, I don’t want to say misguided but maybe people are out there. You know, as we talked about before, just because they’re unhappy in this particular moment, or they’re worried about, you know, not having a job in the future and the pandemic, whatever. We, we can still, you know, harness this moment and, and again, keeping the spotlights specifically on these issues of systemic racism and inequality and the need for transformation to say, Hey, look, you know, you’re here, you’re showing up. You know, here’s what we need to do. And indeed, look to these perhaps more experienced leaders. In, in activism who have been around a long time and, and, and yeah, and hopefully find ways to, to direct for lack of a better word, the. Kind of young, radical energy That’s there. We can also flip this kind of back to the last question of police unions onto police, you know, asking well, who is the real voice? Of of a, of a police union, you know, what are their motivations and goals again? They, they. They are very diverse and different. And we do need to be careful about collaboration with something that’s just performative or maybe, you know, oriented toward something more self-interested or nefarious, which leads to this co-optation question which I think is also very crucial. For us as researchers, you know, how do we prevent. The misuse or co-optation of our research findings. For bad ends. It’s, this is an ongoing issue as well. Something that, you know, especially those of us who have spent many years with police and in ways that might seem to be somehow apologistic. I know many of my fellow police scholars who. you know we share very critical. Sensibilities about what we’re doing, but we’re very concerned about this. So I think the best you can do is just try to be very clear about your terms, the stakes or position. And use the privilege of our voice as researchers, as well as other social status positions. So. Stop there. Thanks.

Kamari Clarke:
Great. Oh, thank you. We’ll go to Julius and then we’ll end with Ayo.

Julius Haag:
So these are all great questions and they would make the basis of a future panel and maybe they will. I think Bea set up very well in relation to the role of our research and Scot as well about it’s very important, within the Canadian context. I think there’s particular need for that data informed conversation. And the lack of that data has really been a major hindrance to driving evidence-based policy forward. But it’s also been a major tool that. People who have sought to dismiss these claims. As I mentioned earlier, I have drawn on to marginalize or minimize these issues that we face. With racialization and the systemic inequality in our society. So we certainly need that data and not just in relation to policing but other public facing organizations, as well other social institutions. Just the role of research. I think that. It’s very important that we are, as Bea mentioned clear about our terms, clear about how our research is disseminated, willing to come back and support our research in the public sphere as people begin discussing it and to speak to our findings and to make ourselves available to discuss those. I think another important thing here is also our work as teachers. I think as university professors, I think in my personal opinion that the greatest impact I will have, hopefully it will be in teaching and working with students and working with young minds and learning from them and teaching them as well and developing. The ideas and conversations that will hopefully lead to a change in the future as well. So I’m certainly mindful of my role in that as well. And how important that is to our mandate as, as faculty members and lastly, the question about training and police culture, the police institution, I read that. Comment came up as the chat what’s happening. And I liked, I liked the metaphor very much, you know? Ideas about reform ideas about training ideas, about improved accountability. We do need to take a step back and look at the institution of policing itself. And is it possible to generate. Reform, you know, in an institution that has historically resisted reform. And. Has so many issues associated with it. How do you reset from that? And I think that that maybe is the most challenging question of all this. And I think that the push to reform the police, you know, often results, I think it was mentioned earlier in more money going to the police. Right. So we need to be very mindful of that in these conversations as well. I’ll leave it there.

Kamari Clarke:
Ayo. Do you want to? Yes.

Ayobami Laniyonu:
Well, yeah. Really good points. You know briefly. you know, I think. you know, I think. there Is. you know, not. No, nothing that you can do about cooptation, but thinking . Particularly of a study by Roland Fryer. At Harvard university whose, you know, good faith effort, as I understand it, believe, to study police use of force, showed that with less lethal use of force. Black and Latino Americans were overrepresented and with violent use of force. They were underrepresented. That was paper. It was a working paper that came out maybe in 2016. At the nature of you know scientific production is a bit, you have this working paper. Circulate it, you. Let people critique it right. You make your, you know, good practice making the data that you used, generate your results publicly available so people can figure out what decisions you make. And, and, and we all learn from that sort of process. You know, this finding of, you know, Black Americans are less likely to experience with police force and then maybe 2019, 2020, another paper came out that said, Oh wait you know, there’s a really big mistake here. And people read that paper and said, Oh yeah, there’s a really big mistake here. Okay. And you know, people. So they came around to understanding what the mistake was and its implications for future research on race. Similarly an article in the proceedings of the national Academy of sciences, estimated that African Americans were less likely to experience police use of Force. And after that papers was circulated in the scientific community, academic community, Folks realized that there was a major problem with that paper. And a, you know, a comment was posted to the proceedings of the national Academy of sciences. about The fatal flaw of that paper. The editors sort of waffled about retracting the paper because the paper was so flawed. That the authors couldn’t really justify the statements that they made in it, based on the data and their analysis. But unfortunately Both the Roland Fryer paper and that PNS paper were cited in some congressional testimony. About use of force. Right? So. Decisions made at the highest level of the us government are, decisions being made at the highest level of US government on. Work that has. Really important flaws. And similar to, I think some of the studies on COVID right, there was a effort to produce these papers as fast as possible and make them publicly available make the data publicly available. But people were taking the conclusion from the paper. Without these papers being peer reviewed, and. Sort of processed. That’s a danger. And I think that, you know, the, the, the principles of. Of good science of, of replication, of clear communication of. What was done, of researchers being very careful to articulate the limitations of their study are really useful there. You know, I think the quality of scientific journalism as really reached in the past three or four or five years has really reached a level. of Sophistication that really helps in this sort of regard. And to this point sort of related, you know, my understanding. I think it was Saul Alinsky, Labor organizer in the United States. Maybe I’m thinking of someone else, but you know. That articulated that the goal of an organizers to organize themselves out of a job. Right. So you went to a, if you’re a labor organizer with a national labor union you go into that workspace, and you tried to build power. Among those people at that sort of profession. You know, as an educator. You know, I really try to build critical capacity in my students. Right. So that. No. Best case, you know, that they can do the things that I can do methodologically And for me. You know, in terms of statistics and analysis and so on and so forth. Being able to read the scientific literature, being able to critique the scientific literature, being able to understand what the limitations are in a, you know, the New York times study reads new finding, new study says that. Red meat cures heart disease or something like that. They understand, you know, what. Limitations of that headline might be. And so, you know, I would echo Julius’ point that, you know, I understand my impact of my effect or the role of research in this sort of process is to produce a public that is. you know Scientifically literate, methodologically sharp, curious, skeptical and sort of hungry for, for the, for the, for the knowledge of the truth that that will form just, just policies.

Kamari Clarke:
Thank you Ayo. Thank you on that note. I’m going to see if we could wrap up cause it’s six o’clock now. So thank you to all of you. And of course, thank you to those who stayed on the forum as well as those who presented. Participated as presenters and of course contributed to our, our chat. This, it clearly is a time of reckoning and. The overarching questions that emerged today, beg us to reckon with how we reform institutions that are fundamentally unjust. How do we change societies? That have claimed freedom and Liberty as their hallmark,but whose actual realities continue to render some disposable. The anguish that started in Minneapolis in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd in the hands of the police at the hands of the police has reached a point where protesters are refusing to allow such violence to happen in. Their names. But also in this COVID-19 pandemic period. It has truly laid bare the connections between deep histories of inquality and violence and the enduring realities playing out in contemporary life. The statistics show in Canada and the US people of color are three times more likely to die of COVID-19. Than white Canadians or white Americans because of their presence and delivery, factory service essential services. And, and sometimes their inability to actually work from home. This reality has called for a rethinking of the relationship between of course. crime and Policing in relation to histories of violence, the conditions of possibility to exercise rights. Right to stay home for example, and institutions that are meant to protect us. around the world, people are clearly insisting that central to the solution. Or central to the solution is both the ability to recognize the widespread nature of the problem. And clearly a lot of . The comments today, as well as the comments in the chat. highlight that, the widespread systematic nature of the problem. But, but also too. Produce solutions to address the pervasiveness of. Racism and various forms of structural injustice and inequality. One of the questions. What do research, Do large, especially with. A group of academics. Who are directly addressing. The issues that are fraught in our world today. Alongside social protest, the work of research and informed scholarship. It has a role to play in social change. That’s for sure. It can propel policy reform. But it can also keep us informed about the social historical political underpinnings of violence that can inform the world in which we live. It can teach us that police and state violence in Canada And beyond are not typical. Atypical of daily life, but instead they are constituative of . The building of this land. So the building of this land, in other words, it’s has been constituted by Violence and dispossession by Canadian settler state. And so what we see as racism, isn’t atypical of course This is a message that has come up loud and clear in public protest as well as in scholarly and policy work. What we’ve heard today. Including from the public. Is that these beginnings have not disappeared and remain unresolved. They continue to shape the conditions, for possibility in our world. Understanding the histories of state violence. police Violence are certainly critical for making sense of both the extraordinary and Mundane structures of racial. Inequality that shape our world. It’s clear that alongside extraordinary violence, mundane forms of violence and forms of institutional racism. Give license to impunity These mundane forms of institutional racism or widespread, they are also pervasive. We hear it. People. Are at the opportunity of a platform to express their experiences one after the other. We hear the stories about our public schools. Private schools our healthcare systems in correctional services in child and family welfare. Our hiring practices, promotions, retention practices throughout employment, around economic access through the racialization of our institution. Some of the most mundane forms of racism happens with well-meaning People, our neighbors, our teachers’ political party leaders. But we’re on the precipice of a new demand for reckoning. With systems of inequality that have continued for far too long, the ongoing. Statement I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. This demand for reckoning means that contemporary social movements are insisting that we will no longer accept. business As usual. And we’re also hearing, and we certainly heard this in the chat. But the problem is not simply an individual rogue police officer, but instead systematic and widespread practices that are part of the mundane and daily. forms of life. We’re also hearing that real change can not begin without radical restructuring of the very institutions that are meant to serve and protect us. Social movements, academics, policy makers and leaders are calling for radical change. They’re demanding that resources should be redistributed from hypersecuritization policies and practices, Surveillance, policing in prisons. They’re demanding that those funds be moved to help here to public movements, to Education. To employment, including training. Scholars are also joining activists to talk and think. creatively about police service boards, Scot and others on the panel. Spoke to some of these projections and what is needed to envision a different future. Where we’re hearing around the conversations of defunding. Very. Pragmatic. Issues around guns and gadgets. So moving from militarized form. Of engagement. And moving from technology simply as the answer to a shift in resource allocation and the appropriate. Uses of resources, especially around the questions of mental health. In first nations communities that we re-examine the first nations policing program and invest in self administered, Indigenous alternatives, that those remain part of the demands and that We continue to think about. Other possibilities of . Creating a sustained and viable future. So in closing, it’s clear that effective. Reform of policing cannot happen without addressing the history and the effects that have produced. The challenges in the first place, these effects Include addressing racism and structural injustice and the very normal ways that they structure everyday life. There is significant work ahead, I join my colleagues in both the recognition that there is a lot of work. We have some control, other things we cannot control, especially when our work is published and is out there. But this is a time. And in many ways as, as a centre, we hope to continue this conversation by picking up some of the sub themes that have emerged today. And that that many of my colleagues are also working on and certainly have a lot to contribute in relation to. And as we were, and just to close, as I’m reflecting on the group chat, It seems as if one of the four. Themes to, to pick up might very well be What defunding the police hides that earlier question about erasures. And maybe think about step back and think about structural inequality racialization of poverty and reflect on what the focus on defunding. The police hides, not to suggest that it’s not important to take that line of thinking, but, but to not stop there. And so we will negotiate and think about how we might pick up that theme or strands of that theme as well as some of the other. Themes that emerged from the chat. And please stay. Stay tuned for the next forum. We, we certainly hope to have one. And Cate and my colleague Audrey will follow up with closing the session as well as letting us know what is to come. So thank you all. Thank you. To the participants.

Audrey Macklin:
Thank you. Thank you so much, Kamari for both. Wonderfully synthesizing really a rich conversation that was happening in the group chat and also for providing us with a broad canvas upon which to. Proceed in our own endeavors here, both as researchers and people who are committed to public engagement. And so really, as you said, Kamari, this is. Simply the beginning of a conversation that we hope to continue with. All of you out there responsive to the kinds of questions you have and to the priorities and interests and issues that demand. Discussion and action. So with that, you’ll see that there’s a little. A quick poll for future forums. We do want to continue this and think broadly. About inequality and racialization. And with that, I’m going to say goodbye and to wish you all, both. Thank you. My gratitude for everybody’s participation, especially the speakers and our moderator and also to all of you in the audience. And until the next time, thank you very much. Bye now