Report in to Discrimination in Policing Brings Forward 29 Recommendations

An indepth report released yesterday offers 29 recommendations on how to reforming policing in BC to remove systemic discrimination.

Completed by Human Rights Commissioner, Kasari Govender, the report was the basis of her submission to the Special Committee on Reforming the Police Act.

In the submission, recommendations filled a number of larger categories, including: oversight, consolidation of federal and provincial systems, dedicated supports, re-delegating certain tasks to more qualified industries, accountability, and desegregating data.

One recommendation asks for the creation of an Indigenous civilian oversight body to observe, and publicly report on police activities.

Another asks for police Boards to be more representative of the demographics of the community they are serving.

The report also calls for changes to the way RCMP, who police 70 percent of BC’s population, collect and retain data.

Often times the RCMP do not hold certain historical data on cases for research purposes for more than a few years.

You can view the full report, titled “Equity is Safer: Human rights considerations for policing reform in British Columbia”, at this link.