Introduction

1.2% of British Columbia’s population identify as Black per the 2021 census. This is not much compared to Ontario, which has 5.5% of its population being Black.Footnote 2 Yet the concerns around the disparities in the treatment of Black people by law enforcement and within the justice system remain similarly stark. In both provinces for example, in 2020/2021, there was an overrepresentation of Black offenders in terms of admissions to provincial correctional services. While only 1% of the adult population in BC is Black, Black adults accounted for 3% of admissions to custody, 2% of admissions to community services, and 2% of correctional admissions in the province.Footnote 3 As Professor Scot Wotley found after analyzing data from the Vancouver and Nelson Police Departments and the Surrey, Duncan and Prince George RCMPFootnote 4: “Indigenous and Black people are either grossly or significantly overrepresented in arrest/chargeable incident statistics.”Footnote 5

“Black people were 5.3 times more likely to appear in Vancouver Police Department arrest data than their presence in the general population would predict. Furthermore, the average annual Black arrest rate is 4.7 times greater than the White rate and 5.3 times greater than the city average.” - Professor Scot WortleyFootnote 6

Also where police involvement has to do with individuals experiencing mental health issues, “Black and Arab/West Asian people are also significantly overrepresented in these types of police interactions in many jurisdictions.”Footnote 7

Our consultations for this project aimed at hearing and accessing the stories, sentiments and perspectives from Persons of African DescentFootnote 8 in BC that help to bring context and insights to statistics such as those cited above - numbers that tell an unfortunate story of adverse inequity and disparities.

As British Columbia’s Office of the Human Rights Commissioner (BCOHRC) notes, “The time for debate about whether systemic racism exists in policing is over — particularly, but not exclusively, as it affects Indigenous and Black people in British Columbia. It is time to act.”Footnote 9

About our organization

The African Arts and Culture Community Contributor Society Inc. (AACCCS) undertook the research and consultations informing this report as part of the Black Justice project. AACCCS, also known as the Issamba Centre is a Black-led, Black-serving not for profit organization based in Victoria, British Columbia (BC). AACCCS has two main mandates. One is to advance awareness and understanding of the richness and diversity of African cultures and traditions in BC. The other mandate is to support projects that increase the scope and impact of action that promote development of Black communities in British Columbia and across Canada. In both mandates AACCCS has thrived as a key partner, canvasser and promoter of Persons of African in BC. On the day to day, AACCCS has a small staff comprising an executive director, administrator, communications manager and a project manager. Notwithstanding the staffing size, AACCCS is one of the leading organizations in BC when it comes to designing and implementing research and non-research projects that highlight the concerns and perspectives of Persons of African Descent in BC and direct them to governmental partners in pursuit of deeper equity, diversity and inclusion across all spheres of life. These research projects include the Black in BC project (funded by the BC Government), Black in BC housing project (funded by BC Housing) and the Black in BC Covid 19 project (funded by the Public Health Authority of Canada). For this current project on Black Justice, AACCCS has leveraged its experience, partnerships and prior research.

Methods

For this project, AACCCS utilized a mixed-methods approach to the consultations. The approach included a community conversation, focus group discussion, interviews and survey data analysis.

Community conversation

The community conversation was virtual and involved about 20 participants across the session. Participants were recruited in three main ways. First, AACCCS sent an invitation to all individuals on our mailing list. Second, AACCCS shared an event poster on social media platforms inviting community members to participate. Third, AACCCS did targeted invitations to ensure that community members who have some known experience related to the subject of safety and justice were given the chance to participate.

All of the participants identified as Black except for one person who identified as white. We chose to have a virtual conversation to give an opportunity to all interested persons across the province to participate without any barriers. Positively, we had participation from across the province and also had an audience that cut across age groups, gender and professional interests. Overall, there were more female participants than males. The group included persons working with incarcerated youth, and a few who have spent time in jail for one reason or the other.

The session was on Zoom and 120 minutes long. The session allowed participants to discuss topics and questions openly and was facilitated by a Black woman who is very experienced in leading community conversations, an equity activist and understands the dynamics of racial concerns and politics in British Columbia.

Considering the sensitivity of the issues, AACCCS intentionally created a segment during the virtual conversation for participants to respond to an online survey. This online survey was specifically to garner more personal perspectives and experiences that may not best be shared publicly.

Focus group discussion

AACCCS organized a focus group discussion with three Black police officers serving in different jurisdictions in British Columbia. These were all male officers, a reflection of the rarity of Black female police officers in the province. As the number of Black police officers in BC is negligible, these three officers were identified and invited directly. The conversation was virtual, 90 minutes long and on Zoom. The rationale for having a dedicated conversation with Black police officers was to access and understand their unique perspectives as law enforcers in a justice system where there are only a few of them but also as Black officers who understand both the policing system and Black populations better. Interestingly, these same officers when not in uniform could experience racist and discriminatory policing. Thus, it was valuable listening to these officers especially for potential solutions to improving policing and the criminal and justice systems generally. To further protect the identity and views of the officers, this session was only attended by the officers and AACCCS staff.

Interviews

A partner organization, Risebridge, based in Nanaimo, BC sought participation and responses through one-on-one interviews. Risebridge offers low -barrier safe space, empowerment programming, community engagement activities and support services for the mid island area. For this project, Risebridge took advantage of resource access day events to interview 11 individuals. Risebridge had the support of two other organizations, Connective society and New Hope Salvation Army in recruiting participants. The interviewees were mainly residents of Nanaimo or Parksville, most identified as male and had been arrested before by the police. Participants, depending on their level of comfort, were guided through either a printed or online version of our in-house project survey hosted on Survey Monkey.

Survey data

To complement the data gathered from the aforementioned conversations, AACCCS drew on the rich data collected as part of the Black in BC research project. The multi-themed Black in BC research survey, published in 2021, garnered over 1200 participants in BC, identifying as Black. One of the key themes in the survey is Justice and Community Safety. Thus, it was appropriate to carefully revisit the dataset, re-code and match the thousands of open-ended responses to the specific questions and themes of the current Black Justice project, where applicable. These additional inputs enriched the analysis for this project and deepened the insights.

Challenges

This project was challenging to undertake for a few reasons.

First is the very tight timelines. When AACCCS reached out our partners to encourage them to organize conversations under this project, the typical concern was that the timelines were too short. Even for some partners who were willing to take the challenge on, they eventually could not participate citing tight timelines as the reason.

The second challenge was the number of themes and questions to be covered under this project. Where we had a group to discuss questions with, it was tasking to have them go through all the questions.

The third major concern is the nature of the topics to be discussed. Ideally, we would have loved to reach more participants who have had significant encounters with the criminal and justice system in the past. However, it is typical that such persons may not be comfortable discussing these issues for various reasons including the need for privacy and the fear of being re-traumatized. Also, BC generally has a relatively limited Black population compared to several other provinces thus further reducing the pool of participants with deeper run-ins with the criminal and justice system.

Navigating the challenges

To navigate the identified challenges, we provided the option of our virtual anonymous survey.

Positively, the over 1200 Black participants to questions on justice and community safety in the Black in BC survey provided an effective opportunity to counter the limited uptake and to help fill in any sentiment gaps. The survey has very rich stories and concerns related to justice, policing and the court systems as well as well-thought through suggestions for change that have been incorporated into our analysis in this report.

Approach to data analysis

For data collection, AACCCS staff took notes for both sessions it organized. Data was also collected via the optional online survey. Risebridge also submitted notes from the interviews they conducted. We also perused the thousands of responses related to justice and community safety garnered via the Black in BC survey.

For analysis and synthesis, a thematic approach was used to code all the collected data. The themes were as provided for this project: involvement with the criminal system, policing, corrections, courts and legislation, reintegration and re-entry, data collection, immigration and victims and survivors.

Under each theme, data was sorted under three main categories - experiences, concerns and recommendations. Thus for each theme, data was coded to respond to how people feel and the nature of their experience; what specific concerns people have; and the suggestions they believe can alleviate the concerns. As requested by the project designers, the recommendations offered by our participants were also guided by the suggestions offered by the project.

To establish the major findings and recommendations, we looked out for the dominant sentiments, concerns and recommendations for each theme. ‘Dominant’ as used here, refers to sentiments and perspectives that were more generally expressed. Importantly, this does not mean we resorted to a quantitative approach to then only represent what was commonly counted. The approach was to lead with what was more broadly expressed but complemented by other important perspectives even if we heard that perspective only once. Fortunately for our analysis, the inputs we received from community members were hardly contradictory with each other and were mostly consistent when juxtaposed.