#53: What are Canadian Police Trying to Hide?

Summary: Researchers and activists say the racial discrimination within the Canadian criminal justice system could be just as bad as the United States, but they don’t have all the statistics to get a full handle of the problem. When they ask for those numbers, Canadian police forces refuse. What are Canadian Police Trying to Hide?   Black Lives Matter activist <a href="https://twitter.com/DesmondCole?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Desmond Cole</a> weighs in. Further, <a href="http://criminology.utoronto.ca/facultyandstaff/faculty-2/faculty/scot-wortley/">Scot Wortley</a>, one of Canada’s leading researchers of racial discrimination in the criminal justice system, talks about how not having systematic records on anything —from police checks, to charges, to bail outcomes—has dramatically hampered criminal justice research. However, <a href="http://web5.uottawa.ca/www2/mcs-smc/media/experts-details-iframe-327.html">Ron Melchers</a>, a University of Ottawa criminologist says we shouldn’t keep this data— and he calls racial profiling a media myth. Things get heated.   Correction: In the episode Gordon refers to Desmond Cole as member of Black Lives Matter, but he does not describe himself as a member.    Plus, checkout the <a href="http://citedpodcast.com/latest-pilcrow-world-got-people/">article</a> we published in Pilcrow Magazine to accompany this episode