The events of this summer in the metropolitan region and its agglomerations as well as the start of the electoral campaign have highlighted an escalation of measures, against a backdrop of a security frenzy that is worrying to say the least.
The issue of police funding cannot be reduced to a look at the increase or decrease in the sums allocated to a budget line. Nor can the response to armed violence in multiple forms (feminicides, settling scores, gratuitous homicides) be reduced to an increase in police personnel, without regard to the deleterious consequences that the multiplication of surveillance and checks on marginalized and racialized populations and communities. Indeed, studies on profiling show that repressive escalation is much more successful in targeting disproportionately people with no connection to the criminal milieu than in solving criminal cases.
The era of repression is not new. The 2000s showed that police teams specializing in the fight against organized crime and armed violence contributed to exacerbating profiling practices against marginalized populations, by overjudicializing, for example, people experiencing homelessness, young racialized men and indigenous populations. These scientific demonstrations are no longer to be made. Various policies, court decisions and anti-profiling plans bear witness to certain forms of recognition of the importance of changing police practices.
However, no concern with regard to discrimination seems to be considered in this security frenzy, except sometimes for crumbs of funding for prevention and social responses by community organizations. No debate on the role of the police, on its governance, on the control mechanisms of this institution appears in the decor of the electoral campaign. For example, why, in Montreal, has the director of the SPVM (Service de police de la Ville de Montréal) changed every year for the past few years? Who is the pilot on the plane? The mayor? The government ? The Police Brotherhood? Who benefits from this opacity?
The repressive management of the pandemic has nevertheless left its mark, with thousands of statements of offense having been issued to people most often living in situations of marginality or in disadvantaged areas. The establishment of a curfew is the distinctive example that has made it possible to excessively take legal action against certain people, regardless of their social situation, their living conditions and the challenges that compliance with health measures posed to them on a daily basis. Thus, more than 46,000 statements of offense were issued under health standards, including 22,544 for non-compliance with the curfew. 162 reports per day were submitted for this reason.
On the contrary, the management of the pandemic has concealed inequalities and discrimination, already prevalent before the pandemic, and has contributed to increasing them. Public security, and more broadly the security of individuals, communities and territories, should however be the subject of serious debate, in order to strengthen social cohesion and the well-being of everyone in our society. Continuing to deny the existence of systemic discrimination, profiling experienced by people and minority communities can only be translated as a renunciation of our rule of law, which makes the equal treatment of people by all institutions and public services the keystone of our social and political organization.
It is high time for politicians to work for the common good of all. It is high time that they were ready to engage on these issues of civil rights and social rights.
* The complete list of signatories:
Pascale Dufour, professor in the political science department of the UDM and director of the Collective for Research Action Political and Democracy
Jade Bourdages-Lafleur, professor at the UQAM School of Social Work
Sébastien Brodeur-Girard, professor at the School of Native Studies at UQAT
Jacinthe Rivard, professor at the UDM School of Social Work
Sophie Hamisultane, clinical sociologist and professor at the UDM School of Social Work
Paul Eid, professor in the sociology department at UQAM
Sandra Lehalle, professor in the Department of Criminology at UOttawa
Francis Dupuis-Déri, professor in the political science department at UQAM
Emmanuelle Bernheim, Professor at the Faculty of Law, Civil Law Section of UOttawa
Marie-Eve Sylvestre, Professor at the Faculty of Law, Civil Law Section of UOttawa
Arij Riahi, lawyer and co-director of the Greater Montreal Legal Clinic
Benoît Allard, co-coordinator of the Research and Training Group on Poverty in Quebec
Bernard St-Jacques, director of the Clinique Droits Devant
Pierre Richard Thomas, President of Lakay
Annie Savage, Director of the Network for the Alone and Homeless People of Montreal
Marjolaine Siouï, Executive Director of the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Health and Social Services Commission
Laurence Guénette, coordinator of the League for Rights and Freedoms
Nicolas Spallanzani-Sarrasin, doctoral candidate in criminology at UDM
Malorie Kanaan, candidate for the master’s degree in law and social justice at UOttawa
Dominique Gaulin, doctoral candidate in social work at UDM and social worker
Karl Beaulieu, master’s candidate at the UDM School of Criminology
Delphine Gauthier-Boiteau, candidate for a master’s degree in law at UQAM and lawyer
Isabelle Raffestin, doctoral candidate at the UDM School of Social Work
Félix Généreux-Marotte, Bachelor of Laws student at UQAM
Marilyn Coupienne, doctoral candidate in law at UOttawa and lawyer
Me Christian Yawo K. Alou, doctoral candidate in law at UOttawa
Mélissa Durimel, master’s candidate in the Department of Criminology at UOttawa
Yannick Gingras, candidate for the master’s degree in philosophy at UQÀM
Gabrielle Prince-Guérard, candidate for a master’s degree in social work at UQAM
Sophie Marois, doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of Toronto
Izara Gilbert, candidate for a master’s degree in social work at UQÀM
Stéphanie Houde, research professional at the Profiling Observatory
Jacinthe Poisson, research professional at the Profiling Observatory
Marie-Jeanne Disant, research professional