Racialized Policing

Aboriginal People’s Encounters With the Police

Elizabeth Comack

Policing is a controversial subject, generating considerable debate. One issue of concern has been “racial profiling” by police, that is, the alleged practice of targeting individuals and groups on the basis of “race.” Racialized Policing argues that the debate has been limited by its individualized frame. As well, the concen- tration on police relations with people of colour means that Aboriginal people’s encounters with police receive far less scrutiny. Going beyond the interpersonal level and broadening our gaze to explore how race and racism play out in insti- tutional practices and systemic processes, this book exposes the ways in which policing is racialized.

Situating the police in their role as “reproducers of order,” Elizabeth Comack draws on the historical record and contemporary cases of Aboriginal-police relations — the shooting of J.J. Harper by a Winnipeg police officer in 1988, the “Starlight Tours” in Saskatoon, and the shooting of Matthew Dumas by a Winnipeg police officer in 2005 — as well as interviews conducted with Aboriginal people in Winnipeg’s inner-city communities to explore how race and racism inform the routine practices of police officers and define the cultural frames of reference that officers adopt in their encounters with Aboriginal people. In short, hav- ing defined Aboriginal people as “troublesome,” police respond with troublesome practices of their own. Arguing that resolution requires a fundamental transformation in the structure and organization of policing, Racialized Policing makes suggestions for re-framing the role of police and the “order” they reproduce.

Contents

Foreword by Donald E. Worme

• Race and Racialization

• Racial Profiling versus Racialized Policing

• Colonialism Past and Present

• The Shooting of J.J. Harper

• “Starlight Tours”

• Policing Winnipeg’s Inner-City Communities

• The Shooting of Matthew Dumas

• Racialized Policing and Reproducing Order

• References

About the Author

Elizabeth Comack is Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology at the University of Manitoba. She received her Ph.D in sociology from the University of Alberta, her M.A. from Queens University and B.A.(Honours) from the University of Winnipeg.

Elizabeth’s research interests fall within two main areas: the sociology of law and feminist criminology. Over the past three decades she has written and conducted research on a variety of topics: the origins of Canadian drug laws; the capital punishment debate; the legal recognition of the ‘Battered Woman Syndrome’;  the abuse histories of women in prison; violence, inequality, and the law; safety and security issues in Winnipeg’s inner-city communities; and masculinity, violence, and prisoning.  Her current research projects stem from her involvement in a SSHRC/CURA project, under the auspices of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba (CCPA-MB), entitled “Transforming Aboriginal and Inner-City Communities.”  In one of these projects, now underway, she and Nahanni Fontaine of the Southern Chiefs’ Organization (SCO) are interviewing Aboriginal peoples about their experiences with the police.

Elizabeth’s teaching regularly includes third-year courses in the department’s Criminology Program (Sociology of Law, and Women, Crime and Social Justice) as well as graduate seminars in the Sociology of Law and Feminist Criminology. She has also taught Feminism and Sociological Theory, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as the Honours Thesis Seminar.