Random street checks, or carding, should be banned as there is little evidence to show the practice is useful in reducing crime, while it disproportionately affects racialized individuals, according to the results of an independent review released Monday.

The report was prepared by Court of Appeal Justice Michael Tulloch, who was tapped by the former Liberal government in 2017 to conduct a review of its new provincial regulation on carding — the stopping and documenting of citizens not suspected of a crime.

The regulation was aimed at prohibiting arbitrary stops — which Tulloch recommends should be explicitly stated in the regulation — and outlined the scenarios in which officers could stop an individual and request their information. The regulation also included new rules to govern those interactions, including a requirement that the officer tell the individual they don’t have to provide identifying information.

Aside from reviewing the regulation, Tulloch also focused on whether purely random stops — traditionally known as carding — to gather information should ever be allowed. He found that they should not, while also noting that some critics have blamed recent spikes in gun violence on the new regulation and the restrictions placed on carding — a claim he said was not supported by the facts.

Many other jurisdictions, Tulloch said, have not reported an increase in criminal activity following a drop in carding practices. “There is little to no evidence that a random, unfocused collection of identifying information has benefits that outweigh the social cost of the practice,” he said.

“The data indicates that the better use of police resources is a more focused approach,” Tulloch wrote in his report.

“A widespread program of random street checks involves considerable time and effort for a police service, with little to no verifiable results on the level of crime or even arrests,” he said.

“Given the social cost involved with a practice that has not definitively been shown to widely reduce or solve crime, it is recommended that the practice of randomly stopping individuals to gather their identifying information for the creation of a database for intelligence purposes be discontinued in those remaining jurisdictions that still employ the practice.”

Repeated analyses by the Star of Toronto Police Service carding data have found Black people were more likely than white people to be stopped, questioned and documented in each of the city’s more than 70 patrol zones, and that the likelihood increased in areas that are predominantly white.

Tulloch Report Recommendations View document on Scribd

In 2015, amid growing controversy, Toronto police suspended carding. As of 2017, all Ontario police services conducting such stops were required to follow the new provincial regulations.

The review followed a number of public consultations across the province. Sylvia Jones, minister of community safety and correctional services, said in a statement that the Progressive Conservative government will review Tulloch’s recommendations.

“Our government has been very clear: we will fix the police legislation the Liberals broke. We are committed to developing legislation that works for our police and for the people of Ontario,” she said. “Our new police legislation will reflect a simple principle: racism and discrimination have no place in policing. Justice Tulloch’s report will inform our work as we fix Ontario’s policing legislation.

“Public safety is, and always will be, a top priority for this government. You can count on us to keep our communities safe, stand up for victims, and hold criminals accountable for their actions. We will not let you down.”

Toronto police Const. Rob Reid said he and his colleagues need to read and digest the report before they can comment on it.

“We’re certainly aware of it and we certainly take the report very seriously, as we all should,” he said.

Julius Haag, a University of Toronto PhD student studying the racialization of crime, policing and youth justice, said he agrees with the report’s finding that carding has no useful investigative function, especially considering how much damage it has done in minority and racialized communities.

“(The) Toronto Police Service and Peel Regional Police service have not been able to produce any kind of data to show that carding has investigative function or value,” he said, adding that it’s “deeply disturbing” given how long the practice went on.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

But, he said, Tulloch’s recommendations need to “go further,” especially in relation to training and the collection of non-identifying data.

“By very narrowly defining when data needs to be collected, there’s a number of ways the police can get around the carding regulation while still engaging in types of behaviours consistent with racial profiling, harassment or discrimination,” Haag said.

Some of Tulloch’s recommendations aim to standardize police interactions permitted under the regulation across the province.

Before an individual provides identifying information, Tulloch recommends they should be informed of the reason for the request for information, that the information may be recorded and stored in a police database, that participation is voluntary, and that some of the information, such as the person’s religion, is being requested to help eliminate systemic racism.

Under the regulation, the person who has provided information must be given a receipt. Tulloch recommends the information on the receipt be in both official languages and should contain only the name and identification of the officer, the date, time and location of the interaction, and the reason for the interaction.

On the topic of retaining data collected from the interactions, Tulloch recommends destroying it five years after it was collected, except in special circumstances, though he said police services can also choose to destroy it earlier.

“Many stakeholders are in favour of set timelines for deleting data,” Tulloch said. “Since any potential complaints, lawsuits or crimes should be known within five years, the data should be automatically destroyed no more than after five years.”

He also recommends that “historical data” — identifying information collected from street checks prior to the regulation coming into force on Jan. 1, 2017 — also be destroyed five years after it was collected.

“Most identifying information collected prior to January 1, 2017, would be considered a non-regulated interaction today,” he said.

He recommends that no information collected in an interaction, including information collected prior to Jan. 1, 2017, should be used to classify someone as “known to police” and show up on a police record check.

Tulloch also recommends better training for officers on the street check regulation, which should include how to take proper notes of the interaction, bias awareness, and the right of the individual not to speak to police.

The training should include real scenarios and role playing, the judge said, and be prepared with the assistance of racialized groups and Indigenous peoples “who understand the effect of regulated interactions.”

With files from Wendy Gillis