Q&A with Akwasi Owusu-Bempah | Sway Magazine

Akwasi Owusu-Bempah. Photo credit: Diana Tyszko

By Samuel Getachew

Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto?s Centre for Criminology, is co-author of a new study on Canada?s Justice system. He tells Sway about his ?troubling? findings and also reflects on an imminent law that he feels will ?not only affect those who get caught up in the system, but also the families and ultimately entire communities.?

Tell us about your recent report on the justice system and race.

My co-author, Dr. Paul Millar and I recently published a study entitled, ?Whitewashing Criminal Justice in Canada: Preventing Research through Data Suppression? in the Canadian Journal of Law and Society. Based on our research, we found that a majority of police services in Canada do not include racial information in the Uniform Crime Report data that they submit to Statistics Canada, even though a racial data field exists on the forms.

What else did you find?

We discovered that as of 2009, almost 20% of Canadian police services had an official policy not to report Aboriginal status for either victims or accused persons. Furthermore, racial status (including Aboriginal) was missing for more than 80% of the cases sent to Statistics Canada 2009. We also found a decrease in the reporting of racial data by police services between 2000 and 2009. So for the most part, our national statistical agency is not being provided with important data by Canadian police services.

Why do you think that is?

I think there are a number of reasons for why this information is not provided by police services to Statistics Canada. First of all, there is a concern that this information (and other race-based justice statistics) could be used to stigmatize racialized groups. If for instance, one group is shown to be over-represented in the statistics, the data could be used to support the view that this group is inherently criminal. I think this is a valid concern, and if I truly believed that the suppression of such data prevented the criminalization of racial minority groups, I would be in full support of it.

However, our society does not prevent racialized images of crime from appearing in the news and other forms of popular media ? which is where most Canadians get their knowledge about crime and criminal justice. In fact, the suppression of these statistics might be doing the opposite. A 2008 poll conducted as part of a special crime series in the Toronto Star newspaper asked members of the public to estimate what proportion of Canadians with a criminal record were from visible minority groups.

Respondents believed that over twice as many visible minority group members had a criminal record than the police records showed (36.7% estimated vs. 16.7% actual). In the absence of such data, racial stereotypes proliferate unchecked.

Importantly, I think there is hesitation on the part of police services and some other justice agencies to release race-based justice data because it will show that certain racial minority groups are over represented in the statistics. The question then becomes why and what should be done to remedy it?

Why do you think this should be changed?

Available evidence, including annually published data from our federal correctional system, shows that some groups, particularly Aboriginal and black Canadians, are over-represented throughout the Canadian criminal justice system. There are two reasons commonly put forth to explain this. First, these groups are more likely to live in social conditions that put them at greater risk of being involved in crime as both victims and accused. Secondly, differential treatment of these groups by our criminal justice system can be attributed to racial discrimination.

I believe both of these are true; the latter has been supported by court decisions. Suppressing racial data from the criminal justice system means that Canadians do not get a true picture of who is committing crime in this country, nor how our justice system deals with members of different racial groups. Thus, we proceed as if everything is all right.

In Ottawa, there is an omnibus crime bill, which includes mandatory minimum sentences for drug and gun crimes. What is your take on that?

I think there is also a pressing need to collect racial data in light of the looming omnibus crime bill that our conservative government is rushing to pass.

On a general level, I think the crime bill has many failings and will result in our country being less, rather than more safe. When republicans from Texas are telling us that such punitive measures are taking us in the wrong direction (based on their own experience), I think we should take note. This is even more unfortunate because the new measures are going to cost us billions and billions of dollars at a time when both the government and Canadians are feeling a pinch financially.

You have said, ?These laws will not only affect those who get caught up in the system, but also the families and ultimately entire communities.? Please explain.

What should be of particular interest to our black communities is the introduction of mandatory minimum penalties for certain drug and gun crimes. I am not advocating for guns and drugs, but rather a sensible approach to dealing with these issues. Again, we can learn a lesson from the United States, where many jurisdictions are repealing their mandatory minimum sentences

I don?t doubt that the introduction of these mandatory minimum penalties for drug and gun crimes will have a disproportionate impact on black Canadians, not only in terms of our level of contact with the criminal justice system but our experience in society more generally. Some of these consequences have recently been articulated by the African Canadian Legal Clinic in challenges to the mandatory minimums and include the following:

Increasing the public perception that black Canadians are prone to criminal behaviour; Increasing the black community?s mistrust in the Canadian criminal justice system; Reducing the economic viability of black communities as a result of their increased criminalization and diminished employment opportunities; and further exposing children within black communities to the negative impacts associated with their parents increased incarceration which include separation trauma, anxiety, depression, shame and feelings of abandonment.

What can readers take away from all of this?

Well I think if readers agree with any of what I have said ? now is a good time to take action ? on either the statistics or the crime bill. I think we need to take notice and stay informed. I would encourage readers to discuss these matters with friends and family, write a letter to a newspaper or political representative, or organize a community meeting. Do something, anything. We live in a democracy; we should take advantage of it.

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Source: http://swaymag.ca/people-community/qa-with-akwasi-owusu-bempah/

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