Carding in Canada Final Paper

2015

“Carding” in Canada: An Ethical AssessmentZhengran (Max) ZhuCourse: SPPA 4190 AProfessors: Dr. Naomi Couto & Dr. Ian Greene December 10, 2015

SPPA 4190 A Zhengran (Max) ZhuStudent No.: 212140000

Introduction

In recent months, the media has been abuzz with debates about carding. Questions on its

validity and use as well as its impact on minority groups have been explored in great depth.

Carding is the police practice of recording highly detailed personal information of citizens in

non-criminal encounters. This information is recorded on contact cards and entered into a police

database for future use in the search for runaway criminals. With more knowledge of a

population, police can identify criminals sooner and more accurately, thereby reducing the time

and cost spent on investigating false leads. Supporters argue for the need for security, by placing

those deemed to be dangerous behind bars. Critics argue, however, that carding is founded on

racist views, another form of racial profiling towards visible minorities. Statistics have supported

the overrepresentation of blacks in these practices. In 2008, for instance, blacks represented 8.6

percent of Toronto’s population yet formed 22.6 percent of all carded individuals; comparatively,

white individuals represented 53.1 percent of Torontonians and a more proportionate 55.2

percent of all carding entries (Price 18). In addition to the moral concerns it raises, current

carding practices in Canada worsen the racial divide between Canadians and is unjustified under

any of the ethical frameworks of thought.

The following paper presents a background of racial profiling in Canada, including the

statistics that feed into activist movements such as Black Lives Matter in Toronto. Carding is

then examined using consequentialism, Kantian and Rawlsian ethics, and is extended to the

Ontario government’s new draft regulations on carding practices in the province. The paper

concludes with a few recommendations on how to ethically address the public interest on this

matter.

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Racial Profiling in Canada

Racial profiling is “any police-initiated action that relies on race, ethnicity, or national

origin and not merely on the behaviour of an individual” (Risse and Zeckhauser 135). In theory,

carding does not meet this definition as it offers no instruction on how police should develop the

‘profile’ of their divisions. In practice, however, officers are relying on race-based indicators in

‘high-crime neighbourhoods’ to identify their so-described ‘random’ selection of individuals. On

top of the statistic mentioned in the opening paragraph, 88,300 contact cards were recorded in

2013 that identified a person of ‘black’ skin colour – an average of 1,700 cards per week (Price

18). Between 2003 and 2008, 401,000 cards were filled out for ‘black’ people yet, using the 2006

census, only 208,000 of 2.4 million Torontonians were black (Price 18). This means that, in

addition to the near certainty of being carded, most black communities were carded multiples

times over the five-year period. Such duplication adds no value to the police database but the

practice, collectively, becomes the state’s surveillance camera to racially oppress visible

minorities (Smith 16).

Mutual understanding of the issue is the second part to the problem. Members of the

dominant white group have an “experiential” gap with the practice as they are targeted – by

frequency and proportion – to their representation in the population (Smith 15). This leads them

– also the skin colour of key decision-makers in the police force – to approach the issue

idealistically and resist reform. In reality, carding is a highly ineffective practice that establishes

borders and exclusions for visible minorities that apply at many entry-ways in their lives (Smith

16). Not only do contact cards end up on an individual’s police – not criminal – record, most of

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them are done as a preventative policing strategy with no real results in mind. For example, in

2008, only 566 of 289,400 cards entered were attributed to serious incidents of ‘organized

crime’, ‘hold up’ or ‘homicide’ (Price 18) while, in Peel Region, police chief Jennifer Evans

required three years of research to present six successful crimes aided by information in contact

cards (Grewal). All evidence indicates that race should not substitute for real knowledge of one’s

propensity for criminal activity.

The final part of the problem is the degree of discretion in the hands of police officers. As

part of preventative police work, officers are entrusted with a high level of discretion in order to

act quickly in the prevention of danger. Evidence suggests, however, that some officers abuse the

privilege and use race as a “proxy for criminality or general criminal propensity for an entire

racial group” (Smith 20). In the early 1970s, for instance, local RCMP officers of Alert Bay,

British Columbia would camp outside a popular Indian bar every Friday night and arrest every

Aboriginal patron that walked out of the bar for public drunkenness (Rudin 34). Regardless of

whether these assumptions of alcohol tolerance were true or not, the existence of racial bias is

evident in police work and significantly breaks the trust between officers and the communities

they serve and protect. It is both started and reinforced within the institution. During training,

police officers are educated on identifying the characteristics of killers using anecdotes,

experiences and news articles (Tator and Henry). As most of these materials link race to

criminality, officers begin to think stereotypically towards these racial groups (Tator and Henry).

Once they start work, all officers – white or otherwise – are expected to treat black residents with

greater suspicion and less respect. Any black officers who do not fall in line face internal

scrutiny for failing to play the game (Cole). By not eradicating a work culture that supports the

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practice of systemic discrimination to identify crime, officers apply this discretion in carding

with poor regard for the broader impact of racial oppression on large visible minorities.

A Consequentialist Approach

To be ethically defensible under utilitarianism, carding must fulfill the normative

principle of delivering the greatest good for the greatest number of people (Dimock 34). Its

analysis is focused on balancing the happiness, or utility, of a decision with the unhappiness, or

disutility, caused to all stakeholders implicated by the decision. This theory is excellent for any

policy that implicates society as duplication of utility, or disutility, across a population factors

into felicific calculations, at the cost of qualitative features such as severity or likeliness of

unforeseen consequences (Dimock 35). To advance a study under this framework, the concept of

what a “good” entails must be clarified; otherwise, the outcomes considered would be too broad

and open for personal interpretation, in relation to the creation of happiness. For this paper, the

common good is having a society where “the social systems, institutions and environments on

which we all depend work in a manner that benefits all people” (Velasquez et al. ). One example

of the common good is an effective system of public safety and security, and a just legal system

for all members of society (Velasquez et al.). The notion of a common good is widely contested

in academic works – all which are justified – and thus this is only one variation of it.

As stated by Mathias Risse and Richard Zeckhauser in their paper Racial Profiling,

ethical arguments for carding or racial profiling tend to be utilitarian in nature (132). They can be

summarized to two ideas: cost-effectiveness and low direct harm to individuals. In light of the

recent opposition to carding in Ontario over the last two years, police forces have responded to

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public scrutiny by touting the tangible successes of the practice. Police find it vital to continue

this practice due to the notion that it effectively keeps the streets clean. In Toronto, Deputy

Police Chief Peter Sloly explained that major solved cases of “sexual assaults, abuses of

children, (and) horrible multiple shootings have all come out of (the) practice.” (CBC). With a

more descriptive profile of a community, officers can direct part of their investigation on

individuals that match the victim’s recollection of the suspect or suspects. This increases the

ratio of true positives and lowers the ratio of false positives during an investigation, allowing

officers to close the case sooner and save money from the police budget (Thomsen 101). (A true

positive is a test result where police locate the right suspect; false positive is a test result that

identifies the wrong person) These savings will be carried over into future years and the

municipalities can allocate less of their revenues to the police and increase funding for social

programs, thereby making more low-income earners happier.

If the act of carding was examined in itself, academics argue that the incremental harm to

visible minorities would be very small. In a non-racist society, carding would be desired by all

members of society if it proportionately targets the racial groups more prone to committing crime

(Badhi et al. 32). In Canada, for instance, 22 percent of the federal prison population is

Aboriginal while 10 percent is black (Fine). Racial profiling, according to this viewpoint, is just

smart law enforcement that focuses resources on groups of higher risk to maximize efficiency

(Badhi et al. 38). Efficiency delivers results that can trump individual or collective rights of a

group. Risse and Zeckhauser compare non-racist racial profiling to higher car insurance for

young drivers (145). Even if the driver is not dangerous, he or she accepts the higher cost due to

other bad apples in the age group. Carding follows the same principle; while not all black or

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Aboriginal people are criminals, they should “acquiesce” to the higher scrutiny as it protects

others – and themselves – and spurs other benefits such as more economic activity in the

community (Reiman 14). Visible minorities, however, already perceive society as racist and thus

attribute the slight inconvenience to their skin colour and “historical encounters with the ruling

class” (Badhi et al., 38). This is a poor proxy for the real damage caused by carding. Even if

carding is banned, the expressive harm would still remain. The actual harm, then, is small and

should be accepted for the level of public safety it brings to all members of society.

As utilitarianism is an agent-neutral theory, the practice of carding is not bound to

address any agent relative concerns that some groups may share. Visible minorities may perceive

the issue differently but their unique viewpoints, arisen from experiences of racialization, are not

factored into the overall assessment, regardless of the public perception on the matter. It is

important, however, to investigate carding from a rule utilitarianism approach as well, as the

practice ties into a wider attitude towards visible minorities in police forces across Canada.

Between 1986 and 1992, for instance, police intensified their patrol of low-income areas in

Ontario targeting black people as suspects in the “war on drugs” (Badhi et al. 34) This led to an

overrepresentation of Blacks in prison in spite of the lack of evidence that members of the race

were more likely to use or profit from drugs than other racial groups (Badhi et al. 34).

Ultimately, the perceived success of profiling Blacks through high incarceration rates “fueled the

already existing stereotype that young Black males were likely to be involved in drug related

crimes” (Badhi et al. 34). The rule utilitarian approach asks if these attitudes are justified enough

to be formulated into a general rule that race-based indicators should be used as a foundation of

policing strategies in Canada.

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The disutility of racial profiling is not commensurable to its proposed benefits. To be

justified, it must have sufficiently great benefit and great likelihood that the flagged individuals

are connected to a current or future crime (Thomsen 101). While the benefit of halting a future

drug deal is significant, each profiled individual has an equally and very small probability of

being positively identified as a criminal down the road. Despite this, the bulk of complaints

against racial profiling relates to the discomfort, inconvenience and humiliation that citizens

unduly, and innocently, suffer from the intensive scrutiny (Thomsen 91). Resentment, ranging

from shame to indignation, becomes a direct, intense form of disutility in their lives as it impedes

their ability to be happy. African-Americans have gone so far to describe the police as “the most

prominent reminder of (their) second-class citizenship” in the United States (Kennedy 152).

The father of modern policing, Sir Robert Peel, believed that “people are the police and

the police are the people” (The Economist). Applying unjustified assumptions on racial groups

increase the divide between police and the people. Blacks and other visible minorities no longer

view the norms of the legal system and its enforcers as legitimate, increasing the potential for

criminality (Thomsen 106). Victims feel distrusted and disrespected by the system which, at

times, can act as the nudge that pushes a would-be criminal against the law (Thomsen 106).

When executed without racial bias, profiling is an effective tool to deter criminal activity as

would-be criminals are more fearful of being discovered for potential crimes. Racial profiling

promotes the opposite – an anti-deterrent effect. By racializing certain groups as more criminal

than others, more police resources are divested into the group and away from action against other

groups (Thomsen 105). This makes it efficient in targeting potential offenders in the group but

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loses the deterrent effect on those not part of the racial group, creating a smaller effect at a city-

or nation-wide level (Thomsen 105). Both alienation and anti-deterrent effects demonstrate that

racial profiling, as a police practice, does not serve the common good of an efficient system of

public safety. More crime, rather than less crime, is perpetuated on society and debunks the very

purpose of racial profiling of making communities safer through cooperation and preventative

police work. More, citizens are exposed to danger when racial stereotypes affect police

objectivity.

From a utilitarian viewpoint, the practice of carding does not produce the greatest good.

Some tangible benefits to the program exist and removing the individual action will not alleviate

the pain of systemic racism in society for its victims. Carding occurs, however, due to the

general rule of racial profiling within the police forces in Canada. Adopting an ideology of using

observable characteristics in crime is counteractive to the overall effort of lowering criminal

activity in a community and is a deliberate violation of fundamental Charter rights, including

equality rights protected under Section 15 (Badhi et al. 42) Most importantly, racial scrutiny

causes an intense, long-lasting source of unhappiness for its victims but only creates an uncertain

benefit for public safety. Felicific calculus ascribes more weight to these characteristics in

calculating the greater amount of good and, consequently, the more intense negative outcomes

tip the ethical balance of the practice.

A Kantian Approach

Under consequentialist moral theories, carding is evaluated in empirical terms. Good

outcomes, such as a lower crime rate or better police investigative techniques, are balanced with

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bad outcomes, such as Charter violations on individuals, to determine if the practice is ethical or

not. For Kant, the right decision is made a priori to any rule or consequence of actions. Rather,

the intrinsic value of an act is defined by how well it abides by universal principles and if it can

be supported by good, justifiable reasons (Woof 2). It must respect the people that it implicates

by treating each of them as ends in themselves, no matter how good or beneficent the outcomes

may be for a larger population (Dimock 43). By perfecting the principles of universality and

respect for persons, the end decision will be based from “perfectly good will” to produce a good

state of affairs and meet the categorical imperative for the benefit of society (Woof 3).

Carding subordinates the ends of a visible minority by treating them as means for the

White majority. By acting on the assumption that certain crimes are committed

disproportionately by certain racial groups, individuals are being profiled on a characteristic that

“partly constitutes their identity” (Risse and Zeckhauser 145). They are not seen as rational

beings in themselves but rather as mere members of a larger group, adopting its characteristics at

the exclusion of their personal ones. This is a violation of the respect for persons principle as the

state is depriving them of their ability to act on their own ends, including the freedom to walk

without multiple requests to be carded, a lower chance of getting arrest (by not existing in the

database) or social segregation among a mixed-race group of friends (Thomsen 106). As a

provider of social welfare for all Canadians, it is a duty for the police to owe reasonableness to

each individual separately (Reiman 8). The racial group does not contribute to society as one

entity. Rather, individuals engage in different types of work and make their own contributions to

society, such as tax payments. As such, the state ought to treat each person with respect by not

relying on “cheap-to-observe characteristics” in the name of a public good (Lombardo). By

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disrespecting the rational agency of visible minorities, carding does not treat individuals as ends

in themselves but only as a means to create an unproven sense of security. They are unable to

exercise autonomy and choice over how they should be treated by the police as they have already

been labelled and fitted with predetermined attributes.

If the current form of carding was universalized, society would devolve into a state

divided by class, race, or creed. Each community would have a permanent underclass that, due to

the power of carding enforcers, would have no means to overcome it. Carding would inhibit the

ability for certain groups to get ahead as the constant police checks paints a picture of them as

violent, dangerous or untrustworthy. Some of these outcomes have emerged in Canadian society

after three decades of its deployment. In telephone surveys done with 1,257 Ontarians, 43

percent of black male residents were stopped by Toronto Police over a two year period (Badhi et

al. 34). Among those, 17 percent were reported to have been stopped on two or more occasions

(Badhi et al. 34). The figures for White residents were drastically lower at 25 and 8 percent,

respectively, as they were less likely to be criminalized or face the suspicious eye (Badhi et al.

34). The criminalization then plays out in different parts of their lives. Black Canadians, for

instance, face a wage gap of 10 to 15 percent from non-visible minority counterparts despite

being more educated and living in urban centres (Grant). A higher chance of being arrested due

to more criminalization by police lead to a criminal record that influences job prospects. Police

scrutiny also shapes how media communicates to people’s views, by portraying blacks as the

“other” and “dangerous” group to hire. In sum, carding is more than a set of questions. If

universalized, an entire system of systemic discrimination could arise and structurally damage

the lives of visible minorities in Canada.

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There is questionable evidence on how much carding or racial profiling is justified by

public safety concerns. The use of narratives or hegemonic stories in police training, along with

contributions of opinion leaders in the police force, reinforce and reproduce existing ideologies

of power and inequality in society (Tator and Henry). Most of these narratives portray race as

one indicator of criminality and encourages stereotypical thinking about particular racial and

cultural groups. These images remain once officers enter the workforce and, over time, becomes

reproduced in the form of police bias in carding. The issue here is whose duties should be

performed by the police. On one side, they are legally obligated to fulfill their duty to their

employer and managing social order through various policing techniques, including racial

profiling. On the other hand, they owe a duty to protect citizens by “serving and protecting” their

needs, as in the case of the Toronto Police. The best decision under Kantian ethics is the duty to

protect citizens from harm. Even if the police are controlled by their employer, the inherent and

original purpose is to make better as a whole. The means that the government chooses,

influenced by decades of radicalized relationships with groups, is wrong by racially separating

the people into different groups by race. Carding supports a shift from that intention and is

therefore wrong. If the duty was universalized, the world would be a safer place to live as

everyone would be able to live in peace. Each individual would be treated as ends in themselves

as a secure society enables them to have dignity and exercise moral judgments, in the highest

form of humanity. Fulfilling one’s duty to their employer does not meet the categorical

imperative. While each officer’s loyalty to the police chief is a great sign of respect, someone at

the top of the management chain will not have an employer. This opens the door for unethical or

poor decisions that, if executed, may cause undue damage to an entire population. Such lack of

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self-control makes the duty to employer an invalid one under Kant and, consequently, any act of

carding made under the loyalty to the force is unethical.

In the Kantian view on ethics, the act of carding is not acceptable. By perceiving all

individuals as uniform members of a racial group – with the same characteristics, habits and

personality traits – visible minorities are treated in terms of a group membership and not as they

deserve. This shows a lack of respect for victims as ends in themselves, without the ability to act

in autonomy and define their own identity. Furthermore, the practice would be incoherent if it

was universalized by all police forces in the world. It creates two classes of citizenship, opening

up the possibility of class warfare or disharmony in society. The maxim cannot be universalized

either, as it cannot be expected that everyone will be judged on genuine grounds of suspicion and

not by the colour of their skin. A lack of care for visible minorities may eventually rid all

minorities in Canada, leaving only one race of ‘White’ Canadians in Canada. Carding fails both

components of the Categorical Imperative and does not meet the supreme principle of morality.

A Rawlsian Approach

Rawlsian ethics asks if the practice of carding would be acceptable within a society in the

original position. The rules of the society would be set by a group of rational individuals that

have knowledge of general matters, such as history or economics, but make decisions behind a

veil of ignorance that denies them knowledge of which ethnic identities and situations are more

subject to racism than others (Reiman 6). Public policy would agree in the original position if it

is in every actual person’s interest. It does not guarantee that every person is content with the

outcome, as long as it is equitable to all and rational for them to accept carding when they are

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ignorant of where they stand in the practice. There would be no knowledge, for instance, of the

power or wealth imbalance between visible and non-visible minorities as mentioned above.

The challenge remains on whether racism is inherently part of Canada’s social fabric and

identity. In a perfectly non-racist society, the act of racial profiling can be ethical if it is benefits

the investigation of serious crimes. Crime is harmful to both the individual and society by

affecting the way people work, socialize and raise their families; thus, it is in everyone’s best

interest to have a criminal system that “apprehends, punishes and deters” crime (Reiman 10).

Some populations may face greater inconvenience than others. This is tolerable as long as the

practice is done in proportion to the gravity of crimes it assists in investigation (Reiman 11). The

arrest of Min Chen for the murder of Cecilia Zhang in 2003, for example, was attributed to

carding as Chen was carded for his suspicious activity at a fishing pond, which was linked back

to his potential presence at the Zhang household at the time of the kidnapping (Blatchford). In

this case, carding would have been acceptable as the murder of a child warrants more intensive

measures to catch the murderer. If not caught, a psychopathic child killer may reoffend and risk

the safety of children and other members of the general public. Race was not the determining

factor that caused Chen to be carded; however, as police were looking for an Asian individual

who knew the Zhangs, the officer took additional effort to follow up on his potential involvement

in the case and produced a compelling case of his whereabouts that morning (Blatchford). Under

the original position of a non-racist society, this use of race is acceptable as it increased the

effectiveness of the criminal justice system in meeting the safety concerns posed to society,

making everyone better off with, rather than without, it (Reiman 11). Chen was inconvenienced

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on general grounds and the level of inconvenience commensurate with the degree of crime

involved.

In a society where racism is part of the general knowledge of lawmakers, however, the

original position would prohibit the practice of carding. It can be reasonably believed that racial

profiling would cause unreasonable direct harm and violation to some racial groups, influencing

how the non-visible majority perceives the minorities (Reiman 17). When exercised by the

police, this perception may influence how the majority treats the minorities and lead to violations

of their human rights. There may be more indifference and hostility towards Black people; an

increased perception that Blacks import crime to neighbourhoods; discouragement of Blacks

from working in White neighbourhoods at night, or the potential to downplay Whites as

perpetuators of violence and crime (Reiman 16). All of these are forms of ungrounded

discrimination that would be assigned to a law-abiding Black person. Racist patterns in

employment, thought or behaviour deny victims the rights that a White person would otherwise

receive under those circumstances, such as right to travel or the presumption of innocence. Under

Rawlsian ethics, the existence of more extensive rights to equivalent groups of same office and

position is not a fair social arrangement (Couto). As Rawls said in the Theory of Fairness, no one

shall possess an “inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole

cannot override” (Kant 3). The pursuit of a public good, such as safety, should not be achieved

through an unfair social arrangement where different racial groups are assigned different sets of

basic liberties. Infringing on the basic rights of minorities deforms their prospects in life

(Nussbaum). For instance, not allowing them to work in certain jobs restricts their potential to be

successful and acquire wealth, which further limits their ability to lead a higher standard of living

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or overcome some socioeconomic barriers that society places upon them as racialized, second-

class citizens. Allowing this to happen builds an unjust society with no free and fair cooperation

between citizens and one that, if left by itself, will reflect the brutish, savage state of nature

described by Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan (Nussbaum).

Canadian society resembles the latter of the two scenarios. As aforementioned, racism

has a “long and inglorious history” in Canada with serious impacts on search, surveillance, arrest

and incarceration rates within racialized communities (Badhi et al. 31). Aboriginal people, for

example, are extremely overrepresented in the criminal justice system. As 2.8 percent of

Canada’s population, Aboriginals represent 17 percent of the federal offender population and are

six times more likely to be incarcerated than any other race (Badhi et al. 37). Parole hearings are

waived more frequently by them than any other offender and parole is denied at a higher rate

than non-Aboriginal offenders (Badhi et al. 37). These pieces of evidence point to a society

where racism is systemic and real in the way visible minorities live in Canada. Marginally

inconvenient policing techniques, such as carding, immediately arouse extreme feelings of

racism among racialized communities (Badhi et al. 31). In other words, these people perceive

racism as the primary driver of injustice. With such an embedded notion among members of

society, it would be unreasonable for Canadians to omit racism behind the veil of ignorance.

Hypothetical lawmakers in the original position ought to formulate rules that consider racism as

a general source of injustice. Selected social arrangements must consider whether it heals the

divided caused by racism and, furthermore, if various racial groups would accept them (Couto).

Racial profiling makes visible minorities worse off than the dominant White class and no ethnic

group would accept the practice of carding; thus, carding is unethical in the Rawlsian view.

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Is Ontario’s Ban on Carding Ethical?

All three approaches used in this paper have demonstrated carding as an unethical

practice that violates the rights of visible minorities to a good life. On October 28, 2015, the

Ontario government unveiled draft regulations to amend the Police Services Act to eliminate

carding in the province. The plan entails a ban on random and arbitrary collection of information

starting on the first of March 2016 with new procedures on voluntary interactions with police

beginning on the first of July (Taber). Additionally, officers must attend mandatory training in

areas such as “bias awareness, discrimination and awareness” and police forces will release

annual reports on any non-arbitrary carding information collected, including the number of cards

written up as well as the age, gender and race of the individuals involved (Taber). The draft is

currently undergoing a 45-day public consultation period before it is finalized and introduced to

the legislature in 2016.

The government’s decision to end carding was an excellent ethical move to address the

increasing tension within racialized communities against the practice; however, the loopholes of

the policy limits how effective it may be in addressing the ethical issues faced in the status quo.

The ban on random and arbitrary collection of information is a very open-ended policy where

there is no way for the public to ensure that the ban is enforced in the spirit of the (soon-to-be)

legislation. Being in a “high crime neighbourhood”, for example, cannot be the sole reason for a

street check anymore but it may still exist as one of the possible reasons (Hudson). Moreover,

there is no definition of what ‘random’ collection entails. As long as officers can prove some sort

of suspicion – from a criminal offence to quickly removing one’s hands from their pockets – they

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reserve the right to gather identifying information for ‘intelligence’ purposes (Rusonik). Officers

may also card someone if they develop suspicions during the course of an informal conversation.

As long as they had no intention at the start of the conversation to record information, it would

be very hard under case law to determine that their actions were “arbitrary” and not “random”

(Rusonik). All of these loopholes in the legislation make no changes to the status quo. The actual

disutility of the practice will remain high for racial minorities as they could still be manipulated

into providing their identifying information under the pretext of a casual conversation. By

forcing officers to adopt alternative means to acquire race statistics – which was not outlawed by

the regulation – will make visible minorities feel more humiliated and distrustful of the police. It

may discourage them from engaging in casual conversations at all with officers, in turn reducing

the efficiency of criminal investigations and the amount of public safety and security (the public

good) that can be delivered. Assuming that some racial groups are more likely to commit crimes,

engagement with those ethnic communities may bring more light on the criminals’ tendencies or

way of thinking, enabling the police to accurately track them down. All of these outcomes

depend on the willingness of Ontarians to speak with their police force. If the police are resorting

to unethical tactics to sustain data collection initiatives, the regulations are creating more

disutility for the province and is not aiding the attainment of the greatest good.

There is a stronger argument in favour of the ban from a deontological standpoint. By

compelling officers to notify citizens of their right to not fill out a contact card, the regulations

respect the rational decision-making process of the individual by letting them decide if they wish

to participate or not. This demonstrates the respect for persons principle (Dimock 43). The ban

on carding could also be universalized around the globe. By outlawing the right for police

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officers to explicitly target young Black or Aboriginal males for carding, it will reduce the public

perception that Black or Aboriginal youth are more prone to committing crimes than their peers.

This may mend the class division created under current practices of racial profiling and make the

society safer by bolstering trust between police and the people. By meeting the Categorical

Imperative, the new carding ban is – theoretically – an ethically defensible one as it meets the

standards of supreme morality under Kantian ethics. It ensures the criminal justice system is

closer to fulfilling its perfect duty of justice by closing another means for officers to reproduce

existing power and inequality in society. The only point of concern relates to the enforcement of

regulations. Based on the draft document, there is no mechanism for ensuring that officers do

notify all citizens of their voluntary right to participation nor any punishments for violating the

regulations (Hudson). These take away from the original spirit of the regulations and thus does

not carry the same ethical assessment as in the codified version.

Ontario’s ban on carding would also be supported under the Rawlsian view of justice as

fairness (Couto). By eliminating practices rooted in ungrounded racial discrimination, the

division of human rights is more equally distributed across the province. Like all of Canada,

racism is embedded in the beliefs of Ontarians and the sensitivity of the issue must be recognized

in the original position. This regulation reflects a concerted effort to ensure that visible

minorities do not receive any fewer rights on the street than non-visible minorities. To create a

more justified social arrangement, the government could propose to delete the abundant cache of

information from carding practices in the past (Hudson). Not doing this will continue to put

former carding victims at risk of being criminalized or losing their right to be free from

suspicion, as their profiles will be reviewed every time the police are looking for a suspect.

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Conclusion

It is without doubt that carding cannot be morally justified. The police force is a

reflection of the hegemony that existed in Canada’s history. Historically, people of colour have

been portrayed as inferior to the dominant race. These values continue to be reinforced through

the work of police in racial profiling activities. As crime, criminality and threat to security are

often viewed as parallel with race as an indicator of dangerousness, the police profile citizens on

their racial backgrounds – regardless of where they were born – as a means to maintain order in

society. These people are viewed as threats to law and order and thus police feel legitimized in

discriminating against these groups. The intention of a police force, however, has always been

and should be to protect its people. Carding, then, does not protect citizens but merely generates

a second-class of citizenry that ensures their continued isolation in society, based on their

inherent characteristics. Rooted in the belief that one’s skin is indicative of one’s criminality,

people of colour are criminalized every day in Canada at no fault of their own. Hence, the

Ontario ban on carding is justified in order to ensure that the greatest good for the greatest

number of people is met, that policing remains true to its original duty of protecting and serving

the people rather than acting as agents of the state as well as to maintain equality in the way each

member of our society ought to be treated. In a society that takes criminality seriously and its

impacts ripple through employment, quality of life and education prospects, this ban might be the

breath of fresh air that racial minorities need. By eliminating profiling by arbitrary

characteristics, vulnerable groups can perhaps, at last, lead lives free from harassment. It may be

a small step to the larger problem of racial discrimination; however, it is the largest step the

government can take to restore the basic freedoms bestowed to them as people of this country.

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20


Works Cited

Bahdi, Reem, Bent Richard, Cohen Irwin et al. Racial Profiling. Vancouver: British Columbia

Civil Liberties Association, 2010. 1-86. Print.

Blatchford, Christie. "Christie Blatchford: Controversial ‘carding’ Practice Is an Invaluable

Source of Intelligence for Police, If Done Right." National Post 5 June 2015, Full

Comment sec. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.

Cole, Desmond. "New Carding Rules Can’t Regulate Decency and Respect in Policing: Cole."

Toronto Star 28 Oct. 2015. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.

Couto, Noemia (Naomi). “Contemporary Liberal Theory: John Rawls and Justice as Fairness.”

York University. Toronto, ON. 30 Sep 2015. PowerPoint Presentation.

Dimock, Susan, Mohamad Al-Hakim, Garrett MacSweeney, Alessandro Manduca-Barone,

and Anthony Antonacci. "Moral Principles and Moral Theories." Ethics and the Public

Service: Trust, Integrity, and Democracy. Nelson, 2013. 34-47. Print.

Fine, Sean. "Black Inmates Face Second-class Status in Canadian Prisons, Ombudsman Warns."

The Globe and Mail. 26 Nov 2013. Web. 17 Nov 2015.

Grant, Tavia. "Black Canadians Paid Less on Average than Whites: Study." The Globe and Mail.

4 Mar 2011, Economy Lab sec. Web. 13 Nov 2015.

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Grewal, San. "Peel Police Struggle to Find Proof Carding Works, Emails Reveal." Toronto Star.

30 Sep 2015, Urban Affairs sec. Web. 19 Nov 2015.

Hudson, Sandy. “How Ontario can really end carding.” Toronto Star. 10 Nov 2015. Web.

13 Nov 2015.

Kennedy, Randall. Race, Crime, and the Law. New York City: Pantheon, 1997. 152. Print.

Lombardo, Crystal. "5 Essential Pros and Cons to Racial Profiling." Anti-Alcohol & Tobacco

Blog. NLCATP, 17 Jan. 2015. Web. 6 Dec. 2015. <http://nlcatp.org/5-essential-pros-and-

cons-of-racial-profiling/>.

Nussbaum, Martha. "The Enduring Significance of John Rawls." The Chronical Review.

The Chronicle of Higher Education, 20 July 2001. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.

Price, Neil. This Issue Has Been with Us for Ages: A Community-based Assessment of Police

Contact Carding in 31 Division: Final Report. Toronto: Logical Outcomes, 2014. 18.

Print.

Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge: Belknap of Harvard UP, 1971. 3. Print.

Reiman, Jeffrey. "Is Racial Profiling Just? Making Criminal Justice Policy in the Original

Position." The Journal of Ethics (2010): 3-19. Print.

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Risse, Mathias, and Richard J. Zeckhauser. "Racial Profiling." Philosophy & Public Affairs

(2004): 131-70. Print.

"Power to the People." The Economist 2 Dec. 2010. The Economist Newspaper Limited. Web.

17 Nov. 2015.

Rudin, Jonathan. Aboriginal Peoples and the Criminal Justice System. Toronto: [Ipperwash

Inquiry], 2005. 34. Print.

Rusonik, Reid. “Why do police continue to card?” Toronto Star. 9 Nov 2015. Web.

13 Nov 2015.

Smith, Charles. Conflict, Crisis and Accountability: Racial Profiling and Law Enforcement in

Canada. Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives/Centre Canadien de Politiques

Alternatives, 2007. 16. Print.

Taber, Jane. “Ontario unveils draft regulations to ban police carding.” The Globe and Mail.

28 Oct 2015. Web. 13 Nov 2015.

Tator, Carol and Henry Frances. Racial Profiling In Canada: Challenging the Myth of "A Few

Bad Apples". Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006. Print.

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Thomsen, Frej Klem. "The Art of the Unseen: Three Challenges for Racial Profiling."

The Journal of Ethics (2010): 89-117. Print.

"Toronto Police Carding an 'incredibly Effective Tool'" CBC. 4 Jul 2013. Web. 17 Nov 2015.

Velasquez, Manuel, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks, and Michael J. Meyer. "The Common

Good." Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, 21 Mar. 1992.

Web. 21 Nov. 2015. <http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/commongood.html>.

Woof, Bill. “Kant and Deontological Theories.” Schulich School of Business, York University.

Toronto, ON. 19 Feb 2013. PowerPoint Presentation.

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OUTLINE: Ethics of Police ‘Carding’ in Canada

As enforcers of the justice system, police forces are the most identifiable public servants

for everyday Canadians. They are the core of our liberal democracy and work together, using

various strategies, with communities to enhance public safety. One of these highly controversial

strategies is carding, a police practice of recording highly detailed personal information from

citizens in non-criminal encounters (Logical Outcomes). With more knowledge of a population,

police can target offenders sooner and more accurately, reducing the time and cost spent on

investigating false suspects. Critics, however, argue that carding is merely another form of racial

profiling towards visible minorities, particularly the Afro-Canadian community. Statistics have

supported the overrepresentation of blacks in these practices. In 2008, for instance, ‘blacks’

represented 8.6 percent of Toronto’s population yet formed 22.6 percent of all carded

individuals; comparatively, ‘white’ individuals represented 53.1 percent of Torontonians but

accounted for a more proportionate 55.2 percent of all carding submissions (Logical Outcomes).

Ontario has recently pledged to curb some – but not all – elements of carding by March 1, 2016.

The objective of the final paper is to assess if the practice of carding is ethical and, if not,

how it can be changed to better serve the Canadian public interest. It will draw on key ethical

approaches such as consequentialism, as well as principles from Kantian, Rawlsian, and justice –

compensatory and distributive – ethics. Emphasis will be placed on the Canadian context as its

restrained experiences with racism drastically differs it from ethical analyses of similar programs

in the UK or the United States. The paper will attempt to prove that current carding practices in

Canada worsen the racial divide between Canadians and is unjustified under any of the ethical

frameworks. Analysis will be discussed in two components that make carding possible:

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esouser, 2015-11-08,

Once you have come to a conclusion through your research, you will be in a position to state an argument. See comments at the end.


Part 1: Ethics of Racial Profiling (a larger umbrella including carding practices, frisking,

etc.)

- (Utilitarian) The net social utility of acquiring more information, by profiling, does not

justify the probable socioeconomic burdens brought upon its victims

- (Kantian) Using statistical information to target certain races violates the respect for

persons principle; if universalized, the lack of care for visible minorities will eventually

rid all minorities from Canada, leaving only one race of ‘white’ Canadians in Canada –

does not meet the categorical imperative

- (Rawlsian) In a society with no institutional memory of racism, profiling is ethical in the

original position as it is done in proportion to the gravity of the crime being investigated

o In parts of Canada where the memory exists, racism becomes part of the general

knowledge in the original position and any continuation will bring more

indifference and hostility to Afro-Canadians, violate their natural rights

Part 2: Ethics of Police Discretion

- If applied correctly, discretion allows officers to ‘card’ the right individuals and form an

effective database of suspects in solving crimes – at low cost to law-abiding citizens

- Too much discretion may allow cognitive biases to affect decisions, convincing them that

one is more dangerous than another, leading to pre-emptive uses of force – each

individual is not assessed independently but automatically as part of the larger race

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Literature Review

Dimock, Susan, Mohamad Al-Hakim, Garrett MacSweeney, Alessandro Manduca-Barone,

and Anthony Antonacci. "Moral Principles and Moral Theories." Ethics and the Public

Service: Trust, Integrity, and Democracy. Nelson, 2013. 34-47. Print.

Textbook chapter that provides in-depth explanation of key ethical theories and their

applications.

Lever, Annabelle. "Treating People as Equals: Ethical Objections to Racial Profiling and the

Composition of Juries." The Journal of Ethics (2010): 61-78. Print.

Frequently referred in other academic works, this paper explains why race is a poor proxy for

criminality and proposes alternative ways to achieve the same results, with less harm to the black

community.

Nowacki, J. S. "Organizational-Level Police Discretion: An Application for Police Use of Lethal

Force." Crime & Delinquency (2011): 643-68. Print.

In-depth analysis of police discretion and how, between 1980 and 1984, the room for cognitive

biases evolved into increased lethal force against the black population. This will be useful for

assessing why the current state of carding – with so much discretion – has failed so far.

Reiman, Jeffrey. "Is Racial Profiling Just? Making Criminal Justice Policy in the Original

Position." The Journal of Ethics (2010): 3-19. Print.

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Racial profiling analysis through a deontological, original position approach. Makes many – but

not all – valid points about how racist and non-racist society have different positions and

explains how the practice can be ethically permissible in both cases.

"This Issue Has Been With Us for Ages" A Community-Based Assessment of Police Contact

Carding in 31 Division. Toronto: Logical Outcomes, 2014. Print.

The most relevant report for factual information on the status of carding in Toronto and Ontario.

Unlike other resources, it specifically tackles the issue of carding – rather than racial profiling –

and is excellent backgrounder for statistics, surveys and human interviews.

Thomsen, Frej Klem. "The Art of the Unseen: Three Challenges for Racial Profiling."

The Journal of Ethics (2010): 89-117. Print.

Examines the consequentialist benefits and costs of racial profiling. Lists four specific costs –

anti-deterrent, alienation, stigmatization, and inequality – and address three challenges –

foundation, valuation, and application – that make a strong case of net disutility in these

practices.

This is an excellent topic and the elements to want to include in your

analysis are good. Make sure you state your argument in your

introduction, and tell your readers how you are going to support

your argument.

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In order to be up-to-date, you should take into account the recent

decision by the Ontario government to restrict the police use of

carding across the province. There has been a good deal written

about this in the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail, and you can

use these articles in your paper. You might want to argue, for

example, that the government's decision to end carding was the

ethically justifiable one, or alternatively that the government's

decision is not ethically defensible, but simply bowing to public

pressure.

Keep up the good work!

4.2/5

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Documents

Carding in Canada Final Paper