Vancouver Police ending discretionary ID check policy
Posted January 22, 2020 9:43 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Police in Vancouver have quietly changed their policy when it comes to street checks, opting to end discretionary stops.
After being criticized for targeting Indigenous people and visible minorities, front-line officers now need what is considered a “justifiable reason to demand or request identifying information” from someone.
This means police are no longer allowed to demand information or ID from anyone arbitrarily.
“It is important to reiterate the value of street checks as a proactive public safety tool. There are many documented cases where a street check was ultimately the key to solving investigations ranging from property crime to serious violent crimes, including homicides,” a report to the Vancouver Police Board reads.
The new policy is aimed at complying with new provincial standards on street checks, which went into effect on Jan. 15.
The changes the VPD has approved are a 180-degree turnaround from last year, when Police Chief Adam Palmer rejected claims from activists that certain groups of people were being targeted.
In June of 2018, the Union of BC Indian Chiefs and the BC Civil Liberties Association launched a complaint about police data which showed “a strong suggestion that street checks are being conducted in a discriminatory manner.” Specifically, they noted Indigenous peoples made up 16 per cent of street checks the year before, in 2017, while only making up about two per cent of Vancouver’s demographic.
Five per cent of 2017 street checks were of black people, who made up one per cent of Vancouver’s population.
A review, released in September 2018, following the complaint, said police should have formal policies in place for street checks, adding there wasn’t one by the B.C. Ministry of Public Safety.
A second review was ordered for the VPD, this time by an independent third party, after the police department concluded its street checks weren’t discriminatory.
In the most recent report to the board, the author says the development of a provincial standard to “promote unbiased policing” would give officers direction and offer consistency when street checks are conducted.
Other changes the VPD’s new policy brings in include an officer ensuring a person knows their rights during a street check, and an officer having a specific public safety purpose to ask the person they’re stopping for identifying information as well as telling them what that reason is.
