Police Carding Essay

Carding is the practice in which the police gather contact cards through random police checks in an attempt to collect information about individuals that are stopped and questioned. This information is stored in a program that helps the police identify individuals who are suspected of criminal activity by referring back to their whereabouts, who they were accompanied by, and personal information at the time they were carded. Many Torontonians are familiar with this practice as they have personally been involved in the process, witnessed it in their communities or learned about it through media’s increased coverage of the practice. Recently the Toronto Police has come under a lot of scrutiny over allegations of racial profiling, primarily of
An article by the Toronto Star stated that “police have cited cases where contact cards helped close homicide cases, and investigators value a database that makes connections...” (Rankin and Winsa). Many police officers justify the practice of carding as a useful method to acquire justice, protect society, and argue that it allows to helps make connections between crimes and people through a carding program they utilize. Furthermore, in analyzing the controversy of the Toronto Stars findings about the Toronto police records, Ron Melchers stated that, “Complete information, the star reported, was not available in every instance, and the analysis excluded those cases where specific information is missing” (349). Essentially, the data the Toronto Star acquired was not completely used since portions of data that help lay their claim was most prominent in their findings. Although, the data’s presentation by The Toronto Star was construed to help notice the evident racial profiling, it still effectively portrays the relation between the racial background to the people who were carded. The racial profiling of particular groups in society is a problematic issue as it does not reflect the whole population, but rather is more concentrated on criminal behavior in one specific
According to an article regarding a police board meeting advising to change the carding policies, a Toronto resident argued that Toronto, “continue[s] to suffer increasing numbers of our black youth being singled out and questioned by police for no justifiable legal reason” (Winsa and Rankin). The carding polices did not require legal ground or justification of any suspicious behavior to interrogate people and place them in a system that stores their personal information. Although there has been some improvement and changes to the policies of carding, it is still evident that black men are still disproportionally represented. As long as the police have more discretion in their actions within the legal framework of this practice, it allows for a more probable chance of biases and racial profiling. Moral entrepreneurs, such as the Black Action Defence Committee are taking a proactive role in addressing the issues of carding and are demanding restitution for the injustice they have faced from Toronto police. According to an article by the Toronto Star. “A proposed class-action lawsuit seeks $65 million in damages and other remedies from Toronto police for alleged racial profiling practices and