The world as we know it today is in quite the peculiar place. On one side of the coin, the whole world — including you, and me, and our loved ones — are at war with COVID-19, an enemy we cannot see or hear. When we do see our enemy, it is when it has claimed yet another victim.
Paying attention to the charts, graphs and an array of formulas drafted by an army of doctors and specialists, we can predict the course this war against COVID-19 is taking. We know that we will see the light at the end of the tunnel, we know that through trials and tribulations, we will win this war against the virus.
On the other side of the coin, we see and hear racism all around us. We know that this fight will claim another victim, and we know that this victim — because of skin colour — will die at the hands of police brutality. However, we don’t yet have a clear solution to this issue.
As hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets throughout dozens of cities in the United States, Canada, and much of the world to protest police brutality, a series of very important questions have been raised.
One important question is whether or not defunding police, in favour of reallocating those funds towards communities and specialized services, is the right answer. Calls to defund the police, echoed in cities throughout Canada, are mounting as protests spread throughout the country.
I am a person of colour, or as the federal and provincial government qualifies me, a “visible minority.” My Grade 6 English teacher called me “half-cast.” As a person of colour, visible minority, half-cast — whatever you want to call me — I have been the victim of racial profiling and harassment by members of our police force, the Ottawa Police Service (OPS).
As someone who walks in the shoes of a person of colour, visible minority, and half-cast, I know what that feels like to receive injustice from police. Yet, I also know that I now need — and will continue to need — the services of the OPS.
Here is why.
The budget for the OPS in 2018 was $330,558,000. They exceeded it by about $4,676,000. Many activists are calling for the defunding of police and reallocation of their funds to social and community-based services, but they are not stating exactly how much of the police budget they intend to defund and where those funds should be allocated. After all, social and community-based services cover a very broad area.
Let’s take an example from Danny Smyth, Winnipeg Police Chief, who during an interview said, “If you were to rip out a large segment of the budget all at once, you would be putting our environment into a more volatile place than it is now.”
The key word in Smyth’s statement is ‘volatile.’ Let’s assume that when he says “rip out a large segment of the budget,” he means at least 50 per cent. So, let’s now cut the OPS budget in half, bringing the original $330 million to around $165 million. Naturally, if you cut funding to one section of your budget you have to cut funding to some other sectors, so let’s take a deeper hypothetical dive.
The starting salary of an OPS member is $67,615.92. After a fifty per cent cut, the new salary would be $33,807.96, which is below average in the country. In any country, a low salary for a member of any police force creates a number of different problems — the primary one being corruption. The lower the salary, the higher the chance of corruption.
Let’s go even deeper. The OPS has around 1,300 police officers and 600 civilian workers. Cut the budget in half, and you have 650 officers and 300 civilian workers for administration duties. Cutting the OPS budget would also mean that the OPS’ patrol vehicles would be cut in half, effectively crippling their ability to patrol the city. Crime is up and corruption is up — with only half of the resources. Of course, incarceration would go down since the police force is not going to be able to arrest the same amount of people. Small consolation.
Now, look at our country. Police officers right now struggle to respond to calls from our communities and our citizens in need. Don’t get me wrong, the police have failed us before and, frankly, will fail us again. But, imagine how much more of an issue this would be if we jumped the gun and defunded them.
Once again, I am a visible minority, I am a person of colour, I am a half-cast who has fallen victim to police harassment and racial profiling, and I am still sitting here writing this. I’m against defunding because as much as police need to clean up their act in many areas, we still need them — just a better, community-based version of them.
Let us not relieve our police officers of their duty to serve and to protect, but relieve them from their vehicles. Let us, as a community, allow our police officers to engage with us. Not with their knees pressed against the back of our necks, but engage with us in everyday life — to walk the streets of our neighbourhoods and to understand where we come from.
When we allow ourselves to engage with the people sworn to protect us, and when police officers understand where our anger comes from, we can work towards the betterment of our society and our community.
Featured image by Spencer Colby.
