Community groups push restorative justice for racialized Winnipeggers

CBC

17 hours ago

Community groups in Winnipeg are pushing for a more restorative approach to policing and prosecuting racialized communities in Winnipeg.
An event on Saturday organized by the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg (SPCW) and other community groups saw the release of a new report and manual that looks to highlight "the lived realities of safety, trust, and community belonging for racialized and newcomer youth in Winnipeg."
The "Community Solutions for Safety for Racialized Newcomer Youth in Winnipeg," report, published this month by the Immigration Partnership Winnipeg, collected first-hand accounts from 76 youth between the ages of 13 and 35.
The youth came from diverse immigrant, ethnocultural, educational, gendered and socioeconomic backgrounds, each having unique lived experiences and views on safety in the city, including the local police force and justice system.
Report authors Darrien Morton and Matt Fast found that some youth wanted more police protection while others wanted officers to stay away – and some didn't want to talk about police at all. Meanwhile, community leaders described their exhaustion and frustration with "performative police engagement."
"What communities asked for, more than anything, was accountability. A safe presence. Someone to turn to. And what's even better, adequate resources," Morton and Fast wrote.
The report shows that racialized, newcomer and Indigenous communities in Winnipeg, and those who were born here to immigrant parents often find systems like policing and the courts system to be "distant, ineffective, or even unsafe," SPCW said.
Writers Morton and Fast said there was a widely-held belief among the youth that "police have more unchecked power than most people can imagine," which makes the prospect of changing that system seem "distant or unrealistic."
Those issues are leading to the continued overrepresentation of racialized persons and groups in the criminal justice system, including immigrant and Indigenous communities, according to the report.
The manual was released after a three-year, three-phase project that began in 2021, launched after several fatal police encounters in Manitoba.
A 2020 analysis by CBC News found that most fatal police encounters involved Indigenous people.
The goals of the project did change over time, as SPCW says originally they were hoping to improve trust between Indigenous, Black, and racialized newcomer communities and the Winnipeg Police Service through a 'Community Safety and Inclusion Office' or 'Hub.'
Due to "deep divisions and concerns about policing," however, SPCW says the project pivoted to focus on understanding how racialized newcomers and specifically newcomer youth perceive safety, trust, and justice reform in Winnipeg.
The study also looks at questions about if more police on the streets would improve safety or cause more harm, and if trust can even be built between communities and the police, or if the relationship is permanently "broken."
The document also highlights "systemic shortcomings" in addressing newcomer safety and justice, including overlooking newcomer diversity, fragmented care, superficial accountability, uneven data practices, and fractured solidarity.
"There's a need for standardized evaluation, culturally adapted legal literacy, 24/7 civilian-led crisis response, and peer-led youth programs," the report states.
The groups said the report comes with what they are calling several "suggestions or more-than-recommendations," rather than traditional recommendations to avoid placing an "unfair burden on participants to solve systemic problems."
Restorative justice is defined by the Government of Canada as "an approach to justice that seeks to repair harm by providing an opportunity for those harmed and those who take responsibility for the harm to communicate about and address their needs in the aftermath of a crime."
SPCW said they believe a more restorative approach would lead to less racialized people being charged with crimes and incarcerated in Winnipeg, and said they will continue to promote strategies and recommendations to promote the safety and well-being of racialized newcomers and newcomer youth in our city.
"Some of the most meaningful forms of harm reduction come not from surveillance or intervention … but from how public space is cared for. Fixing deep-seated problems shouldn't have to stop us from making things a little bit better now," Morton and Fast wrote.