SOCIAL POLICY OPTIONS

RACIAL EQUALIT Y:
DECRIMINALIZATION POLICIES
Defunding the police

Defunding the police is a policy or set of policies that “divest funding from police services and invest
in other programs that are better equipped to deliver the safety and security needs of our society.”
The Black Lives Matter movement has been key in advancing the idea of defunding the police,
mainly due to how police services often operate as harmful actors that commit brutality against
targeted communities, such as Black and Indigenous people. Police patrol these communities at
higher rates than others and are killed by the police in high numbers (Hudson, 2020b, para. 1).

One of the ways to approach “defunding the police is through redirecting funds currently wasted
on ineffective policing to services that are constructed to meet our needs.” Policing is an ineffectual,
“band-aid attempt to solve social issues plaguing […] communities.” Defunding the police aims to
address societal problems by creating services and programs that address root issues using redirect
funds from police services (Hudson, 2020b, para. 5). Police have failed to protect people from
gender-based violence, with troubling statistics including the fact that “a woman is killed by her
partner in Canada every six days” and that “less than ten per cent of all sexual assaults are reported
to police.” Redirecting police funds to supporting and preventing gender-based violence could
result in better funding for “shelter, outreach and support systems to keep people safe” as well
as the possibility to work towards “entirely new services for those who need support” (Hudson,
2020b, paras. 9-10).

Diverting policing funding could also create new services of unarmed, well-trained individuals
to respond to mental health emergencies and provide bylaw and traffic services. In the event of
ongoing violent incidents, “a service that provides expert specialized rapid response” would not
nearly require the level of funding used by contemporary police services (Hudson, 2020a, paras.
12-17). Research has indicated that well-trained psychiatric professionals can be an ideal alternative
to police for those experience crises. These professionals create environments for care through their
superior knowledge of mental health and leads to better outcomes for both patients and rapid care
providers ((Lindström et al., 2020, 447).

Hudson, S. (2020a, June 3). Defunding The Police Will Save Black And Indigenous Lives In Canada. Huffington Post. Retrieved
from https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/.
Hudson, S. (2020b, June 9). Policy Options for Defunding the Police & Creating Alternative Services of Safety and Support.
Retrieved from Broadbent Institute website: https://www.broadbentinstitute.ca/.
Lindström, V., Sturesson, L., & Carlborg, A. (2020). Patients’ experiences of the caring encounter with the psychiatric emergency
response team in the emergency medical service—A qualitative interview study. Health Expectations, 23(2), 442–449. https://
doi.org/10.1111/hex.13024

S O LV I N G S O C I A L P R O B L E M S I N C A N A DA
by Christiana MacDougall, Morgan Poteet, Erin Steuter, Mount Allison University, 2021
SOCIAL POLICY OPTIONS

RACIAL EQUALIT Y:
DECRIMINALIZATION POLICIES
End cops in schools - school resource officers (SROs).

The systematic defunding of education has resulted in less teachers and counselors in school.
“As this defunding has taken place, funding to police continues to increase. Adults trained
to support children and youth have now been replaced with police, who are instead meant
to control students. Oftentimes, these so-called ‘Special Resource Officer’ (SRO) programs are not
universal in a school board. Instead, police officers are placed in schools with a higher proportion
of Black and otherwise racialized students. Wealthier, whiter school districts are less likely to have
SRO programs in their institutions” (Hudson, 2020, para. 6).
When police are in schools, there have been cases of children having their rights infringed, including
“interrogations by police without the consent of parents and outside the presence of adults, and in one
case, a six-year-old child was arrested and handcuffed in her classroom.” Youth and children’s experiences
with police in schools are often those of feeling intimidated and fearful when they see police in their
institutions and around their schools,” especially for youth from overpoliced Black and Indigenous
communities. “Police cannot replace the vital functions of a school counselor or a teacher, and they
often only receive weeks of training before being placed amongst minors” (Hudson, 2020, para. 7).
In 2017, Canada’s largest school board, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), voted to remove
SROs from its schools. While “less than half of the district’s high schools […] critics say that police were
stationed primarily in high schools located in communities of color with higher poverty rates.” In 2017
the TDSB surveyed its students in schools with SROs, and while more than half reported feeling safer
with police in schools, about 10% did not feel safer; “2,200 students said having an officer at school
made them feel like they were being watched or targeted, and around 880 said they felt uncomfortable
interacting with the officer at school.” This represented a significant number of students uncomfortable
with SROs, and by using an analytical lens of equity, the TDSB “put greater stock in what students
who’d been most affected by the program had to say” (Belsha, 2020).
A policy alternative, implementing restorative justice practices in schools, has been shown to result
in decreases in suspensions and disciplinary referrals and increases in students’ perception of safety.
Restorative practice coordinators in schools build relationships in and across classrooms, reduce physical
altercations by mediating conflict resolutions amongst students, and increase classroom time by providing
alternatives to detention and suspension. a re-allocation of resources from police in schools to social
justice and social work professionals can create safe spaces for youth (Jacobs et al., 2020, p. 50).

Belsha, K. (2020, June 19). Canada’s largest school district ended its police program. Now Toronto may be an example for U.S.
districts considering the same. Chalkbeat. Retrieved from https://www.chalkbeat.org/.
Hudson, S. (2020, June 9). Policy Options for Defunding the Police & Creating Alternative Services of Safety and Support. Retrieved
from Broadbent Institute website: https://www.broadbentinstitute.ca/.
Jacobs, L., Kim, M., Whitfield, D., Gartner, R., Panichelli, M., Kattari, S., Downey, M., McQueen, S., & Mountz, S. (2020).
Defund the Police: Moving Towards an Anti-Carceral Social Work. Journal of Progressive Human Services, 32(1), 37–62.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10428232.2020.1852865.

S O LV I N G S O C I A L P R O B L E M S I N C A N A DA
by Christiana MacDougall, Morgan Poteet, Erin Steuter, Mount Allison University, 2021
SOCIAL POLICY OPTIONS

RACIAL EQUALIT Y:
DECRIMINALIZATION POLICIES
Abolition of prisons

According to University of Ottawa criminology professor Justin Piché, the prison abolition movement
is “the struggle to do away with imprisonment and to find alternatives to incarceration as a way
of responding to social harm.” Prison abolitionists hold that the “objectives [of imprisonment] of
deterrence, justice and rehabilitation” oftentimes fail, because “from a rehabilitation perspective,
incarceration often leaves offenders in a worse state once their sentence is complete.” Incarceration
creates a dependency on the state institution that is prison and socializes people to the prison
environment, rather than creating law-abiding citizens adjusted to life in their home communities
(Appia, 2020, paras. 7-9).

A primary goal of prison abolition is social and racial justice. By abolishing prison, society responds
to harm in different ways by attempting to transform “the conditions that create” societal harms
in the first place (Appia, 2020, para. 11). Prison, and the criminal justice system, perpetuate
systemic racism. “Although Canada’s crime rates have been declining for the past 20 years, rates of
incarceration for Indigenous and Black people have increased disproportionately,” as black people
make up “3% of the general Canadian population, [while accounting for 10% of the federal prison
population” and “Indigenous people represent approximately 5% of the Canadian population but
account for 30.4% of the federal prison population,” while similar disparities exist in provincial
jails as well. Prison abolition entails “visioning a world where inequalities are resolved by investing
in housing, healthcare, and education […] investments that are required for community safety”
(Reese, 2020).

Incremental moves towards prison abolition could include “opposing government measures that
would expand the capacity for incarceration, finding new ways to conceptualize and respond to
acts that we currently criminalize, finding effective modes of decarceration, and finding ways to
respond to those who are at risk of reoffending” (Appia, 2020, para. 26). Other interim policies
for making prisons more humane include ending solitary confinement. Almost half of suicides in
prison take place in solitary confinement, where prisoners are “subjected to […] isolation, deprived
of any meaningful human contact and locked in a tiny cell from 22 to 24 hours a day.” Scientific
evidence holds that solitary confinement is psychiatrically and psychologically damaging and the
United Nations holds that “anything more than 15 days of prison isolation can be a form of
torture;” nevertheless there has been little legislative movement on restricting solitary confinement
in Canada (Latimer, 2016, paras. 2-3).

Appia, V. (2020, August 21). What is prison abolition and what does it do for racial justice? Toronto.com. Retrieved from https://
www.toronto.com/.
Latimer, C. (2016, November 8). Government action to curb solitary confinement long overdue. Retrieved from Broadbent Institute
website: https://www.broadbentinstitute.ca/.
Reece, R. (2020, June 24). Carceral Redlining: White Supremacy is a Weapon of Mass Incarceration for Indigenous and Black
Peoples in Canada. Retrieved from Yellowhead Institute website: https://yellowheadinstitute.org/.

S O LV I N G S O C I A L P R O B L E M S I N C A N A DA
by Christiana MacDougall, Morgan Poteet, Erin Steuter, Mount Allison University, 2021
SOCIAL POLICY OPTIONS

RACIAL EQUALIT Y:
DECRIMINALIZATION POLICIES
Collect race-based data.

Collecting race-based (or socio-demographic) data serves multiple roles in the fight against systemic
racism. In a racially diverse country like Canada, disparities in employment, incarceration and income.
Collecting more data helps individuals, organizations, and governments better understand what
is going in society, how policies and programs function, and how they can be improved. Frontline
staff benefit from more detailed data by being able to provide “evidence informed and culturally
appropriate services” and through an “improved capacity for advocacy for program resources.” For
organizations, race-based data can aid in “evidence informed planning and improvement of service
quality,” help “identify inequities, disparities and vulnerable populations,” increase “capacity to
advocate for funding,” and help “prevent legal action.” Communities benefit from race-based data
by allowing for “more dialogue between communities and service providers,” increasing “regional
capacity for service providers to identify and collaborate with communities on shared issues,” and
identify policies and solutions that lead to “equitable, fair and socially just life chances and life
outcomes” (Francis et al., 2021).

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for better and increased race-based data
collection, especially in health care. Black, Indigenous, and other visible minority communities
reported higher rates of infection. “Health systems aim to provide high-quality health care to all
people regardless of their sex, gender, income, race or other socio-demographic characteristics.
Disaggregating routine health care indicators can reveal inequalities across groups. Monitoring
health inequalities builds our understanding of the impact of policies, programs and practices.”
By collecting race-based, ethnicity and Indigenous health data, health care providers gain a better
understanding of diversity and inequity in the health care system and can better compare access
and outcomes (CIHI, 2020, p. 4-7).

Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). (2020, July 24). Proposed Standards for Race- Based and Indigenous Identity
Data Collection and Health Reporting in Canada. Retrieved from https://www.cihi.ca/.
Francis, L., Go, A., Hasan, S., & Konanur, S. (2021, March 21). Five Good Ideas for racial justice change-making. Retrieved from
Maytree website: https://maytree.com/.

S O LV I N G S O C I A L P R O B L E M S I N C A N A DA
by Christiana MacDougall, Morgan Poteet, Erin Steuter, Mount Allison University, 2021
SOCIAL POLICY OPTIONS

RACIAL EQUALIT Y:
DECRIMINALIZATION POLICIES
Police accountability and independent inquiries

Police use-of-force incidents in Canada combined with the growth of the Black Lives Matter
movement have led to calls for independent oversight and investigation for police to improve
accountability, along with calls for other policies like defunding. “Some provinces have an
independent civilian-led agency that is responsible for investigating serious incidents between the
police and public,” however, there is still no civilian-led watchdog in Nunavut, Yukon, Northwest
Territories, Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick, meaning police are still
investigated by other police forces in these jurisdictions (Laming, 2020, paras. 1-5).

The goal of independent bodies and investigations of police behaviour is to increase the trust of
the public in law enforcement and increase the level of accountability for police officers who abuse
their position. “Police accountability remains low in Canada despite incidents of civilian abuse and
death. A recent CBC report found that only two officers were convicted in 461 cases of deaths
of civilians between 2000 and 2018 [and] in cases where officers are charged, the legal outcomes
tend to be more favourable to police officers than civilians charged with similar offences” (Oriola,
2020, paras. 1-2).

Steps to implementing policies that enhance accountability include establishing a civilian agency
in every province and territory that has complete responsibility to investigate major incidents
between the police and public in that jurisdiction and these agencies must have full investigative
autonomy and the legislative power to lay criminal charges without having to refer to the Crown.
These watchdog agencies must also be fully transparent about the investigations they are involved
with, effectively communicate their findings to the public and have adequate Black, Indigenous
and other minority representation (Laming, 2020).

Another policy option would be one taken by countries with the lowest rates of police killings,
such as Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, and Japan, where mechanisms for police oversight exist at
the national level, allowing centralized investigations. Furthermore, these countries’ police unions
are more traditional unions, affiliated with larger bodies and do not have the power to insulate
police officers from punishment (Ralph, 2020).

Laming, E. (2020, June 12). Police accountability begins with proper civilian oversight. CBC News. Retrieved from https://
www.cbc.ca/news.
Oriola, T. (2020, November 3). Why police reform won’t happen without public pressure on politicians. The Conversation.
Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/.
Ralph, L. (2020, September). To Protect and to Serve. Foreign Affairs, 99, 196-202.

S O LV I N G S O C I A L P R O B L E M S I N C A N A DA
by Christiana MacDougall, Morgan Poteet, Erin Steuter, Mount Allison University, 2021
SOCIAL POLICY OPTIONS

RACIAL EQUALIT Y:
DECRIMINALIZATION POLICIES
More oversight of Police Encounters (End Carding/street checks, Use of body
cameras).

Bringing more oversight to police encounters could begin with ending carding policies. According
to Amnesty International, carding is “when police officers stop, question, and document individuals
without any evidence that they have been involved in, or have knowledge of, an offence. Bias
and stereotyping play into the officers’ decisions of who to stop and why, which affects many
racialized groups, but especially Black people.” Black, Indigenous, and other racialized people
are disproportionately affected by carding. Carding is also alleged to violate rights outlined in
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, namely Article 9 on arbitrary detention, arrest, or
exile, and Article 13 on freedom of movement, among others. There is no correlation between
carding and lower crime rates, and according to Canadian judge Michael Tulloch, “there is little
to no evidence that a random, unfocused collection of identifying information has benefits that
outweigh the social cost of the practice.” Instituting a “permanent and effective ban on carding” is
a viable policy option, in tandem with others, to combatting systemic racism in policing (Amnesty
International, 2020, paras. 2-7).

Another proposed policy for oversight of policing is the use of body cameras on officers. The
rationale behind outfitting police officers with body cameras is to deter bad behaviour from police in
interactions with the public and subsequently enhance trust between law enforcement and the public
with the perceived increased transparency that comes with body cameras. According to Alexander
McClelland, a post-doctoral fellow in the University of Ottawa’s department of criminology, “data
is inconclusive to show that body cameras decrease violent incidents with police,” and that cameras
can help to document incidents of racism, but do not “stop the underlying patterns of racism.”
Policies on body worn cameras can also differ on how they are used by officers and when footage
from them can be released to the public (Britneff, 2020).

Amnesty International. (2020, February 29). Five reasons why Canada should put an end to carding. Retrieved from https://
www.amnesty.ca/.
Britneff, B. (2020, June 9). Police body cameras in Canada: How common are they and do they reduce excessive force? Global
News. Retrieved from https://globalnews.ca/.

S O LV I N G S O C I A L P R O B L E M S I N C A N A DA
by Christiana MacDougall, Morgan Poteet, Erin Steuter, Mount Allison University, 2021
SOCIAL POLICY OPTIONS

RACIAL EQUALIT Y:
DECRIMINALIZATION POLICIES
Over-policing policies

Black and Indigenous communities in Canada are overpoliced. This fact is borne out in statistical
data, as studies have shown “that police killings disproportionately impact black communities,
particularly in Toronto, where black people make up 8.3 percent of the population but 36.5
percent of police fatalities, [and a report] by the United Nations Working Group of Experts on
People of African Descent concluded that Canada’s black population experiences ‘endemic’ racial
discrimination by law enforcement.” Furthermore, “racially disproportionate police stops have
been documented in cities across the country, including Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, Kingston,
Ottawa, Edmonton and Lethbridge” (Maynard, 2018, paras. 3-5). Indigenous people are also
often singled-out.

In Aboriginal communities in Canada, police (often RCMP) are inherently “representatives of a

culture which is vastly different [… and] encounters with police are framed by a history of cultural
oppression and economic domination.” One policy solution to the over-policing of Indigenous
Canadians “is the creation of well-trained and well-equipped Aboriginal police forces, under
Aboriginal direction, providing a full range of police services to Aboriginal communities.” Such a
force would cooperate with and be on equal footing with the RCMP and other municipal police
services, and better embody characteristics of community policing like being responsive to local
concerns, being prevention-oriented, being flexible and accommodative and being a true partnership
with the community (AJIC, 2001, Ch. 16).

Removing police altogether from these communities, another form of defunding, is also an option.
Community-based research has indicated that “police, prisons, and courts are significantly costlier
tools for addressing” inequality and calls for police budgets to be reallocated to “community services
in the areas of youth development, homelessness, gender-based violence, mental health, drug use
and emergency dispatch.” These investments would ideally be proactive and be implemented in
tandem with the creation of a service of “civilian support workers who have expertise in dealing
with community and individual crises,” with the opportunity for “Black, Indigenous and racially
marginalized communities to lead the development of appropriate and meaningful interventions
for building their own healthy communities” (Tewelde, 2021, paras. 10-11).

Aboriginal Justice Implementation Commission. (2001). Report of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba. Retrieved from
http://www.ajic.mb.ca/.
Maynard, R. (2018, April 24). Over-policing in black communities is a Canadian crisis, too. The Washington Post. Retrieved from
https://www.washingtonpost.com/.
Tewelde, Y. (2021, March 4). During COVID-19, officials fell back on unnecessary policing. Retrieved from Institute for Research
on Public Policy website: https://policyoptions.irpp.org/.

S O LV I N G S O C I A L P R O B L E M S I N C A N A DA
by Christiana MacDougall, Morgan Poteet, Erin Steuter, Mount Allison University, 2021
SOCIAL POLICY OPTIONS

RACIAL EQUALIT Y:
DECRIMINALIZATION POLICIES
Decriminalization of poverty

Decriminalizing poverty is policy targeted at law enforcement agencies to shift priorities and
funding so that police don’t spend as much time and resources policing homelessness, people with
mental health and drug addictions, or sex workers. Unhoused people are frequently harassed by law
enforcement in urban environments. Cuts and underfunding to social housing programs over time
has resulted in crisis levels of unhoused people in Canadian cities like Vancouver and Toronto, and
capacity rates in homeless shelter systems are largely insufficient for the scope of people requiring
their use. Unhoused people often turn to creating encampments in lieu of formal housing, and
these are liable to be violently targeted by law enforcement. By reallocating the resources used
in policing unhoused people and criminalizing them for their poverty and reinvesting these
resources in social housing programs and shelter systems, unhoused poverty would effectively be
decriminalized. (Hudson, 2020, para. 11).

Decriminalizing poverty also calls for investments in “community-based services, specifically

non-police interventions that support people who are impacted by homelessness, toxic drug supply,
mental health distress, and those working in informal/grey economies, such as sex work.” Resources
need to be allocated as “permanent funding for programs that prioritize the work of decriminalizing
poverty and supporting community-led safety initiatives” (Pivot Legal Society, 2021).

Hudson, S. (2020, June 9). Policy Options for Defunding the Police & Creating Alternative Services of Safety and Support. Retrieved
from Broadbent Institute website: https://www.broadbentinstitute.ca/.
Pivot Legal Society. (2021, March 11). Joint Open Letter on Decriminalizing Poverty. Retrieved from https://www.pivotlegal.org/.

S O LV I N G S O C I A L P R O B L E M S I N C A N A DA
by Christiana MacDougall, Morgan Poteet, Erin Steuter, Mount Allison University, 2021
SOCIAL POLICY OPTIONS

RACIAL EQUALIT Y:
DECRIMINALIZATION POLICIES
Drug Prohibition Reparations

Reparations for drug prohibition cannot erase the harm caused by drug prohibition laws but would
be a step towards acknowledging systemic racism and addressing existing inequities. Historically,
“drug prohibition laws in Canada have been used to disproportionately target, harass, control,
criminalize, and incarcerate non-white communities. Black people in Canada have been one of the
communities especially affected, experiencing significantly higher rates of police attention, arrests,
and prosecution than their share of the population.” Though the federal government has legalized
marijuana for recreational use, many still have drug charges on their criminal record or remain
incarcerated (Ejeckam, 2019, paras. 1-2).

Governments can symbolically recognize the harm caused by drug criminalization by recognizing it
as a “historical injustice.” A first policy step towards reparations would be to pass federal legislation
to proactively expunge non-violent drug conviction records. The existing system of pardons – or
‘record suspensions’ – for drug convictions preserve a person’s prior ‘criminal’ status, and so maintain
many of the impairments that come with it. At the provincial level, governments, in addition to
regulating and overseeing legal cannabis, “should dedicate a portion of the public revenues toward
public programs and funding seeking to offset the barriers endured by Black Canadians and other
racialized groups due to drug-related criminalization. These would include facilitating access to
public loans and mortgages, housing, education and employment programs, and more.” Finally,
overpoliced communities targeted by prosecution and criminalization should receive redistributed
resources to facilitate “community revitalization and local economic development” (Ejeckam,
2019, paras. 4-7).

Ejeckam, C. (2019, February 11). Drug Prohibition Reparations. Retrieved from Broadbent Institute website: https://www.
broadbentinstitute.ca/.

S O LV I N G S O C I A L P R O B L E M S I N C A N A DA
by Christiana MacDougall, Morgan Poteet, Erin Steuter, Mount Allison University, 2021