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Report finds more Indigenous arrests over 2 years in Cowichan than Indigenous people

Study: North Cowichan/Duncan RCMP arrest rate for Indigenous peoples 2.7 times higher than whites
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(The Canadian Press)

There were more arrests of Indigenous people in the Duncan area over a recent two-year period than there are Indigenous people living in the area.

Data collected by University of Toronto criminology professor Scot Wortley from five B.C. police forces has found just how overrepresented Indigenous people are in arrests or chargeable incidents involving the North Cowichan/Duncan RCMP.

“Although Indigenous people represent 15.6 per cent of Duncan’s resident population, they were involved in 33.5 per cent of all arrests/chargeable incidents captured by the RCMP data,” said the report laid out during a presentation from B.C.’s Office of the Human Rights Commissioner. “In other words, Indigenous people are 2.2 times more likely to appear in Duncan RCMP arrest data than their presence in the general population would predict.”

The average annual arrest rate for Indigenous peoples was 2.7 times higher than the white arrest rate and 2.2 times greater than the detachment’s average, said the report.

“It is important to note that, between 2019 and 2020, there were more arrests of ‘chargable incidents’ of Indigenous people by the Duncan RCMP (3,749) than the number of Indigenous residents documented by the Canadian census (3,610).”

What’s more, “Indigenous women are slightly overrepresented in Duncan arrest statistics. However it should be noted that Indigenous women are the only females that are overrepresented in Duncan arrest statistics.”

The report also noted the Indigenous women arrest rate is three times higher than that of white women.

In Vancouver, Indigenous Peoples were involved in such incidents at a rate of more than 20,000 per 100,000 people. Black people were involved at a rate of 9,500 per 100,000 people, Hispanic people at a rate of more than 3,500 per 100,000 people and Arab and West Asian people at a rate of more than 3,000 per 100,000 people.

All of those racialized groups were involved in arrests or chargeable incidents in Vancouver at a rate much higher – 10 times so in the case of Indigenous Peoples – than white people, who had a rate of just over 2,000 per 100,000.

The statistics were similar across the other police forces studied: Surrey RCMP, Prince George RCMP, and Nelson Police, though the report notes that “the Duncan RCMP had a higher rate of missing racial data (10.3 per cent) in their arrest dataset than the other police jurisdictions in the current study.”

(B.C.'s Office of the Human Rights Commissioner)

Wortley said that Black and Indigenous people were overrepresented in all case outcomes once they were taken on by the B.C. Prosecution Service. However, he said that they were most represented in cases that were dropped by the Crown, which Wortley said could point to the fact that police cases against Black and Indigenous people were the least solid.

Wortley laid out three possible explanations for the racial disparity; racially based policing, civillian bias in reporting crimes and higher rates of offending, linked to the lasting impacts of colonization, discrimination and multigenerational trauma and socioeconomic disadvantage.

“A lot of what the police focus on are very visible crimes that take place on the street,” Wortley said, adding that this means police have less of a focus on white-collar crime, which contributes to the representation of some racialized groups.

Wortley said that all three explanations for the racial disparity in arrests and chargeable incidents must be investigated, along with putting in more oversight of the police, investing in community crime prevention efforts, along with mental health and substance use. Wortley said that improved race-based data collection and analysis is key, along with the decriminalization of drug possession and public disorder offences.

“We must stop the crisis cycle,” he said.

When it came to North Cowichan/Duncan involved mental health incident rates, again, the Indigenous and Black peoples were at rates of more than 12,475 and 12,300 per 100,000 respectively. This is compared to a rate for white people of 8,200 per 100,000.

Commissioner Kasari Govender said trust needs to be built between police and marginalized groups but that this cannot happen without reform and a de-prioritization of police as the first call when a community issue is identified.

The recommendations from Govender’s office include that the B.C. government work with Indigenous Peoples on a government-to-government basis on amendments to the Police Act, and that the public safety ministry authorize police to collect race-based data to address systemic discrimination.

They also include that the public safety ministry should reduce the use of discretion in street checks and ensure accountability for police actions in these situations and “de-task the police,” and that funds should be directed towards civilian-led initiatives on mental health, substance use and homelessness.

Govender said that the current police structure looks like “over-policing,” which she said has led to several police incidents with tragic results. The commissioner pointed to Max Johnson, an Indigenous man handcuffed by police when bank staff suspected him of using fraudulent ID to open a bank account for his granddaughter; retired justice Selwyn Romilly, the first Black judge on the BC Supreme Court who was arrested by police looking for a Black suspect in his 40s; and the death of Chantel Moore, the Vancouver Island Indigenous woman shot by police in New Brunswick during a wellness check.

“These are the painful realities behind the numbers we shared today,” Govender said.

VIDEO: Chiefs join human rights case of Indigenous man handcuffed by police in B.C. bank


@katslepian

katya.slepian@bpdigital.ca

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