Random Police checks may not be entirely based on race.
Carding is “the act of recording information received during community engagements, allowing officers to routinely stop people in the street and collect information about them,” according to City News. Deputy Police Chief Peter Sloly reported to CBC News that the intent is for police in Ontario to have the right to randomly stop people in the streets to perform “street checks” or to record personal information for future use.
Sloly elaborated, stating that the choice to stop an individual is based on appearance and behaviour—anything suspicious gives police a reason to stop a citizen. Regardless, general belief in Toronto sees carding as an attack on minorities.
Concerns are linked to the fact that the stops are based on racial stereotyping. The word “stereotyping” itself has no negative connotation on its own. Originally the term was created to describe “casting of multiple papier-mâché copies of printing type from a papier-mâché mold…to produce duplications of printed images,” according to the article “Breaking the vicious cycle of gender stereotypes and science.” The problem, however, is that prejudice often follows stereotypes, as shown with slavery and the treatment of Aboriginals during early North American settlement. It is this prejudice that causes harm and gives stereotyping a bad name.
Early on, the brain learns to cope with all the objects it is presented with by categorizing them into groups. For example, a stool, armchair, bench, and couch all fall under the category “chair,” to some extent. In her article in Psychology Today, Annie Murphy Paul explains that this is how a person makes sense of the world around him or her in order to survive. Paul went on to point out that a child often inherits certain beliefs before they are old enough to make their own opinions. Therefore, children do not question their early beliefs.
The brain separates and organizes what it comes into contact with into groups—natural assumptions occur based on experience. For example, a baby assumes “dogs” as a group are dangerous, because the baby was harmed by dogs in the past. These assumptions are a way of predicting how to interact with the world: dogs are dangerous, so the baby will avoid them. This is the basis for stereotyping.
When police pull over people of minority, it is because of their experience and the probability of the person being questionable. This is termed “profiling” in investigations and allows a professional to make assumptions about a person’s appearance and behaviour in order to predict their actions. Individuals are categorized based on common observations. According to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service’s article on stereotyping and profiling, “stereotypes and profiles are used to create rational categorizations that are part of human nature and that it is appropriate to use them in law enforcement applications as long as they are used without bias or prejudice.” This is stereotyping at its best; predicting and preventing crime by understanding criminals.
Stereotypically, minorities are greatly featured in the crime department, however, this says nothing about race. When it comes to groups of people generally behaving a certain way, society is to blame. A black man has no more violent tendencies than a white man. A black man who is treated as a criminal and denied his rights because of prejudice may commit crimes to survive or rebel and therefore encourage the stereotype that black men are criminals. This vicious cycle is the creation of society’s rigid expectations.
“When racial profiling happens, neighbourhoods become places of distrust and fear,” reported the Ontario Human Rights Commission.
The idea that carding is racist continues a vicious cycle that helps no one.
In the end, it would seem that the goal of carding is to aid in future investigation and the reality is that minorities are being targeted. This is not of importance. The important question here is whether the focus on minorities is validated and is helping fight crime, or if the police are wrong in their racist assumptions and are abusing their rights?