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Alan Borovoy: Something else I'd like to see -- there have been so many complaints surrounding
minority, visible minorities and the cops. There have been problems with the police.
The perception is -- and one doesn't have to completely resolve the dimensions of the
problem in order to be satisfied that it's important to address this perception, because
that perception makes for an unhappy community, makes for frustrated, troubled people.
The perception is that the police mistreat Blacks. They're too willing to crack down
unfairly and too reluctant to provide assistance. We don't have to resolve the ultimate dimensions
of that problem, whether it is as serious as some minority group people see it or is
non-serious as numbers of police officers see it. To whatever extent such a perception
remains in the community, it is important that responsible citizens address it because
that makes for an unhealthy climate.
One of the ways we should address it is to campaign for a new system of police or a broadened
system for police accountability. It's possible to sue the police. It's possible to charge
them. It's possible to complain against them. But we know that not enough aggrieved people
are going to come forward. People don't want to take on the police. They will be reluctant
to do it. And so whatever inequities exist are likely to survive because there are not
enough people willing to take them on.
We believe we have campaigned for quite awhile. Now I'm talking about the last organization
that employed me in this area, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, that there should
be a system for independently auditing police policies and police practices, an agency with
ongoing access to police records, personnel and facilities to inquire into what's going
on.
Interesting thing, I often ask people, "Have you ever considered what determines what the
police do all day?" They can't do everything there is. What decides what their priorities
are? Who decides? On what basis do they decide? An outsider should be taking a look at all
of these things, taking a look at what their practices are. Are they handcuffing people
where they don't need to, strip searching people when they don't need to? Are they behaving
as courteously with various constituencies where they do need to?
We believe that there ought to be ongoing independent audits by an agency with no decision
making powers, simply the power to disclose and propose, but not decide. And keep drawing
these issues out of the woodwork and publicizing them, that I believe is the missing link in
police accountability. I think there would be a lot more of it if there was such an agency.
And I'll use the language that I know will send some of them up the wall, looking over
their shoulder. When you exercise the kind of power we give to the police in our community,
there should be someone constantly looking over their shoulder.