In response to an extensive public consultation that revealed differences in the perception of police work between white citizens and those from a visible minority, the Laval police chief will try to send a strong signal this Wednesday by presenting a new “non-discrimination statement” that will commit his organization now. “We can’t wait,” he said.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
The Service de police de Laval had launched consultations on racial and social profiling in the summer of 2020. The exercise had begun shortly after the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer and the start of the Black movement protests. Lives Matter.
“The Floyd affair in the United States was a wake-up call, personally, for me,” says director Pierre Brochet, in an interview with The Press.
“The City of Laval took this very seriously, the issues of racism and discrimination,” he said.
Extensive consultations
The consultation included discussion groups on immigration led by the firm BIP research, a citizen caravan and participatory workshops organized with the Institut du Nouveau Monde, as well as an online survey compiled by Dialogs to which 2,811 Laval residents responded, including 27% who identify as a visible minority.
Overall, 73% of survey respondents had a positive opinion of their police service. Positive opinions also dominated during in-person discussion activities, including among those who identified as a minority.
“The perception of Laval police officers is very positive and I am proud of their work in an increasingly difficult context, as they find themselves live on social networks from one minute to another, that their name is broadcast, that the violence increases, ”explains Mr. Brochet.
Difference in perception
But the consultations also reveal differences between respondent groups. Testimonies collected during the caravan show that participants who identify with a cultural community have had more interactions with the police and view these experiences more negatively than others.
In the survey, 24% of visible minority respondents said they believe the police department engages in racial profiling, compared to just 8% of whites. Asked about their assessment of fair treatment for all citizens vis-à-vis the police, respondents who are members of visible minorities were more likely (35%) to give a negative opinion than whites (22%).
“We see that there is a difference in perception. It reinforced our idea that we had to take action immediately,” explains director Brochet.
The statement that will be presented this Wednesday specifies that the police department “commits to interacting in a fair and equitable manner with all the citizens of Laval and not to tolerate any form of discrimination”. A commitment that may seem obvious, but which responds to a suggestion made during the consultations regarding the need to take a firm public position, explains Mr. Brochet.
Justify the arrests
An action plan accompanies the statement, some components of which are already underway. Arrests must now be justified by the police on the basis of “observable facts”, and not on a simple intuition.
New training sessions on the types of complaints made by citizens and on ways to interact with different cultural communities have also been developed.
There remains an important project, the diversification of the police force. The service says it has a plan to recruit around twenty police officers from diversity next year in order to increase the percentage of officers from visible minorities, which is currently stagnating at 8% in an organization of 120 police officers.