A Qualitative Examination of the Impacts of Police Practices on Racialized and Marginalized Young People in

Toronto

by

Julius G. Haag

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies University of Toronto

© Copyright by Julius G. Haag, 2021

ii

A Qualitative Examination of the Impacts of Police Practices on

Racialized and Marginalized Young People in Toronto

Julius G. Haag

Doctor of Philosophy

Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies

University of Toronto

2021

Abstract

Canada enjoys an international reputation for tolerance, diversity, and inclusivity. However, a

closer examination reveals Canada’s long-standing history of systemic racism, including in its

public-sectors organizations and, most notably, the criminal justice system. In particular, Black

people are among the primary recipients of disparate treatment at the hands of the police.

However, while these issues are well-studied in the United States and United Kingdom, there

remains a lack of Canadian scholarship examining the intersections of race and the criminal

justice system. My dissertation seeks to better inform the discourse around these issues through

an examination of the lived experiences of young people in Toronto, Ontario with policing,

violence, and community safety. Drawing on 44 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with young

people, ages 16-29, my study explores how aggressive, order-maintenance policing, economic

marginalization, and geographic segregation have impacted young people’s perceptions of the

police, the criminal justice system, and Canadian society. In doing so, I engage with dominant

theoretical perspectives related to urban policing, including procedural justice and legitimacy,

subcultural violence, legal cynicism, and social disorganization. My findings explore several

important themes, including the contours of long-standing rivalries between non-gang youth who

reside lower-income communities or ‘opp blocks’ (Chapter 2); the salience of anti-snitching

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discourses among young people and the relationship between perceptions of police legitimacy

and efficacy and willingness to comply with police investigations (Chapter 3); and the collective

impacts of police practices through a comparison between Black and white youths, including the

role of direct and vicarious contacts in shaping perceptions of the police (Chapter 4). Taken

together, my findings demonstrate the pervasive and wide-spread impacts of order-maintenance

policing practices that have disproportionately targeted Black youths and Black communities.

These impacts include diminished perceptions of the police, reduced social and spatial mobility,

and involvement various self-help behaviours, including private violence. I conclude by

discussing the theoretical and policy implications of my findings, which are particularly salient

as Toronto continues to face mounting levels of youth violence, racialized poverty, and spatial

segregation.

iv

Acknowledgments

First, I want to thank my doctoral supervisor, Dr. Scot Wortley. I have faced many obstacles on

this journey, and your guidance, support, and wisdom have allowed me to overcome them and

reach this point. I will always be grateful to have you as a friend and mentor. I would also like to

thank my doctoral committee members, Dr. Matthew Light and Dr. Jooyoung Lee. Your support,

expertise, and helpful comments have been instrumental in my reaching this goal. I am also

grateful to the faculty, staff, and graduate students at the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal

Studies for their kindness. In particular, I want to thank Dr. Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, a friend,

mentor, and colleague to me from the beginning of my doctoral studies, and Dr. Brenna

Keatinge, my long-time officemate and good friend. I would also like to gratefully recognize

Jessica Bundy and Kadija Lodge-Tulloch, whose work contributed to this project.

Second, I want to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the

Neighbourhood Change Research Partnership, the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, the Centre for

Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, and the University of Toronto for their generous financial

support of my work and this project.

Third, I would like to thank the young people whose experiences I share in this thesis. It was my

privilege to converse with you and to learn from your experiences. I would also like to thank the

community members, staff, outreach workers, and others who welcomed me into their

neighbourhoods. Thank you for the informal chats, the connections you helped me make, the

space you shared, and even the occasional meal. I will forever be grateful for your kindness.

Finally, I want to thank my wife, Amanda Smith, and my parents, Alexander and Velmon.

Amanda, we have been together since I began my master’s degree, and you have given me

unconditional support and love on this journey. Without you in my life, none of this would have

been possible. Mom and dad, you always believed in me, even when others didn’t. Your love,

support, and encouragement have allowed me to go further, follow my dreams, and reach my

potential. I love you all very much.

This thesis is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Susan Judith Ship, a friend, colleague, and mentor

and to the lives of the young people we have lost to violence in Toronto and the GTA.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................................... iv

List of Tables ................................................................................................................................ vii

List of Appendices ....................................................................................................................... viii

Chapter 1 Introduction .....................................................................................................................1

1.1 Theoretical Frameworks and Supporting Literature ..........................................................15

1.1.1 Major Themes ........................................................................................................19

1.2 Study Objectives, Research Questions, and Methods ........................................................20

1.3 Dissertation Structure and Overview .................................................................................24

Chapter 2 ‘Opps’ and Robbers: Neighbourhood Rivalries, Hyper-Surveillance and Honour-

Based Violence Among Black Youth in Toronto ....................................................................28

1.3.1 Abstract ..................................................................................................................28

1.3.2 Introduction ............................................................................................................28

1.3.3 Literature Review...................................................................................................30

1.3.4 Research Questions ................................................................................................37

1.3.5 Methodology and Study Setting.............................................................................37

1.3.6 Findings..................................................................................................................41

1.4 Discussion and Conclusion ................................................................................................57

Chapter 3 “It just makes you have more problems”: An Examination of Anti-Snitching

Codes Among Black Youth in Toronto, Ontario ......................................................................61

1.5 Abstract ..............................................................................................................................61

1.6 Introduction ........................................................................................................................61

1.7 Literature Review...............................................................................................................63

1.8 Research Questions ............................................................................................................73

1.9 Methodology and Study Setting.........................................................................................73

1.10 Findings ...........................................................................................................................77

1.11 Discussion and Conclusion .............................................................................................99

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Chapter 4 “I feel like this happens all the time”: Young People’s Lived-Experiences with

Policing and Community Safety in Toronto ...........................................................................103

1.12 Abstract .........................................................................................................................103

1.13 Introduction ...................................................................................................................103

1.14 Literature Review ..........................................................................................................106

1.15 Methodology and Study Setting ....................................................................................115

1.16 Findings .........................................................................................................................120

1.17 Discussion and Conclusion ...........................................................................................149

Chapter 5 Discussion and Conclusion .........................................................................................156

1.18 Summary of Main Findings ...........................................................................................157

1.19 Limitations .....................................................................................................................160

1.20 Discussion .....................................................................................................................162

1.21 Conclusion .....................................................................................................................166

References ....................................................................................................................................171

Appendices ...................................................................................................................................210

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List of Tables

Table 1.1 Demographic Characteristics of all Youth Respondents

23

Table 1.2 Demographic Characteristics of Black Youth Respondents

38

Table 1.3 Demographic Characteristics of Black Youth Respondents

74

Table 1.4 Demographic Characteristics of all Youth Respondents

116

Table 1.5 Respondent’s feelings about their trust in the police

120

Table 1.6 Percent of Respondents who have experienced police stops,

searches, arrests, and charges

128

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List of Appendices

Appendix A Schedule of Questions

210

Appendix B Informed Consent Document

217

Appendix C Resources Handout for Study Participants

221

1

Chapter 1 Introduction

From the outside, looking in, Toronto is a safe city. Historically, when compared to other major

city centres, Toronto has had low rates of violent crime, and recently, The Economist ranked

Toronto 6th on their list of the safest cities in the world (The Economist, 2019). Further, Toronto

enjoys a worldwide reputation for diversity, tolerance, inclusivity, and livability (Mullings, 2012;

Wortley & Owusu-Bempah, 2012). To this end, the City of Toronto even maintains a public-

facing webpage that catalogues Toronto’s performance in various ‘world rankings’ related to the

criteria mentioned above and many others (World Rankings for Toronto, 2017). Toronto’s

reputation for diversity is well-deserved and ultimately reflective of the composition of the city’s

population. For 2016, 51.5% of Toronto’s population was composed of ‘visible minorities’1,

while 51.2% were immigrants born outside of Canada (City of Toronto, 2017). However, the

safety that Toronto is known for is not experienced equally by all. Indeed, crime, violence, and

policing practices are patterned down racial, socioeconomic, and geographic lines, with young

Black men who reside racially and spatially segregated, low-income communities, outside of the

downtown core being most affected (Gartner & Thompson, 2004, 2013; Hulchanski, 2010;

Wang et al., 2019).

Over the past three decades, cities worldwide have experienced growing income

inequality and economic polarization, to which Toronto has not been immune (Hulchanski, 2010;

Walks, 2013). In 2004, the United Way of Greater Toronto and the Canadian Council on Social

Development released Poverty by Postal Code, a report which laid bare the stark reality of

growing poverty concentration and income inequality in Toronto. As the report outlines,

beginning in the early 1980s, Toronto experienced several structural changes, including

significant declines in higher-paying, skilled and semi-skilled labour jobs, rising housing costs,

and insufficient increases in social assistance levels. These factors are reflected in reductions in

1 The term ‘visible minority’ is defined in the Canada Employment Equity Act as “persons, other than Aboriginal

peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour”. This term is uniquely Canadian and there are no

internationally recognized comparable standards. The largest visible minority groups include “South Asian, Chinese,

Black, Filipino, Latin American, Arab, Southeast Asian, West Asian, Korean and Japanese” persons (Statistics

Canada, 2015).

2

the median income, a growing income gap, and an increasing percentage of lower-income

families. Notably, a growing number of residents living in poverty resulted in the exponential

growth of higher poverty2 neighbourhoods. Between 1981 and 2001, the percentage of ‘high-

poverty’ neighbourhoods in Toronto increased by 273%, while the percentage of ‘very-high’

poverty neighbourhoods increased by a staggering 475%. Further, these neighbourhoods are

concentrated increasingly in the ‘inner suburbs’, a group of neighbourhoods outside of the

downtown core.

More recently, Hulchanski (2010) examined trends in income polarization in Toronto

between 1970 and 2005. In his findings, Hulchanski describes Toronto as a ‘divided city’,

distinguished by three distinct groups of neighbourhoods or ‘cities’ within a city. During the

study period, the number of middle-income neighbourhoods (‘City #2’) decreased dramatically,

from 66% to 29%, while the number of low-income neighbourhoods (‘City #3’) increased from

19% to 53%. Further, low-income, inner-city neighbourhoods have been displaced to the

aforementioned ‘inner suburbs’ in the northeastern and northwestern sections of the city, outside

of the downtown core. As a result, low-income neighbourhoods are increasingly concentrated in

racially and spatially segregated areas with diminished access to transit and social services. The

composition and demographics of low-income neighbourhoods have also changed, including a

higher percentage of immigrants and visible minority residents with lower levels of educational

attainment and lower average incomes. Unsurprisingly, these neighbourhoods face

disproportionate levels of crime and violence, including shootings and gun-related homicides.

With this in mind, it is of little surprise that gun and gang violence issues are a seemingly

distant concern for many Toronto residents. This tension was evident in my conversation with

Michael, a 24-year old Black man who has spent most of his life in the Forest Glen community, a

low-income neighbourhood in the North East end of Toronto. Anton had seen his educational

aspirations put aside as he worked to afford to go back to school. In the two years that had

2 ‘High poverty’ neighbourhoods are defined as those where between 26-39.9% of families lived below the poverty

line, while ‘very high’ poverty neighbourhoods were those with 40% of families living below the poverty line.

3

passed, he had become involved in the street-level drug trade to sustain himself. As we talked,

Anton became frustrated when the discussion turned to a recent daytime shooting in the heart of

the downtown shopping district and the accompanying surge in public concern over community

safety:

And then it’s like there’s this whole make Toronto safe again because it

happened downtown where they feel like they may get hit or their pocket

of the city gets affected. You know what I mean? It’s downtown, open

areas and shit like that. Toronto hasn’t been safe. We had back-to-back

shootings up the road and the guy gets shot in front of his daughter in

broad daylight. Where’s make Toronto safe then? It’s just ‘cuz… I feel

like it’s bullshit. I don’t like bullshit. I see through bullshit. So this whole

make Toronto safe again shit is bullshit.

Anton’s comments speak to the daily reality faced by many racialized young and, in particular,

Black youth across Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). When a high-profile incident

happens, such as a shooting, there is a surge in public concern to understand gun violence. The

questions asked are inevitably the same. Who is doing the shooting? Who are the intended

targets? Why are they doing this? How can we stop this from happening again?

Similarly, just as the questions remain the same, so too are the policy responses. The

primary responses have been criminal justice-focused in terms of duration and resource

allocation, including increased police funding, specialized prosecutors and courts, police

taskforces, and order-maintenance policing strategies targeted at lower-income communities.

The secondary responses have come in the form of often short-term funding for community-

based initiatives meant to prevent gun violence, planning documents, research studies, and

municipal and provincial youth strategies (Haag & Wortley, 2018). For example, between 2004

and 2011, the province began providing significant additional funding for initiatives meant to

combat violence, guns, and gangs, including within Toronto and the GTA. In total, these funding

commitments included an estimated $112 million directed towards the Guns and Gangs

Operations Centre, a provincial Guns and Gangs Task Force, and both the Toronto Anti-

Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS) and the Provincial Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy

4

(PAVIS)3 (Ministry of the Solicitor General, 2011). In a more recent example, Wilmot (2020)

found that, between 2019 and 2020, of $200 million in grants, awarded through the provincial

Community Safety and Well-Being Strategy, $199 million had been awarded directly to police

forces, while only $1.6 million went to City service providers and community organizations.

With this in mind, my research sought to understand how the policies and practices, borne out of

this period, had come to impact young people, with a particular focus on the actions of the

police.

By the very nature of their mandate, the police represent the ‘frontline’ agents of the

government, and the most likely point of contact individuals will have with the criminal justice

system (Tyler, 2015). In Canada, young people and young adults, aged 15-24, are at the highest

risk of coming into conflict with the law and becoming the victims of crime (Department of

Justice Canada, 2016; Moreau, 2019). As such, there is a vital need to examine young people’s

perceptions of the police and the impacts of police practices on both them and their communities.

Experiences with police and policing are central to shaping perceptions of the broader criminal

justice system and attitudes towards compliance with the law (Hollander‐Blumoff & Tyler, 2008;

Sunshine & Tyler, 2003; Tyler & Fagan, 2008). To this end, police practices and policies in both

the United States and Canada have increasingly come to reflect the essential role that the public

plays in the co-production of community safety. To this end, research suggests that the police

must secure the trust and cooperation of the communities within which they work to be effective

(Skolnick & Bayley, 1988; Wilson, 2006).

To date, the vast majority of scholarship examining the racialization of crime and

discriminatory practices in the criminal justice system has emanated from the United States and

Great Britain. In this regard, both qualitative and quantitative studies have found that perceptions

of the police vary by age, gender, and race. In particular, young Black males have more negative

views than whites and other racialized groups (Bowling & Phillips, 2007; Browning & Cao,

3 Both the TAVIS and PAVIS initiatives entailed the formation of specialized police ‘rapid response teams’

deployed to so-called ‘high-priority’ neighbourhoods (Ministry of the Solicitor General, 2011).

5

1992; Brunson & Miller, 2006; Buckler & Unnever, 2008; Drakulich & Crutchfield, 2013;

Henderson et al., 1997; Hurst et al., 2000; Peterson et al., 2006; Sampson & Bartusch, 1998;

Schuck & Rosenbaum, 2005; Tuch & Weitzer, 1997; Weitzer, 2000; Weitzer & Tuch, 1999; Wu,

2014). By comparison, there are relatively few Canadian studies examining young people’s

perceptions of the police. However, a growing body of Canadian studies has found that Black

males in Canada also hold more negative views of the police (Hayle et al., 2016; Owusu-

Bempah, 2014; Wortley, 1999a; Wortley & Owusu-Bempah, 2009, 2011). Further, as will be

discussed, efforts to better understand the extent and impact of these practices in Canada has

been hampered by a lack of available race-crime data (Millar & Owusu-Bempah, 2011; Wortley,

1999b). My dissertation findings contribute to the limited body of Canadian scholarship on these

issues by drawing on the lived experiences of young people from racialized and marginalized

backgrounds.

The remainder of this chapter will establish my dissertation's background, a review of

critical events that informed my research design, a discussion of the theoretical perspectives that

informed my analysis, and my methodology. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 represent my primary data

chapters and are structured as journal-style articles. In chapter 5 I provide my discussion and

conclusion, including policy implications related to my findings. While each data chapter is self-

contained, all three are based on similar theoretical frameworks and, when considered together,

inform this project's overarching conclusions.

Setting the Stage: Black Life in the GTA

The Greater Toronto Area is home to the largest Black population in Canada. In 2016, 442,015

Black persons lived in GTA, representing 36.9% of Canada’s Black population and 7.5% of the

GTA’s total population (Statistics Canada, 2019). However, despite Toronto’s international

reputation for inclusivity and tolerance, Black people in Toronto face lower levels of educational

attainment, higher rates of unemployment and underemployment, and concentrated poverty when

compared to white people and people from other racialized backgrounds (Statistics Canada,

2020). Research suggests that Black people are more likely to reside in socially assisted housing

(Murdie, 1994) and that poor Black people experience the highest degree of residential

6

segregation (Fong, 2017). By comparison, Black people are underrepresented in more socio-

economically affluent neighbourhoods (Fong, 2017). Similarly, across all levels of

socioeconomic status, Black people in Toronto have lower rates of homeownership than white

people (Darden & Kamel, 2000). In 2006, Black youths were twice as likely as other racial

groups to be in the lowest family income quintile. Black youths were also less likely to live in a

home owned by a household member and more likely to reside in a single-parent household

(Turcotte, 2020). These disparities are, in part, reflected in lower levels of educational attainment

and labour market participation among Black youths.

Looking to educational outcomes, Toronto District School Board (TDSB) data shows

that, between 2006 and 2011, Black youths faced lower high school graduation rates and higher

dropout rates than white youths and youths from other racialized groups. Similarly, between

2006 and 2016, young Black men and women were less likely than other groups to have

completed a postsecondary degree, certificate, or diploma (Turcotte, 2020). In terms of school

discipline, Black students were more than twice as likely as whites and other racialized groups to

have been suspended (James & Turner, 2017). Further, between 2011-12 and 2015-16, Black

students represented 48% of all TDSB expulsions, compared to 10% for white students. Notably,

while Black students represented nearly half of all expulsions, according to 2011-12 TDSB

census data, they only represented 12% of the student population.

Black youths also face higher rates of unemployment, with the unemployment rate for

young Black men, aged 23 to 27, being nearly twice that of other males (Turcotte, 2020).

Similarly, in his examination of the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (CMA), Darden (2005)

found that Black people had lower levels of occupational status than white people. In particular,

Black males are over-represented in lower-skilled, low-paying jobs while under-represented in

higher-skilled professions and managerial positions. Importantly, these disparities persisted, even

when controlling for educational attainment, prior employment experience, and immigration

status, leading the author to conclude that discrimination by employers had contributed to these

racial disparities. In addition, diminished educational and employment outcomes have

contributed to a climate of hopelessness and alienation that has contributed to disengagement

7

with the educational system, increased engagement with street culture, and greater participation

in criminal activities (Baron, 2008; Crichlow, 2014).

Until recently, there has been an unofficial ‘ban’ on the collection of race-crime statistics

in Canada. As such, it has been practically impossible to develop a complete understanding of

the intersections of race and criminal justice (Wortley & Owusu-Bempah, 2012). However, the

available scholarship has evidenced the significant overrepresentation of Black people in various

aspects of the criminal justice system, including police-citizen contacts, pre-trial detention,

imprisonment, and as both the victims and perpetrators of homicides (Gartner & Thompson,

2004, 2013; Meng, 2017; Wortley & Owusu-Bempah, 2012). For example, Gartner and

Thompson (2004) found that, between 1992 and 2003, the Black homicide rate in Toronto was

more than four times the city average, and there was a disproportionate representation of young

Black males as both homicide victims and offenders. Further, the authors point to the risk of

homicide becoming increasingly concentrated in Toronto’s Black communities. In a later study,

Thompson and Gartner (2013) found that the percentage of Black residents in a neighbourhood

was not significantly associated with homicide rates. However, neighbourhoods with higher

homicide rates face higher levels of resource deprivation, greater economic disadvantage, and a

higher proportion of younger residents have higher homicide rates. Notably, Black residents

disproportionately reside in communities that face these forms of disadvantage.

In another study, Wortley and Owusu-Bempah (2011) found that Black persons living in

Toronto were more likely to report being stopped and searched by the police than respondents

from other racial backgrounds. In particular, Black males were particularly vulnerable to

involuntary police contacts. Importantly, the authors found that racial disparities in stop and

search activities remained significant, even after controlling for factors that should predict police

contact, including substance abuse, community crime and disorder, prior criminality, and

frequency of public activities. Black respondents were also more likely than white people and

other racialized groups to perceive their most recent stop as unfair and that racial profiling was a

major social problem in Canada.

Indeed, information collected through the practice of ‘carding’ or ‘street checks’ reflects

8

disparities in police-citizen contacts. Carding interactions typically involve police-initiated

civilian contacts, which officers document for intelligence-gathering purposes4. Carding

interactions typically entail police detailing a person and asking them to provide identifying

information, including, but not limited to, their name, date of birth, and address. Further, officers

involved in a carding interaction frequently document the circumstances related to the stop,

including the purported justification for the investigation, the stop's location, and their perception

of the individual's race. These interactions overwhelmingly involve situations where police have

no reasonable suspicion that an offence will occur, with very few interactions resulting in an

arrest (Tulloch, 2018). In 2010, the Toronto Star began a series exploring their analysis of over

1.7 million contact cards collected by the Toronto Police Service between 2003 and 2008

(Rankin, 2010b, 2010a; Rankin & Winsa, 2012). The Star’s analysis evidenced significant racial

disparities in these interactions, with young Black males between the ages of 15 and 24 being 2.5

times more likely to be stopped than white males of the same age. Importantly, these disparities

persisted across each of the 72 ‘patrol zones’ served by the police, which contradicted police

assertions that racial disparities in street checks stem from the disproportionate representation of

Black residents in higher-crime communities (Rankin & Winsa, 2012). Further, the racial

disparities in carding experienced by Black people were more significant in lower-crime, more

affluent, and predominantly white neighbourhoods than in lower-income, predominantly

minority population neighbourhoods. This finding supports the association between ‘race and

place’, whereby neighbourhood characteristics factor into police perceptions of suspicion (Gau &

Brunson, 2015; Meehan & Ponder, 2002).

More recently, Samuels-Wortley (2019) examined police-recorded data from a police

force in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and found evidence of racialized disparities in police

charging decisions. Between 2007 and 2012, Black youths were more than twice as likely to be

4For comparison, the practice of carding closely resembles the ‘stop and frisk’ or ‘Terry stop’ tactics employed by

police in the United States.

9

charged, cautioned, or diverted for theft under $5,000 and cannabis possession, relative to their

representation in the population. By comparison, other racialized groups are underrepresented in

the same categories. In particular, Black males received harsher treatment than white people and

other racialized groups, including being less likely to be cautioned by police and more likely to

be charged formally. Further, when disaggregated by offence type, Black males were

significantly more likely to be charged than white people and other racialized groups with

cannabis possession, which the author links to the punitive turn taken against Black males under

the auspices of the on-going ‘War on Drugs’. The overrepresentation of Black youths in both the

provincial and federal correctional systems is reflective of their disparate treatment at the hands

of the police.

Black youths and adults are disproportionately represented in Ontario provincial jail

admissions. For example, recent data reveals that the proportion of Black male youths admitted

to jail is four times higher than their representation in the general population. By comparison,

there is no overrepresentation in admissions for white youths. Notably, despite an overall trend

of declining young correctional admissions that accompanied the enactment of the 2003 Youth

Criminal Justice Act (Rankin et al., 2013), these disparities have persisted. Data on federal

corrections shows similar disparities, with Black people being disproportionately represented in

the prison population compared to white people. Further, between 2001 and 2011, the

incarceration rate for Black people increased significantly, while at the same time dropping 10

percent for white people (Owusu-Bempah & Wortley, 2014).

As this review demonstrates, Black persons in Toronto and the GTA face various

intersecting social and structural barriers while also being overrepresented at different stages of

the criminal justice system. However, a series of critical events, beginning in 2005, further

impacted my study's social, political, and policy context.

15 Years Later: The Enduring Legacy of the ‘Year of the Gun’

In 2005, Toronto experienced a significant spike in gun violence compared to the year prior, with

total shootings increasing by 37% and firearm-related injuries and homicides increasing by 85%

10

and 104%, respectively5 (Toronto Police Service, 2020). Much of the violence occurred over the

summer, eventually leading to commentators describing it as the ‘Summer of the Gun’ (Parris,

2018). The local and provincial governments responded to the ‘Summer of the Gun’ with several

policing and justice-related initiatives. While many of these initiatives have ended, their impacts

continue to be felt amongst young people, including many participants in my study. Indeed, both

during and after 2005, the policies enacted served to shape the policing and social policy climate

in Toronto under which many study participants came of age. Moreover, these policies have

framed their experiences and contributed to their perceptions of policing in Canada. As such, I

feel that it is vital to identify these events to establish the broader context in which I situate my

findings and the associated policy implications.

Most of the violence during the Summer of 2005 remained concentrated within lower-

income communities outside of the downtown core. Further, the victims were predominantly

young Black men, many of whom were alleged to be involved in the city’s illegal drug trade

(Crichlow, 2014). While experts would point to the underlying social and structural factors

contributing to gun violence (Doob & Gartner, 2005), the dominant policy response would be

policing-focused. By August, the City of Toronto committed to hiring a minimum of 150 new

police officers and creating a specialized gun and gang unit (Shaw, 2005). Furthermore,

hundreds of additional officers were deployed to high-crime communities that were apparently

“riddled with shootings” (Rusk, 2005). However, it would take the daytime shooting of Jane

Creba, a 15-year old white young woman, on Boxing Day, in the busy heart of the downtown

shopping district to shift public sentiments and spur a more assertive policy response. Creba,

who was out shopping with friends and family, was an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire

as two rival groups of young Black men opened fire on each other (Small, 2007). By the end of

2005, the front page of the Toronto Star would proclaim ‘2005: Year of the Gun, Is This the

End?’ (Diebel, 2005). It would be Creba’s killing, not the much more numerous murders of

5 It should be noted that 2004 represented a low-point in gun related deaths in Toronto (27), which paralleled an

overall trend of declining firearm use for violent crimes in Canada and the United States (Bridges & Kunselman,

2004; Hung, 2006).

11

young Black men, that would serve as the catalyst for widespread calls to action to address gun

violence.

The tragedy that claimed Creba’s life was yet another instance of the gun violence that

had come to characterize 2005. However, Creba was young, middle-class, and white, and her

killing had taken place in the predominantly white downtown core (Hulchanski, 2010), thus

violating both the de facto segregation of violence to racially and spatially segregated

communities outside the downtown core (Gartner & Thompson, 2013), and the racial typification

of crime victims (Chiricos & Eschholz, 2002). During a press conference on the day after the

shooting, Det. Sgt. Savas Kyriacou, a Toronto Police detective, assigned to the case, would

comment, “Toronto, has finally lost its innocence”. Indeed, in the days following the shooting,

media outlets would prominently feature photos of Creba alongside headlines including “Slain

teenager veered blithely into crossfire”, “No time to say goodbye”, and about those responsible,

“We’re going to lock them up”. Later that year, then Toronto Mayor David Miller would

comment “Yonge Street is our street” and “It’s like a shooting happening in front your house. I

think that’s how everyone reacted” (Gray, 2005), thus furthering the concern over the spatial

dimension of the violence that had claimed Creba’s life.

Miller, through his comments, is invoking the tacit binary between the downtown core

and its residents and the low-income communities where gun violence had historically been

contained. While there is debate as to the nature of Canadian ‘ghettos’ and how they compare to

those of the United States (see: Bernardi, 2018; Walks & Bourne, 2006), there can be little doubt

that neighbourhoods occupying the symbolic space associated with the ghetto are a central and

growing aspect of urban life in Toronto and the GTA. As Anderson (2012, p. 9) describes:

“the word ghetto has generally come to be associated with inner-city

neighborhoods where poor black people live. It refers powerfully to the

neighborhoods in which blacks have been concentrated; in popular parlance,

it is “the black side of town,” or “the ‘hood’…”

A central component of policy discourse stemming from the ‘Year of the Gun’ involved the

‘othering’ of low-income neighbourhoods. In 2005, the ‘Strong Neighbourhoods Task Force’, a

12

partnership between the United Way of Greater Toronto and the City of Toronto, released its

report, Strong Neighbourhoods – A Call to Action. In this report, the authors labelled many of the

communities that had been associated with ‘Year of the Gun’ as “at-risk” and “priority

neighbourhoods” due to concentrated poverty, low levels of social cohesion, and poor access to

social services (City of Toronto & United Way of Greater Toronto, 2005). Similarly, by

extension, the young people who resided in those communities came to be referred to as ‘at risk

of violence’. Through the language of risk, young people and their communities are constructed

as suitable targets for risk-management techniques, such as aggressive, pre-emptive policing

tactics and violence prevention and intervention initiatives intended to manage the potential

‘harms’ they present (Kelly, 2000; O’Malley, 2010). The risk management discourse is evident

in the policy responses to the ‘Year of the Gun’. These responses, intended to address gun and

gang violence, included specialized police units, youth-focused community programs, and the

implementation of a municipal neighbourhood improvement initiative (Haag & Wortley, 2018).

The focus of the policy responses that emerged from 2005 were police-led initiatives,

including aggressive, order-maintenance tactics. Central to these efforts was enacting the

Toronto Police’s Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS). The primary component

of TAVIS involved the deployment of groups of 18 officers dubbed ‘Rapid Response Teams’,

tasked with identifying gang members, interdicting the flow of drugs and guns, intelligence

gathering, and community engagement (Ministry of the Solicitor General, 2011). TAVIS

operated between 2006 and 2017, with units deployed primarily to Toronto’s ‘Priority

Neighbourhoods’. However, throughout their tenure, they were widely alleged to have had a

profoundly negative impact on both the individuals and communities they targeted. In particular,

critics have implicated TAVIS units in the over-surveillance of Black youths, including street-

level harassment, stop and frisk activities, and police brutality (Haag & Wortley, 2018). TAVIS

officers would also be responsible for a disproportionate amount of carding interactions (Rankin

& Winsa, 2012).

The impacts of the ‘Year of the Gun’ were numerous and far-reaching, many of which

continue to be felt today. For Black youth in Toronto and their communities, it would mark the

13

beginning of a punitive policy turn, characterized by a then-unprecedented growth in aggressive,

order-maintenance policing initiatives. However, 2005 would also come to represent a broader

reference point that media outlets, politicians, and the police would turn to when faced with a

spike in gun violence. As Toronto experienced a spike in shootings and gun-related homicides in

2016, a columnist in the Toronto Star commented, “Not since 2005, dubbed “The Year of the

Gun,” have more Toronto residents died by a bullet at such a pace” (Edwards, 2016). Similarly,

as shootings and homicides continued to rise between 2016 and 2018, news media headlines

declared, “Toronto on pace for another ‘Year of the Gun’” (Isai, 2018) and “It’s the Year of the

Gun redux for Toronto” (DiManno, 2018). However, more recent spikes in gun violence,

occurring outside of the downtown core, have largely failed to drive the same magnitude of

widespread calls for action borne out of 2005.

Critical incidents occurring in the downtown core, which challenge the notion that

Toronto is a safe city, continue to be central in generating sufficient public concern to precipitate

a significant and coordinated policy response. For example, in June 2018, Toronto would

experience another daytime shooting in the downtown core, this time along a crowded section of

a popular shopping area. The victims, and at least one of the alleged perpetrators, would be

identified as young Black men (Aguilar, 2018). This shooting had a significant public impact and

factored prominently in the narratives shared by many participants in my study. In the weeks

following the shooting, the City of Toronto, the Toronto Police Service, and the province would

announce a host of immediate interventions and funding commitments to combat gun violence,

including increased police funding, the increased deployment of additional police patrols to low-

income communities, specialized gun-focused prosecution teams, and plans for enhanced and

expanded electronic surveillance capabilities (Gillis & Rushowy, 2018; Hayes, 2018).

Increasing gun and gang violence rates in Toronto have elicited comparisons with the

United States amid growing concerns over youth violence's long-term trajectory (Wortley, 2008).

As Toronto’s rates of shootings and gun homicides began to climb in 2016, Toronto Mayor John

Tory commented that these acts threatened the relative safety that “distinguishes Toronto from

other big cities” (Campbell & Cain, 2016). Further, observers have argued that the character of

14

violence in Toronto and the GTA is changing to more closely resemble American cities with

higher rates of violence, including more daytime shootings, more shootings in public places, and

the increased usage of handguns. This violence is increasingly concentrated in racially and

spatially segregated, low-income communities and involves Black youths as victims and

offenders (Wortley, 2012). In this context, there is a growing need to understand the nature of

police practices and their impacts on the individuals and communities who are disproportionately

subject to their effects. While prior scholarship has quantitatively examined the distribution of

police practices in Canada, comparatively few studies have employed a qualitative approach in

exploring the lived experiences of young people and the impacts of their interactions with the

police.

There is a relative lack of both quantitative and qualitative scholarship exploring the

intersections of racialization and the criminal justice system within the Canadian context. In

terms of quantitative studies, this can partially be attributed to the long-standing informal ‘ban’

on collecting race-crime statistics (Millar & Owusu-Bempah, 2011; Wortley, 1999b; Wortley &

Tanner, 2003), thus rendering systematic comparisons difficult. As a result, much of our

knowledge regarding the impacts of police practices are drawn from studies conducted in the

United States. However, while there is a more extensive body of American qualitative research

examining these issues, much of this scholarship is quantitative in nature. The lack of available

Canadian data has also factored prominently in the discursive practices employed by police

actors and politicians who have historically denied systemic racial bias within the Canadian

criminal justice system (Tator & Henry, 2006). Indeed, within Canada, racial discrimination in

the criminal justice system is often discussed in contrast to the United States, where these issues

are seen as much worse (Adjetey, 2015; Mullings et al., 2016; Wortley, 2003). However, our

criminal justice system has close ties to the United States. For example, many Canadian police

agencies have sought training from American police agencies, including punitive tactics

developed under the auspices of the ‘war on drugs’ (Maynard, 2017; Owusu-Bempah & Morgan,

2016). There is also evidence of crime control policy transfers from the United States to Canada,

including policies and tactics consistent with the ‘war on drugs’, ‘zero tolerance’, and‘broken

windows’ approaches to crime control (DeKeseredy, 2009; Maynard, 2017).

15

In short, when compared to Canada, the United States faces more extensive and severe

issues with criminality and a long history of allegations of racially biased policing. However, this

should not serve as a means to deflect attention away from the pervasive racial inequities within

the Canadian criminal justice system. The findings of this dissertation will explore these issues in

the Canadian context by applying several theoretical frameworks developed in studies of the

United States. In doing so, my analysis contributes to a more holistic understanding of these

perspectives by demonstrating their salience outside of the United States while also evidencing

some important variations that reflect the lived experiences of young people in Canada.

1.1 Theoretical Frameworks and Supporting Literature

At the core of the police’s mandate is the expectation that they will maintain order, enforce laws,

detect crimes, and apprehend criminals. However, the methods by which police seek to achieve

these goals can differ significantly across different geographic, political, and social contexts. For

example, in western nations, including Canada, the United States, and Great Britain, beginning in

the 1980s, policing strategies began to shift from a more crime control and enforcement-oriented

approach to strategies predicated on community cooperation. These approaches can be broadly

grouped under the community policing framework, which emphasizes the importance of police-

public partnerships as a means of identifying and responding to crimes, social disorder, fear of

crimes, and other neighbourhood problems (Wilson, 2006). In part, the growth of community

policing can be attributed to a recognition by the police that the nature of crime is ultimately too

complex and widespread for them to detect on their own. As a result, the police must rely on the

willing cooperation of the public to efficiently perform their duties (Schafer et al., 2003;

Skolnick & Bayley, 1988). As such, understanding public perceptions of the police is vital to

scholars, policymakers, and police actors alike.

Contemporary scholarship finds that judgments related to the fairness by which the police

treat persons are the most important factor in shaping perceptions of police legitimacy (Bradford,

2014; Tyler & Fagan, 2008; Tyler, 1994; Tyler & Wakslak, 2004). In this regard, the procedural

justice model of police legitimacy contends that perceptions fair treatment at the hands of the

police are related to several law-related behaviours, including compliance with police

16

investigations (Cherney & Murphy, 2013; Huq et al., 2011; Sunshine & Tyler, 2003; Tyler,

2016; Tyler & Fagan, 2008), abiding by police directives (Mastrofski et al., 1996; McCluskey &

Terrill, 2005), and the self-regulation of law-abiding behaviours (Murphy et al., 2008; Murphy,

2015). Unlike more traditional, outcome-based assessments of police performance, perceptions

of procedural justice centre on judgments related to the fairness of the process by which persons

are treated. When the public deems the process of an interaction to be fair, they will be more

likely to both accept and abide by the outcome of the interaction, regardless of whether it favours

them.

However, research has evidenced that there are considerable racialized disparities in

perceptions of both the police and the criminal justice system as a whole, with Black people

holding more negative views than white people and other racialized groups (Browning & Cao,

1992; Brunson & Weitzer, 2009; Buckler & Unnever, 2008; Drakulich & Crutchfield, 2013;

Hagan et al., 2005; Henderson et al., 1997; Sampson & Bartusch, 1998; Schuck & Rosenbaum,

2005; Tuch & Weitzer, 1997; Weitzer, 2000; Weitzer & Tuch, 1999; Wortley, 1999a; Wortley &

Owusu-Bempah, 2009, 2011; Wu, 2014). To this end, research suggests that low levels of trust

and confidence in the police and the criminal justice system are rooted in the lived experiences of

Black people with these institutions (Anderson, 1999; Brunson & Weitzer, 2009, 2011; Gau &

Brunson, 2015; Kirk & Papachristos, 2011; Sampson & Bartusch, 1998; Tyler & Wakslak,

2004). A driving force in these concerns is the disproportionate representation of Black people in

police-citizen contacts.

In both the United States and Canada, Black people are disproportionately represented in

police-citizen contacts. In particular, young Black men have become widely stereotyped as

criminals and inherently dangerous, which various actors have used to justify their being subject

to aggressive policing tactics (Henry & Tator, 2006; Welch, 2007). The process of racialization6

6 The racialization of crime refers to the process by certain racial identities have come to be associated with crime.

In particular, powerful stereotypes associating Black people with crime are common throughout Canada and abroad

(Chan & Chunn, 2014) .

17

is a central component in the formation of stereotypes of racialized others. Through racialization,

certain forms of criminality, including street-level drug trafficking, robberies, and gang activity,

have come to be viewed as products of Black culture and thus inherent to all Black persons

(Brewer & Heitzeg, 2008; Chan & Chunn, 2014; Henry & Tator, 2006). As Skolnick (1966)

describes, among police officers, young Black males have come to represent the ‘symbolic

assailant’, whose “gesture, language, and attire” officers see as “a prelude to violence” (p. 45).

More recently, Russell-Brown (2009) advanced the term ‘criminalblackman’ to describe the

commonly-held stereotypes of Black males as criminals, which are both a product of and

perpetuated by powerful governmental policies and media discourses. To this end, the

racialization of crime is evident in the experiences of Black youths with policing.

For many young Black men, frequent and unpleasant contacts with the police are an

aspect of daily life. These experiences can be broadly characterized by ‘over-policing’, including

being subject to what has been described as harassment, excessive police-initiated stop-and-

account interactions, unwarranted searches, physical abuse, and arrests (Brunson & Miller, 2006;

Brunson & Weitzer, 2011; Gau & Brunson, 2015; Hayle et al., 2016; Jones, 2014; Weitzer &

Brunson, 2009; Wortley & Owusu-Bempah, 2011). In this regard, police have come to represent

yet another source of risk and uncertainty for many young people and not safety or security.

However, these same groups of young people also simultaneously experience ‘under-policing’,

whereby police are seen as uncaring and inattentive to their needs and those of their

communities, instead choosing to focus their energies on seemingly minor offences. Police

activities associated with under-policing include experiencing long-wait times during calls for

service, mistreatment in citizen-initiated encounters, having their complaint not taken seriously,

being treated as though an individual precipitated their victimization, or even being themselves

treated as a suspect (Brunson & Miller, 2006; Brunson & Wade, 2019; Carr et al., 2007;

Clampet-Lundquist et al., 2015; Gau & Brunson, 2015; Stuart, 2016; Weitzer & Brunson, 2009).

These conflicting practices have contributed to young people feeling simultaneously under-

protected and criminalized (Henry & Tator, 2006; Mythen & Walklate, 2006; Stuart, 2016).

18

Police practices also have a distinct social-ecological dimension, with the use of

aggressive, order-maintenance policing strategies concentrated in socially and economically

marginalized communities with larger racialized populations (Anderson, 1999; Brunson &

Weitzer, 2009; Mastrofski et al., 2002; Meehan & Ponder, 2002; Meng, 2017; Sampson &

Bartusch, 1998; Stewart et al., 2009). This racial patterning of policing tactics may be driven by

stereotypes held by officers associating socioeconomic disadvantage and minority populations

with dangerousness (Brunson & Miller, 2006; Fagan et al., 2010; Harris, 1993; Herbert, 2001;

Stroshine et al., 2008). However, police suspicion also extends to Black people found in

neighbourhoods where they are more likely to be perceived by police as ‘out of place’ and thus

suspicious. Indeed, research suggests that racial disparities in police stops are greater against

Black people when travelling in more affluent, predominantly white neighbourhoods than in

lower-income, higher crime neighbourhoods with larger racialized populations (Brunson &

Weitzer, 2009, 2011; Meng, 2017). When taken together, the combination of neighbourhood

disadvantage, high crime rates, and low levels of police legitimacy can contribute to the

development of alternative cultural orientations. These orientations are more distrustful of the

law and its agents and are more permissive of extra-legal forms of dispute resolution, including

violence.

Both direct and indirect experiences with the police and the legal system contribute to a

process of legal socialization, whereby individuals develop beliefs related to the legitimacy of

the law and its agents (Geller & Fagan, 2019; Wolfe et al., 2017). In this regard, Kirk and

Papachristos contend that legal cynicism emerges as “a frame through which individuals interpret

the functioning of the law and its agents, especially law enforcement” (2011, p. 1197). In

disadvantaged communities with historically fractious relations with the police and the criminal

justice system, residents come to accept that these systems will not afford them protection. As a

result, they develop cultural adaptations meant to protect against victimization. Eventually, these

adaptations become a cultural frame transmitted relationally throughout the community. They

thus are acquired by residents through their experiences with the law and its agents and by social

transmission from other residents (Kirk & Papachristos, 2011). Anderson’s (1994, 1999) Code of

the Street has come to represent a prominent example of the manifestation of these frames.

19

The Code of the Street comprises a set of informal rules or street codes that regulate

behaviours and govern norms related to interpersonal violence among residents of low-income

communities and, in particular, within Black communities (Anderson, 1999). In the void left by

the retrenchment of the social welfare state and the profound lack of faith in the police, residents

turn to the code as a means of safely navigating public life. Notably, while the tenets of the code

are widely known throughout the community, it is most closely adhered to by a core group of

street-involved residents, primarily young men. Central to the code is the attainment of respect,

which comprises a sort of cultural currency through which residents can attain material and

symbolic benefits. Young people achieve respect by cultivating a reputation for being tough,

self-reliant, aggressive, and willing to use violence when provoked. Through respect, a young

person can reduce the risk of being challenged, harassed, or otherwise victimized while

frequenting public spaces. Conversely, those who lack respect are at a heightened risk of being

victimized. With these frameworks in mind, the following section will review the major themes

explored in this dissertation.

1.1.1 Major Themes

As discussed, through my research, I sought to develop a more complete and contextual

understanding of the impacts of police practices, including both the perspectives of persons in

conflict with the law and members of the wider community. While several important themes

emerged from the data, my analysis focuses on the impacts of policing as they relate to three

central issues: 1) the differential impacts of police practices on Black and white youth; 2) the

strategies that young people use to safely navigate daily life when police are deemed both

illegitimate and uncaring; 3) attitudes towards cooperation with the police among young people

and the efficacy of so-called ‘anti-snitching’ codes. In sum, my dissertation findings demonstrate

that aggressive, order-maintenance policing practices have had a significant, wide-reaching, and

overwhelmingly negative impact on many young people and, particularly, Black youths.

Importantly, I find that direct and vicarious experiences shape perceptions, which is consistent

with prior scholarship in both the United States and Canada (Berg et al., 2016; Brunson &

Miller, 2006; Brunson & Weitzer, 2011; Gau & Brunson, 2015; Geller & Fagan, 2019;

20

Rosenbaum et al., 2005; Wortley & Owusu-Bempah, 2011). Further, police practices have

contributed to widespread legal cynicism among many Black youths and their families, including

the development of subcultural norms against compliance with the police. Importantly, these

values are transmitted socially between young people and intergenerationally from older family

members, a finding also consistent with prior American scholarship (Brunson & Weitzer, 2011;

Stuart, 2016; Wolfe et al., 2017).

Finally, my findings demonstrate the importance of long-standing, intergenerational

neighbourhood rivalries as a primary driver of violence among young people who reside in

socially and economically marginalized communities. These rivalries have flourished in the

climate of insecurity created by the ongoing reduction of the social welfare state and the loss of

police legitimacy. In particular, I find that young people engage in lateral surveillance practices

meant to convey pride in their communities while also protecting against the encroachment of

rivals from outside the neighbourhood. While resembling the contours of gang violence, these

rivalries were a concern for non-gang youth in the community, thus challenging the centrality of

gangs in dominant academic and policy discourses as the primary drivers of street-level violence.

1.2 Study Objectives, Research Questions, and Methods

My interest in better understanding the lived experiences of young people living in Toronto, and

the GTA, who are the focus of public concerns regarding gun and gang violence, guided this

project's focus. Unfortunately, powerful public, media, and policy discourses have systematically

discounted the voices of these youths, and thus their perspectives remain marginalized. In this

regard, my interests in these issues were guided, to a significant extent, by my prior experiences

as a field researcher. The first of these opportunities would come during my master’s program

when I would work as an evaluator on a multi-site youth gang prevention program operating in

three lower-income neighbourhoods. My work on the project included conducting semi-

structured interviews with young people and conducting weekly participant observations at three

program field sites. During my doctoral studies, I would also spend a year working as a youth

outreach worker in Toronto’s Jane and Finch community. Finally, during the latter half of my

doctoral studies, I worked as co-coordinator for a major community study examining gun

21

violence within Toronto and the GTA. These opportunities allowed me to have the privilege to

conduct hundreds of interviews and have countless informal discussions with young people,

other community members, and various stakeholders. I thus had the opportunity to learn from the

experiences and knowledge of a broad group of youths and community members before

beginning my dissertation fieldwork. Throughout my prior experiences, it became clear that

dominant police, policy, and media discourses related to gun and gang violence, community

safety, and police practices did not necessarily reflect many young people's perspectives and

experiences.

This dissertation employs a qualitative research design, with the primary data source

being a series of one-on-one, semi-structured interviews with young people in the Greater

Toronto Area (GTA). Through my research, I sought to develop a more complete and contextual

understanding of how police practices impact young people’s perceptions of community safety,

trust and confidence in the police, feelings of citizenship and belonging, and perceptions of

fairness and opportunity within Canadian society. To this end, my dissertation examined the

following research questions:

1. What experiences, either direct or indirect, have young people in Toronto had with

the public police? Do young people have trust and confidence in the police? Why or

why not? What types of activities do young people see police involved with in their

communities?

2. How do young people perceive issues of safety and disorder in their communities?

What strategies and techniques do they use to navigate these concerns safely?

3. How do the lived experiences of youth from different backgrounds compare in

terms of their interactions with the police?

4. Do experiences with police, social agencies, and the media impact young people’s

perceptions of Canadian society? Do such experiences contribute to perceptions of

discrimination and social injustice?

5. According to young people in the study, how can the Canadian government and

other institutions address long-standing concerns over public trust and confidence in

the police among racialized and marginalized youth? How do they perceive the

various responses to these issues? Have they had any interactions, either direct or

indirect, with programming designed to address these issues, and, if so, what was

their experience?

To better understand these issues, including their nature and impact and their relationship to

various contextual factors, my schedule of questions (Appendix A) explored various topics

outside of policing experiences. These topics included educational attainment and employment

22

status, place of residence, perceptions of neighbourhood disorder, experiences with racism and

other forms of discrimination, and perceptions of Canadian society.

Outreach and Recruitment

Beginning in the fall of 2017, I began recruitment efforts through a focused outreach strategy

designed to solicit participation from a diverse group of young people. In particular, I employed

a purposive sampling strategy with the goal of meeting young people from different racial,

ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. In doing so, I sought to contribute to the relatively

limited body of Canadian scholarship that explores the experiences of young people from various

racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. This approach was also meant to draw on the

experiences of young people with varying degrees of experience with both the public police and

other forms of policing. Finally, to better understand the geographic scope of policing practices, I

recruited participants from communities across Toronto and the GTA. Prior research examining

the distribution of police practices in Toronto informed my approach, which shows the

disproportionate representation of Black people in police-citizen contacts involving the Toronto

Police Service (TPS) (Rankin & Winsa, 2014).

Project outreach activities included distributing flyers and posters at community centres

and other locations frequented by young people, informal conversations with youth outreach

workers and other frontline staff, brief presentations to youth programs, and through contacts

with persons with whom I had previously interacted during my time spent working in various

community settings. Outreach was an ongoing process, taking place over two years, and was

often facilitated through word-of-mouth and other informal communications, thus allowing for

snowball sampling. Data collection would continue until the fall of 2019, with 44 total

interviews completed. I conducted and transcribed 39 interviews, with the remaining three being

completed by two doctoral student colleagues in my graduate department at the University of

Toronto. Each interview was recorded with the participant's full consent. I transcribed all of the

interviews, except for the three conducted by my colleagues. The interviews ran between 30 and

120 minutes in length, with most taking 45-50 minutes to complete.

23

Participation in the study was completely voluntary, and all participants were paid a

$20.00 honourarium in recognition of their time. Before each interview, I informed potential

participants of the project's nature and their rights as participants. Upon agreeing to participate in

an interview, I completed an informed consent document (Appendix B) with each participant. To

better ensure confidentiality, interviewees did not sign the informed consent document and

instead gave their consent orally, at which point the interviewer would sign and date the

document. In addition, participants received a document (Appendix C) that included contact

information for myself, my doctoral supervisor, Prof. Scot Wortley, and the Research Ethics

Office at the University of Toronto. This document also includes a listing of various youth-

focused services, should they require additional supports following the interview.

Study participants were between 16 and 29 years of age, with a mean age of 20.1 years.

The majority of the sample identified as men (65.6%), with the remaining group identifying as

women (34.4%). Table 1.1 provides a basic description of the final sample.

Table 1.1: Demographic Characteristics of Youth Respondents

Demographic Characteristics Black % White

(Lower SES)%

White

(Higher SES)%

Gender:

Men:

Women:

65.6

34.4

71.4

28.6

100.0

0.0

Age:

16-18 years

19-21 years

22-24 years

25-27 years

28-29 years

46.8

25.0

12.5

9.4

6.3

28.6

57.1

14.3

0.0

0.0

0.0

80.0

20.0

0.0

0.0

Employment status:

Employed (full-time)

Employed (part-time)

Unemployed (Not Looking for Work)

Unemployed (Looking for Work)

Unknown

6.2

50.0

31.3

12.5

0.0

42.9

14.2

42.9

0.0

0.0

0.0

20.0

80.0

0.0

0.0

Educational attainment:

Elementary of less

Some high school

Completed high school

Some-post secondary

Completed college

Bachelor’s degree

Professional or graduate degree

0.0

53.1

34.4

12.5

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

42.9

14.2

42.9

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

100.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

Sample Size 32 7 5

24

As sampling used a purposive approach, it is difficult to generalize this study's findings to the

wider city or other urban centres. However, as discussed, the study's focus was to understand

better the experiences of a specific set of participants rather than attempting to develop a

generalizable sample. The issue of generalizability, also referred to as external validity, considers

the extent to which the study's findings can be generalized to the wider population. For decades,

this criteria has remained central to evaluating high-quality quantitative research (Polit & Beck,

2010). However, qualitative researchers have also had to consider generalizability related to their

findings, often in response to critiques raised by quantitative scholars (Small, 2009). Questions

of generalizability have proven controversial in qualitative research, with many arguing that the

goal of a qualitative study is to develop a more in-depth, contextual, and ultimately richer

understanding of the lived experiences of study participants and not findings that can be

explicitly generalized (Polit & Beck, 2010). In this regard, what many would constitute as a

weakness of qualitative research represents one of its greatest strengths. Qualitative research is

also well-positioned to allow for analytic generalization, whereby in-depth data is used to

generate linkages with broader theoretical constructs (Polit & Beck, 2010). This process allows

for analytical linkages to be made through the development of data “of sufficient richness and

depth that their products warrant a degree of generalizability in relation to a field of

understanding” (Thorne et al. 2009, p. 1385 as cited in Polit & Beck, 2010, p.1453). In this

regard, my study considers the applicability of several key theories, which have been largely

developed and applied within the American context, to issues faced by young people in Canada,

including community safety, youth culture, and perceptions of the police.

1.3 Dissertation Structure and Overview

This dissertation is structured into five chapters. This introductory chapter outlines the historical

and policy context for my study, my study objectives, research questions, and guiding theoretical

perspectives. Chapters two to four are data chapters structured as journal-style articles. As such,

each of these chapters is a self-contained analysis, each exploring a different aspect of young

people’s experiences with the police. However, when taken together, the three data chapters

contribute to an overall narrative regarding both the individual and community-level impacts of

25

aggressive, order-maintenance policing on young people and their families. In particular, my

findings focus on Black youths who reside in racially and spatially segregated, low-income

communities in Toronto and the GTA and their experiences with policing and public safety. In

doing so, I document a wide array of lived experiences, including harassment, excessive stop-

and-search activities, disrespectful treatment, and excessive use-of-force. Importantly, my study

includes the voices of young people from different communities across Toronto and the GTA.

Again, while I do not make claims to my sample's representativeness, or the generalizability of

my findings, I do argue that the considerable heterogeneity in the experiences shared by Black

youths speaks to the almost omnipresent nature of policing in their lives.

Chapter Two, entitled ‘Opps’ and Robbers: Neighbourhood Rivalries, Hyper-

Surveillance and Honour-Based Violence Amongst Black Youth in Toronto, explores the

strategies employed by young people when attempting to safely navigate public life, including

the risks posed both by formal police practices and from youthful rivals. In particular, I explore

the impacts of several long-standing, intergenerational conflicts between various rival low-

income communities. These rivalries, while resembling the contours of more traditional conflicts

between street-gangs, often involve non-gang youth. In response to the threat posed by suspected

rivals, many young people described engaging in informal localized surveillance practices meant

to identify and challenge potential interlopers found to be within their neighbourhood. These

practices include the use of stop-and-account tactics that closely resemble those used by the

public police. Significantly, these rivalries have also come to impact young people in the wider

community, who now face the threat of violence emanating from other young people merely due

to their perceived association with a rival neighbourhood. As a result, many of the young people

in my study describe facing what amounts to a climate of hyper-surveillance, emanating both

from the public police and youthful rivals. My analysis demonstrates how this pervasive climate

of surveillance serves to restrict the geographic mobility of young people, thus furthering their

marginalization. Finally, I discuss the salience of these rivalries as an important and growing

contributor to street-level violence, thus challenging the centrality of gang-related conflicts as the

primary driver of urban violence.

26

In my third chapter, “It just makes you have more problems”: An Examination of

Anti-Snitching Codes Among Black Youth in Toronto, I explore the salience and specifics of

‘anti-snitching’ codes among Black youth. As will be discussed, various police actors have

linked their inability to solve serious crimes to the influence of powerful subcultural codes

against both reporting crimes and being seen to comply with police investigations. My findings

serve to challenge the essentializing nature of these discourses by demonstrating some of the

complex biographical and situational variables that contribute to young people’s decisions to

cooperate with the police. Indeed, while knowledge of codes against snitching was widespread

among Black youth, many also described how they considered various contextual factors when

deciding to either report a crime or cooperate with a police investigation. These factors included

the perceived seriousness of the offence, the degree of the physical harm done to the victim,

victim blameworthiness or the extent to which the victim was seen to be themselves involved

with criminality, and the age and gender of those involved. Significantly, these factors were

described as being salient when judging whether the actions of others constituted snitching and

who in the community was considered a snitch. Young people also continually cited their

accumulated negative experiences with the police as contributing to a perception that police

could not or would not keep them safe should they choose to cooperate or report a crime. The

combination of poor perceptions of police legitimacy and efficacy and cultural codes against

compliance with the police resulted in many young people expressing a preference for various

forms of self-protective behaviours and extra-legal forms of dispute resolution, including private

violence.

My last data chapter, “I feel like this happens all the time”: Young People’s Lived-

Experiences with Policing and Community Safety in Toronto, compares Black and White youths

regarding their experiences with the police. Study findings evidence considerable racial

disparities in policing experiences, including direct contacts with the police and vicarious

contacts, with Black youth being significantly more likely than white youths to have prior

negative experiences. While negative experiences with the police were concentrated among

Black youths who resided in low-income communities with heightened police activity, many of

these same youth would also report negative contacts when travelling outside their

27

neighbourhoods, including in more affluent, predominantly white areas. While white youth also

reported both direct and vicarious police contacts, these experiences were less common and often

concentrated among white youths who were in direct conflict with the law. By comparison,

almost all Black respondents, regardless of prior criminal histories, reported experiences with

unwarranted police-citizen contacts, field interrogations, searches, and police brutality. Young

people described the impacts of these experiences, including what they believe to be a climate of

mutual hostility between themselves and the police. Finally, I discuss strategies shared by young

people for improving police-citizen relations and their relation to relevant policy implications.

In my final chapter (Chapter 5), I summarize my main findings, including discussing the

shared themes between my data chapters. Next, I review some limitations associated with my

study. Following this, I discuss my research's broader theoretical implications and how my

findings align with and differ from the previous scholarship on these issues from the United

States. Finally, I conclude this chapter by situating my study within the broader historical and

policy context of urban policing in Toronto and the GTA, including discussing the relevant

policy implications of my findings and directions for future research.

28

Chapter 2 ‘Opps’ and Robbers: Neighbourhood Rivalries, Hyper-Surveillance and Honour-Based Violence

Among Black Youth in Toronto

1.3.1 Abstract

This article investigates the social consequences of neighbourhood violence, diminished police

legitimacy, and racial and spatial segregation in Toronto, Ontario. Drawing on 32 semi-

structured interviews conducted with young people, ranging from 16 to 29 years of age, it

examines how Black youth who reside in marginalized communities draw on culturally

transmitted street codes and self-help strategies to safely navigate public life. Conceptions of

territoriality and community safety were closely linked with long-standing, inter-neighbourhood

rivalries between disadvantaged communities. The results show how small subsections of non-

gang affiliated young people, united around a sense of place, employ surveillance regimes and

territorial violence as means of both protecting against victimization and representing pride in

their communities. The paper finds that the combination of territorial violence and aggressive

police surveillance has limited mobility for young people in the broader community, thus

furthering their spatial segregation and social marginalization.

1.3.2 Introduction

Historically, the focus of the concern over high rates of urban violence has been young males

residing in racialized7 and marginalized communities. In particular, the focus of American

scholarship and policy responses to urban violence has been on young Black and Latino men. In

both Canada and the U.S., young Black men are also disproportionately represented in various

aspects of the criminal justice system, including police surveillance, police-led field

interrogations and searches, and in arrests (Brunson & Miller, 2006; Wortley & Owusu-Bempah,

2011; Fitzgerald & Carrington, 2011; Jones, 2014; Hayle, Wortley & Tanner, 2016; Meng,

2017). Much of this disparity is attributed to so-called ‘gang-involved’ youth, who are

7 The concept of racialization refers to the process by which individuals are characterized and defined in relation to

their “race”. Through racialization, various practices and behaviours are associated with different races, often with

negative connotations. Within the context of the criminal justice system, racialization is manifested in the othering

and criminalization of non-whites and in particular Black people. As Henry & Tator (2006) describe, through over-

policing, crimes such as mugging, drug dealing, robbery, and street-riots “have come to be understood as the natural

expressions of Black culture” (p. 164). Racialization is similarly manifested in other areas of public life, whereby

Black people are systematically excluded from various forms of labour market participation, human service

delivery, and educational opportunities (Henry & Tator, 2006).

29

disproportionately involved in both violent offending and victimization (Thornberry et al., 1993;

Esbensen and Huizinga, 1993; Esbensen & Carson, 2012; Melde & Esbensen, 2013). Like many

other facets of urban crime and disorder, gang-related violence remains concentrated within

areas characterized by large racialized and immigrant populations, higher rates of poverty,

residential instability, lower-levels of employment, and reduced access to services (Sampson,

2009; Weisburd et al. 2013; Papachristos et al., 2015). These areas also face higher levels of

police surveillance and historically fractious relations with the police, including feelings of

distrust and mutual hostility (Brunson & Miller, 2006; Carr, Napolitano & Keating, 2007;

Wortley & Owusu-Bempah, 2011; Stuart, 2016).

An extensive body of scholarship has considered the role of space and neighbourhood

context as it relates to micro-social processes and cultural adaptations governing violence among

gang-involved youth (Decker, 1996; Patillo, 1998; Stretesky & Pogrebin, 2007; Contreras, 2013;

Papachristos, Hureau, & Braga, 2013; Bucerius, 2014; Rafanell, McLean & Poole, 2017). In

particular, the gang-involved youth are the primary drivers of urban territorial violence (Tita et

al. 2005; Brantingham et al. 2012; Papachristos et al. 2013; McLean et al. 2019). However, these

factors remain comparatively understudied as they relate to the wider community, including non-

gang involved youth and youth involved with less organized delinquent peer groups. To date,

scholarship on these groups has focused on the role of space in constructing identity (Landolt,

2013; Bannister, Kintrea & Pickering, 2013), the role of local social relations in how youth

construct risk (Haw, 2010; Fast, Shoveller, Shannon & Kerr, 2009), and the strategies youth use

to safely navigate their neighbourhoods (Anderson, 1994, 1999; Cahill, 2000; Holligan &

Deuchar, 2011; Bernardi, 2018). The present study seeks to better inform our understanding of

these issues by examining 32 in-depth interviews with Black youth who reside in socially and

economically marginalized neighbourhoods.

The article is structured as follows: first, I review the literature on neighbourhood

context, subcultural violence, and street codes. I then explore the literature on police legitimacy

and self-help behaviours. Next, I describe my methodology and sample. Following this, I begin

discussing my findings by examining young people’s perceptions of risk and uncertainty in their

30

communities, including the threats posed by gun violence and the police, and some of the

defensive strategies they engage in to navigate public life safely. Next, I examine the tenets and

impacts of the so-called ‘opp’ conflicts and rivalries between ‘opp blocks’, including the street

codes associated with these practices. Finally, I turn my attention to the strategies employed by

young people to identify and challenge potential rivals or ‘opps’ in their communities, including

the use of street-interrogation tactics and their relationship to similar practices used by the public

police.

1.3.3 Literature Review

Community Context and Crime

An extensive body of scholarship has examined the relationship between urban inequality, race,

and crime (Brunson & Miller, 2006; Morenoff et al., 2001; Peterson et al., 2006; Sampson, 2009;

Sampson & Wilson, 1995). Building on the tenets of social disorganization theory (Shaw &

McKay, 1942), Sampson and Wilson (1995) find that the causes of crime are consistent between

Black and white people. However, it is the ecological conditions that poor Black people live in

and the associated structural disorganization that characterizes those communities that contribute

to crime and violence. To this end, Black people are represented disproportionately among

residents of communities that suffer from concentrated disadvantage. Within these communities,

residents face social isolation that, “deprives residents not only of resources and conventional

role models, but also of cultural learning from mainstream social networks that facilitate social

and economic advancement in modern industrial society” (1995, p. 51). As a result, residents

develop ‘cultural adaptations’ that allow them to interpret and safely navigate the contours of

daily life.

Contrary to the culture of poverty thesis and the tenets of subcultural violence theories,

Sampson and Wilson (1995) contend that violence is not a necessary adaptation to structural and

economic marginalization. Rather, they maintain that residents typically hold values that are not

inconsistent with mainstream codes against violence and crime. However, residents of

disadvantaged communities must accept that the spectres of crime and violence are an enduring

facet of everyday life. In response, residents develop specific norms that govern behaviour

31

within the community. Sampson and Wilson go on to argue that these norms take the form of

cognitive landscapes or “ecologically structured norms… regarding appropriate standards and

expectations of conduct” (1995, p.46). These values tend to be more tolerant of crime and

deviance, thus contributing to a higher likelihood of these behaviours occurring. Importantly,

Sampson and Wilson argue that conventional and subcultural values are not mutually exclusive,

but rather they co-exist and are situationally applied in response to the neighbourhood context.

Building on discussions of the role of street culture and crime, Anderson (1999) describes

the contours of a “street code” that governs behaviours amongst residents of socially and

economically marginalized inner-city communities. In his now seminal ethnographic study of

life in an economically depressed inner-city neighbourhood, Anderson argues that structural

factors, such as joblessness, concentrated poverty, negative experiences with the police, and

overall feelings of discrimination and hopelessness, have led some residents to reject mainstream

cultural norms in favour of alternative value systems. In particular, Anderson finds that in

lacking the opportunity to achieve more conventional or ‘white’ conceptions of success and

status, residents turn to an alternative value system in pursuit of ‘respect’. The centrality of

respect is reflected in the Code of the Street, which comprises “a set of informal rules governing

interpersonal public behavior, including violence” (Anderson, 1994). In garnering respect, a

young man can safely navigate public life and mitigate the threat of being challenged or

otherwise victimized by other youth. Anderson argues that respect, not unlike other valued

commodities, “is hard-won but easily lost” (1994). Indeed, the value of respect is so great that

some young people will even risk their safety in courting confrontations intended to earn respect

(Stewart et al., 2006).

Anderson’s analysis also describes two ideal types of residents who make up the wider

community, ‘decent’ and ‘street’ folks (1999, p. 82). While both groups are aware of the code of

street, ‘street’ oriented residents more closely structure their lives around its tenets. Conversely,

Anderson describes ‘decent’ residents as conforming to more mainstream values and beliefs.

Anderson explains how both groups coexist in the community, with persons from either

orientation even coexisting within the same family unit. However, regardless of orientation, all

32

residents must adhere to the code to safely navigate public life. Failing to comply with the code

puts one at risk of victimization (1999, p. 33). Notably, Anderson describes how young people

engage in ‘code-switching’ where, depending on the occasion, they might choose to invoke

either decent or street attitudes selectively. In particular, young people from ‘decent’

backgrounds place the most value on this ability, as they know that middle-class norms and

behaviours will do little to ensure their safety on the street. Conversely, ‘street’ oriented young

people have difficulty code-switching, either due to having little exposure to mainstream,

middle-class values or believing that doing so represents weakness and thus offers few benefits.

For Anderson, this lack of commitment to mainstream values is a product of a wider

culture of distrust in the police and the criminal justice system. Far from being protectors, the

police are seen by many as nothing more than agents of a white-dominated society who care little

about the safety and needs of inner-city residents. To this end, residents often see the police as

untrustworthy, uncaring, and unresponsive to community concerns. In response, the code puts a

premium on self-reliance and not calling the police. As Anderson notes, a person deemed

capable of handling their problems without involving police “is accorded a certain deference,

which translates into a sense of physical and psychological control” (1994, p.82). However, it is

these same attitudes that may contribute to the intensification of urban violence. As Anderson

describes, where the civil law is weak, it is the people’s law or street justice that fills the void.

Under these auspices, a premium is placed on retaliation to respond to perceived threats or

slights, thus furthering the cycle of violence. This cycle of violence renders public spaces

essentially unsafe for all but those who most closely ascribe to the ‘street’ orientation (1994, p.

82)

The impact of the code on constructions of public space and perceptions of safety are

particularly salient within the context of growing economic polarization and the resultant

intensification of urban spatial segregation of immigrants and racialized persons (Wacquant,

2012). While the focus of scholarship on these issues has been inner-city communities in the

United States (Wilson, 1987; Massey & Denton, 1998; Bonilla-Silva, 2009; Bonilla-Silva &

Dietrich, 2011), Canada has not been immune to these trends. A growing body of scholarship has

33

evidenced growing income polarity and the increasing concentration of the urban poor in socially

and spatially segregated communities (Bauder & Sharpe, 2002; Walks & Bourne, 2006;

Hulchanski, 2010; Ades, Apparicio & Séguin, 2012).

Young people are well-known to frequent public spaces, often due to their limited ability

to own private property (Childress, 2004). For many young people, and in particular, those

residing in socially and economically segregated communities, “the space of the street is often

the only autonomous space that [they] are able to carve out for themselves” (Skelton &

Valentine, 1998, p. 7). As Wacquant (1996; 2008) describes, the salience of space and a growing

attachment to the local as a source of identity are products of advanced marginality, linked to the

dislocation of labour, clawing back of the social welfare state, and the growing concentration of

the urban underclass in spatially segregated communities. As such, place and control of

neighbourhood spaces have increased meaning as a site of spatial identity for both gang-involved

and non-gang youth alike. In the following section, I review the role of space as it relates to

honour-based violence among gang-involved youth.

Turf and Honour

For almost a century, the neighbourhood has played a central role in gang scholarship. Thrasher

(1927) identified the neighbourhood as playing an essential role in shaping gangs and defining

their identity. To this end, gangs have been historically committed to the defence of the honour

and respect of their neighbourhood or turf (Adamson, 1998; Tita, Cohen & Enberg, 2005;

Papachristos, Hureau & Braga, 2013), with gang affiliations often structured down these same

lines (Spergel, 1995; Decker & Van Winkle, 1996; Adamson, 2005). For gang members, the

neighbourhood serves several vital functions. As the site of economic production, including drug

sales and other forms of street crime, the neighbourhood serves an important economic function,

and gang members will actively work to defend their turf from economic rivals (Eck, 1994;

Venkatesh, 1997; Brantingham, Tita, Short & Reid, 2012). However, more importantly, the

neighbourhood also holds an essential symbolic value to gang members and thus must be

protected.

34

Given the close associations between gangs and their neighbourhoods, with gangs often

being named for the block or street from which they originated (Thrasher, 1927; Suttles, 1968;

Tita et al. 2005, Garot, 2007), the neighbourhood is much more than physical space. As

Papachristos and his colleagues note, the gang’s “[t]urf is typically the setting of the group’s

collective memories and is sacred because of its enduring role as a gathering place for young

men as they transition from childhood into adulthood” (2013, p. 420). A gang’s turf also offers

members a familiar and relatively safe space from the threat of violence from rival peers, where

they can exert a modicum of control or influence. A violation of a gang’s territory represents a

loss of this control and a slight to the reputation and honour of both individual members and the

gang itself 8. For these reasons, the gang must respond to incursions into their turf with a swift

and commensurate response. A failure to respond could make the gang seem ‘weak’ against their

rivals and contribute to further victimization (Venkatesh, 1997; Papachristos, 2009; Jacobs &

Wright, 2006; Garot, 2009; Brantingham et al. 2012; Papachristos et al. 2013; Hochstetler,

Copes, & Cherbonneau, 2017). In essence, gang members and their rivals are locked in a

perpetual state of readiness for conflict, akin to a ‘cold war.’ Occasional skirmishes punctuate

this war, but they usually fall short of all-out conflict. In essence, where the police are seen as

both unwilling and unable to protect persons of the threat of crime and victimization, self-help

behaviours, including displays of power, take on additional significance (Kubrin & Weitzer,

2003; Jacobs, 2004; Jacobs & Wright, 2006). In the following section, I explore the antecedents

of perceptions of the police and the ongoing crisis of police legitimacy among Black youth.

8 In this regard, any encroachments, or slights against the neighbourhood, whether real or implied, serve as an

affront to the collective identity and social standing of the group. As such, protection of the neighbourhood serves as

a form of honour-based violence, designed to preserve the symbolic capital of the gang. Following Bourdieu (1984),

symbolic capital represents “the acquisition of a reputation for competence and an image of respectability and

honourability” (p. 291). When it is recognized or deemed legitimate, symbolic capital grants individuals or groups a

modicum of status and prestige over others. For gang members, the acquisition of symbolic capital is linked to a

number of benefits, “including the ability to command deferential treatment from others who are, in other respects,

like themselves” (Horowitz & Schwartz, 1974, p. 240).

35

Lost Legitimacy and Self-Help

For many racialized youth from marginalized backgrounds and particularly young Black men

and women, the paradox of ‘over’ and ‘under’ policing characterizes daily life. These young

people consistently report being ‘over-policed’, including being subjected to increased police

surveillance (Loader, 1996; Chambliss, 1999; Fine, et al., 2003; Jones, 2014), higher rates of

discretionary police-citizen stop and searches (Weitzer, 1999; Hagan, Shedd & Payne, 2005;

Wortley & Owusu-Bempah, 2011; Hayle et al. 2016), and use of force (Terrill & Reisig, 2003;

Brunson, 2007; Brunson & Weitzer, 2009). However, these same youth also describe being

‘under-policed’ (Loader, 1996) concerning calls for service, often reporting long-wait times for

police to respond, disrespectful treatment, and a perceived lack of police interest or efficacy in

dealing with serious crimes (Carr et al. 2007; Solis, Portillos, & Brunson, 2009; Gau & Brunson,

2010; Brunson & Gau, 2014; Clampet-Lundquist, Carr, & Kefalas, 2015; Brunson & Wade,

2019). The combination of ‘over’ and ‘under-policing’ has contributed to widespread distrust of

the police and disillusionment in the broader criminal justice system.

A growing body of scholarship has found significant group differences in trust and

confidence in the criminal justice system. Black people, and in particular young Black men, have

been found to hold more negative views of the criminal justice system than white people and

other racialized minorities, including perceptions of being unfairly stopped and searched by

police, experiences of police harassment, and use of excessive force (Brunson & Miller, 2006;

Gau & Brunson, 2010, 2015; Wortley & Owusu-Bempah, 2009; Wortley & Owusu-Bempah,

2011). Youth’s evaluations of their treatment during police encounters are particularly salient

when viewed through the lens of the procedural justice model of policing.

The procedural justice model of police argues that perceptions of fair and just treatment

during police-citizen encounters are the strongest predictor of evaluations of police legitimacy

(Tyler & Fagan, 2008). To this end, several law-related behaviours are linked to perceptions of

police legitimacy, including compliance with police requests (Mastrofski, Snipes, & Supina,

1996; McCluskey, 2003, Dai, Frank, & Sun, 2011), willingness to cooperate with police

investigations (Tyler, 2004; Sunshine & Tyler, 2003; Tyler & Fagan, 2008), and the self-

36

regulation of law-abiding behaviours (Tyler, 2003; Murphy, Tyler, & Curtis, 2009). Conversely,

negative experiences with the police deemed unjust or unfair can negatively impact perceptions

of police legitimacy.

An extensive body of qualitative scholarship has documented how negative experiences

with the police can contribute to feelings of procedural injustice (Tyler & Huo, 2002) and legal

cynicism (Sampson & Bartusch, 1998). In particular, studies have consistently found that

racialized youth residing in economically and socially marginalized neighbourhoods are more

likely to both directly experience and witness involuntary police-citizen contacts. Evaluations of

these contacts shape judgements about the overall efficacy and fairness of the criminal justice

system, thus forming the basis of legal socialization (Fagan & Tyler, 2005; Stewart, Schreck &

Simons, 2006; Berg et al., 2016). Legal cynicism emerges as a cultural adaptation in

communities characterized by social and structural disadvantages and frequent involuntary police

contacts. Kirk and Papachristos (2011) define legal cynicism as “a cultural orientation in which

the law and the agents of enforcement, such as the police and courts, are viewed as illegitimate,

unresponsive, and ill equipped to ensure public safety” (p. 1191). Through legal cynicism, a

person can hold mainstream, law-abiding beliefs but nonetheless condone private violence as a

means of ensuring personal safety. Legal cynicism can result from both direct contact with the

police (Brunson, 2007; Carr, Napolitano & Keating, 2007; Gau & Brunson, 2015; Berg et al.

2016), as well as through witnessing or hearing about police contacts (Stuart, 2016; Geller &

Fagan, 2019).

While well studied within the American context, there remains comparatively little in the

way of Canadian scholarship on these issues, including research examining how non-gang youth

perceive and navigate territoriality, the impacts of over and under-policing on perceptions of

community safety, and the strategies non-gang youth employ to navigate public life safely.

37

1.3.4 Research Questions

To address this gap and contribute to the Canadian criminal justice literature, my

study examines the following research questions:

1. What experiences, either direct or indirect, have disadvantaged Black

youth in Toronto had with the public police? What happened during these

encounters? How did those encounters impact their perceptions of the

police?

2. What reputation do these youth believe their neighbourhood has in Toronto?

Do they believe that reputation is deserved? Why or why not? How has this

reputation impacted their perceptions of their communities?

3. How do these youth perceive the legitimacy and efficacy of the public

police? Do they believe the police do a good job keeping their community

safe? Why or why not?

4. What kinds of crime and safety issues do these youth perceive in their

communities? How do they safely navigate these issues?

5. What experiences, either direct or indirect, have these youth had with calling the

public police for assistance? What happened during this encounter, and were they

satisfied with the police response? Why or why not?

1.3.5 Methodology and Study Setting

The data presented here represent 32 interviews drawn from a larger dataset collected for my

dissertation research9. My analysis for this paper focuses on the experiences of Black youth with

policing and neighbourhood violence as prior research has demonstrated that Black youth in

Toronto and the GTA are the most vulnerable to involuntary police contacts (Wortley & Owusu-

Bempah, 2011; Fitzgerald & Carrington, 2011; Rankin & Winsa, 2012; Meng, 2017). Further,

data collection took place between 2017 and 2019, a period of escalating gun violence across the

GTA, including a spike in both shootings and gun-related homicides (Gillis, 2018; Bharti &

Bañares, 2018). Historically, Black youth and particularly young Black men, are

disproportionately represented as both the victims and perpetrators of gun violence in the GTA

(Khenti, 2013). Historically, this violence has been concentrated in low-income neighbourhoods

9 The larger dataset contains 57 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with young people residing in Toronto and the

Greater Toronto Area (GTA). I conducted and transcribed 54 of these interviews, with research assistants affiliated

with my graduate department at the University of Toronto conducting and transcribing an additional three.

38

characterized by high levels of concentrated disadvantage, a more extensive police presence, and

higher proportions of Black residents. It is in many of these same neighbourhoods where the

young men and women in my study reside.

I conducted and transcribed 31 of the interviews examined in this paper, with a doctoral

colleague in my graduate department conducting and transcribing the remaining interview.

Participants were between 16 and 29 years of age, with a mean age of 20.1 years. The majority

of the sample identified as men (65.6 per cent), with the remaining respondents identifying as

women (34.4 per cent). A brief description of the sample is found in Table 1.2.

Table 1.2: Demographic Characteristics of Black Youth Respondents

Demographic Characteristics

Gender:

Men:

Women:

65.6

34.4

Employment status:

Employed (full-time)

Employed (part-time)

Unemployed (Not Looking for Work)

Unemployed (Looking for Work)

Unknown

6.2

50.0

31.3

12.5

0.0

Educational attainment:

Elementary or less

Some high school

Completed high school

Some-post secondary

Completed college

Bachelor’s degree

Professional or graduate degree

0.0

53.1

34.4

12.5

0.0

0.0

0.0

Sample Size 32

Sampling employed a purposive approach intended to recruit Black youth who resided in the

aforementioned socially and economically marginalized communities. To this end, I conducted

outreach activities in a variety of youth-focused settings in these communities, including youth

athletic programs, libraries, community centres, and a gang prevention and intervention program.

Before commencing data collection on this project, I was a research assistant on two multi-site,

youth-focused studies examining gun and gang violence in the GTA. My experiences with these

studies served to guide much of my initial outreach strategy, including identifying and selecting

the neighbourhoods for data collection. My prior experiences allowed me to develop an

39

extensive network of contacts who worked with or who were otherwise in contact with youth in

the target population, including outreach workers, program coordinators, activists, and

community members. Many of these contacts would act as gatekeepers, facilitating my initial

access to various community settings where I conducted outreach and by putting me in contact

with youths who they believed would be interested in participating in the study. Through these

initial connections, I was also able to engage in chain-referral or ‘snowball’ sampling, granting

me access to opportunities for data collection, both in the initial communities of study and in

other areas. As sampling employed a purposive approach, it is difficult to generalize the findings

of this study to the wider city or other urban centres. However, the study's focus was to

understand better the experiences of a specific set of participants rather than attempting to

develop a generalizable sample.

The choice to sample across various neighbourhoods and in different community settings

was important to better understand youth’s perceptions of community safety and the impacts of

poverty concentration. Toronto enjoys an international reputation for safety and livability.

Recently, The Economist ranked Toronto the 7th most livable city globally (The Economist,

2018) and the 6th the safest (The Economist, 2019). However, over the past 30-years, Toronto

has faced growing poverty concentration and income polarization. In his study of income

polarization and neighbourhood inequality in Toronto, Hulchanski (2010) found that the

proportion of middle-income neighbourhoods had decreased from 66% of Toronto’s population

in 1970 to only 29% in 2005. During the same period, low-income communities grew from 19%

to 53%, and high-income communities grew from 15% to 19%. Further, low-income

neighbourhoods have become increasingly concentrated areas outside the downtown core, with

diminished access to transit and other services. In addition, these low-income communities face

several social and structural barriers, including higher rates of gun violence, residential

instability, and lower levels of educational attainment. Further, the populations of low-income

communities are disproportionately composed of racialized persons and recent immigrants, with

higher percentages of single-parent households, children, and young people (Hulchanski, 2010,

p. 10-12).

40

Participation in the study was completely voluntary, and all participants completed an

informed consent protocol before taking part in an interview. Each participant was paid a $20

honourarium in recognition of their time. Participants were advised of the anonymous and

confidential nature of the interviews during the consent process. All interviews were audio-

recorded with the full consent and knowledge of participants. Interviewers did not collect

specific identifying information, including names, dates, and specific locations of events

described by participants. Participants were asked to refrain from providing information of this

nature before commencing the interview. The interviewer informed potential participants that

they had no affiliation with the police, the courts, child and youth services, or other

organizations. The names of individuals and communities used in this paper are pseudonyms.

The interview employed a semi-structured strategy. Interview questions examined several

topics, including personal background information, self-reported contact with the criminal justice

system, prior offending history, gang involvement, experiences of family and friends with the

criminal justice system, and experiences with other institutions and aspects of Canadian society.

Participants were asked about the causes and consequences of involvement with either of these

activities, along with best practices for preventing the onset of either form of deviance. A copy of

the interview schedule is found in Appendix A.

Following the interview, the audio recordings were first transcribed and then the audio

files deleted to further ensure respondent confidentiality. The resultant textual data was compiled

and coded using the nVivo12 software suite. Before initial coding, I read each interview

transcript in its entirety to review the data and make preliminary memos. Following this, I

engaged in open coding, whereby I identified and labelled the core themes and concepts in the

data. These themes were then reviewed and compared through the process of axial coding, which

allowed for the development of subthemes and linkages to theory (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). I

attempted to engage in true ‘bottom-up’ coding, where “codes are suggested by the data, not by

the literature” (Urquhart, 2012, p. 38). However, I believe that the resultant analysis more closely

resembles ‘middle-range’ coding, whereby codes are derived from both the data and common

sense themes from the literature that supported the project's research design (2012, p.38).

41

1.3.6 Findings

This paper will show that disadvantaged Black youth in my study faced a complex set of risks,

including gun and gang violence and police surveillance. However, youths also faced the

potential for retaliatory and often seemingly indiscriminate violence emanating from on-going,

neighbourhood-level conflicts between non-gang involved rivals or ‘opps’ and rival communities

or ‘opp blocks’. While typically only involving a small subset of the community as active

participants, these conflicts have impacted the wider community. To safely navigate the daily

realities of public life, many young people expressed a need to be aware of the street codes

associated with these rivalries, including the geographic boundaries between rival communities

and the practices of informal, community-level surveillance engaged in by young people

committed to enforcing these boundaries. In the face of increasing levels of violence and

diminished perceptions of police legitimacy and efficacy, young people described these

surveillance strategies as providing both a sense of agency in their safety as well as a means of

conveying the pride they have in their community. In sum, my findings demonstrate how

diminished trust and confidence in the police, coupled with on-going neighbourhood rivalries,

have contributed to the development of street codes and informal surveillance regimes meant to

ensure the safety and security of young people residing in racially and spatially segregated

communities. These informal surveillance regimes have contributed to a climate of hyper-

surveillance, which has intensified the social and economic marginalization and alienation

already faced by these young people by further limiting their social and spatial mobility. The first

issue I explore is the daily experiences of young people in their communities.

Navigating the Neighbourhood: Policing, Violence, and Uncertainty

Through my interviews, I learned that, for many young people, navigating the day-to-day

realities of public life entailed managing a complex set of risks, including police harassment, the

danger posed by rival peers, and the uncertainty surrounding strangers in the community. In

response, young people described engaging in a range of self-protective behaviours, including

limiting where and when they travelled, strategies of mutual and neighbourhood surveillance,

and even carrying a weapon. For many young people, a widely expressed concern related to the

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threats posed by gun and gang violence. This concern was evident in my conversation with

Sarah, an 18-year old woman who lives in the Matheson Court area of Toronto, a low-income

community that had experienced several recent shootings. As she describes:

It’s dangerous out here and especially at night. Like it’s not safe for the kids to

go out because there’s so much violence. You like you never really know what’s

going to happen, and you don’t want to get caught out.

Interviewer: Caught out like you’re worried about being attacked by gangs or a

gang member, or would it be like gangs shooting and you don’t want to get

caught in the crossfire?

Honestly, it’s both. There’s just so many places you could be at the wrong time,

and that’s it. Like it’s bad for us, but I feel really bad for the kids mostly who

like can’t even leave their building to go play or go to the store anymore.

Sarah’s account illustrates the uncertainty and almost omnipresent threat of violence that many

young people described as a primary safety concern. Further, the risk of violence is heightened at

night or when a younger resident of the community is involved. As a result, many youths faced

additional risks when exiting their homes to work, play, shop, or access services, thus furthering

the lack of spatial mobility faced by youth who already reside in communities characterized by

extreme residential segregation. Terry, a 17-year old male, further describes the danger posed by

gun violence:

Interviewer: What kinds of problems are guns causing in the neighbourhood?

Kids just get hurt. That’s all or like the big one, I think. All I see in my neighbourhood

is kids, little kids dying like literally like little kids dying.

Interviewer: Who is causing that, who is doing the shooting?

It’s adults from other areas or like adults just in general doing the shooting, and

then it ends up hitting little kids ‘cause kids are always involved. Kids are

always getting caught in the crossfire. And when I’m saying kids, I mean like

kids my age, 17-year-old kids, like even way younger too. There’s like little

kids, and the mans are shooting little kids it’s actually very like stupid.

Here, Terry’s account speaks to another theme in the data, the growing threat of seemingly

indiscriminate violence perpetrated by persons coming from outside the community. Youth often

43

described violence of this nature as emanating from ongoing rivalries between lower-income

communities, with many of the attacks described as yet another reprisal in these feuds. These

attacks are particularly dangerous as the perpetrators seek to hurt anyone frequenting public

spaces in the rival community, not caring whether the victim is a known active participant in the

conflict.

Among interviewees, nearly half expressed the belief that the amount of crime in their

neighbourhood had gone up over the past five years. In particular, many youths saw growing

violence as having contributed to their community having a negative reputation, compared with

other areas of Toronto. Idil, a 17-year old young woman who resided in the Regal Road

community, a lower-income neighbourhood in the north end of Etobicoke, shared this belief. I

asked Idil what type of reputation she thought her community had in other areas of the GTA, to

which she replied, “I would say the worse. Like, the worse there is”. When asked how this made

her feel, she continued:

Bad. Just like it’s hard to be proud of where you’re from then.

Interviewer: Do you think the neighbourhood deserves this reputation?

No, I don’t.

Idil shared that, in her opinion, media narratives had served to perpetuate a negative view of her

community. I asked her what types of narratives she had seen about Regal Road in the media:

Like our gun violence is like… they’re trying to say that all we are and all we’re

good for is killing each other, basically, but it’s not. We actually though… like

we stick together no matter what. We’re always on each other’s side, and we’re

not as bad as people think we are.

Conversely, almost 20 percent expressed a belief that crime in their communities had decreased

in recent years. For some, the practices of the police had partially contributed to this decline.

However, the nature of those practices, including increasing police surveillance, police-initiated

field interrogations, and aggressive stop-and-search practices, was widely described as having a

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negative and corrosive impact on community members. In the following excerpt, I spoke with

Terry about the changing nature of crime in his neighbourhood:

Interviewer: And how about gang members? Do you think there is a problem

with gangs in the community?

Not as bad, but yeah, there’s still problems. It’s still gangs, but they’re not like

big gangs or not like they used to. It’s just like the police have the streets on

lockdown pretty much, and everyone knows that. There’s so many undercovers.

They don’t go outside when they know the police is moving like that. Everyone

like moves very, very, more smart. They’re not outside hanging out, causing

trouble like that. They’re more inside doing what they’re doing and then okay

sending the little runners and stuff.

Interviewer: Do you think the police do a good job with keeping your community

or your neighbourhood safe?

In their ways, yeah, they do. But at the same time, they kind of torment people.

So that's like they do for the fact that kids are more safe. Yeah, but at the same

time they do it in the wrong ways…the reason that some kids are more safe

sometimes is because like the police terrorize the community and like so many

people are like afraid to come outside. So, it’s only like the little kids who are

more safe, but at the same time, I see bear [many] kids dying so…

Terry’s account represents a wider concern expressed by many young people. While police had

some success in reducing the extent of street-level violence, they achieved this through a host of

tactics deemed by many to be discriminatory and procedurally unjust. In another exchange, I

asked Monica, a 23-year old woman, about her experiences with the controversial police tactic of

‘carding’ or ‘street checks.’10. Here Monica comments on the ubiquity of this practice in her

community:

Interviewer: Do you feel like you’ve ever been carded?

Yeah, when I was pulled over. Like it’s mandatory around here that you’ve been

carded at least once.

10 Carding, also known as ‘street checks’ typically involve a police-initiated field-interrogation similar to an

American ‘Terry stop’ or the tactic of ‘stop-and-frisk’ employed by the NYPD.

45

Interviewer: Do you think carding was a problem in the neighbourhood?

Yeah. Like the police want to ask you what’s your name, where you from blah

blah blah and it’s upsetting to the people who they’re stopping. It’s like, why

do you want to know where I’m from? Why do you want to know my name,

my address, all this? Do you think I’m doing something bad? It’s makes

[young people] them kinda get worried. I feel that they think they’re doing

something wrong. Now some might be, don’t get me wrong, but why assume

that?

Further, many young people described how aggressive policing tactics, such as carding, had

served to constrain their freedom of mobility. Yasir, a 16-year old young man, expressed this

concern to me:

Like the police should be there to make you feel safe. But all they really do

sometimes is just make you feel like you can’t go anywhere or do anything

without like maybe being stopped and questioned or whatever.

The above accounts represent a broader concern shared by many Black youths. Namely, that

direct and indirect negative experiences with street-level policing, including harassment, stops,

and searches were an unavoidable and unpleasant facet of everyday life. These experiences speak

to what Mythen, Walklate and Khan (2012) describe as the ‘risk/security contradiction’, whereby

individuals are increasingly aware of being constructed as security risks while simultaneously

feeling that their security is at risk. Many expressed their frustration with this contradiction

through the lens of the police's actions in the community. As the following

excerpts describe:

Trina (19-year old woman): Like, you see police around like checking on the

young youth like the Black youth, pressing up on them and asking questions but

like you don’t see them going after like the guys who are bringing guns into the

neighbourhood, you never see them on that.

Randall (16-year old young man): [S]top coming around looking for problems

when you should be out trying to catch the real criminals. You see a lot of police

around, but you also see a lot of guns, people getting shot. Where are police on

that? Stop trying to bother the little kids who aren’t doing nothing and do your

job.

46

Both Trina and Randall’s comments describe how gun and gang violence has resulted in the

police's increased presence in their communities and subsequent street-level harassment of Black

youth by police. This finding is consistent with a growing body of Canadian research showing

that Black youths are much more vulnerable to street checks than white youths and youth from

other racialized backgrounds (Rankin, 2010b, 2010a; Rankin & Winsa, 2012; Meng, 2017).

However, Trina and Randall’s accounts also speak to a widely held belief among Black youth

that police had allegedly given little attention to the persons who are most responsible for

bringing guns into the community. This tension came up in my conversation with Idil. As we

spoke, Idil expressed her belief that the police would not keep her safe from violent crime. When

I asked Idil why, she shared that, in her opinion, this inability was not associated with police

capability but rather was a representation of police priorities and how the lives of young Black

people are valued:

Honestly, no, and it’s not because they can’t, it’s because they just don’t

care…Because it’s just like Black boys shooting each other and getting

killed, and that’s not really who they’re out here for.

Young people understood that, in their view, while their communities had been constructed as

risky and thus fit for additional police activity, their safety was not a priority for the police. As

Anton, a 21-year old man, describes, “I don’t trust them [the police], but that’s not because I

think that oh, they’re dumb or they can’t do their jobs, it’s more like they won’t, or at least they

won’t do it for us”. Similarly, Idil told me that she viewed police as being focused on minor

crimes and harassing behaviours while doing little to keep her friends safe, “We don’t really see

the police as helping us. We just see them as like they’re trying to put us away, or they’re just

trying to hit you with charges back-to-back. They’ve never really done anything personally to

help us feel safe or anything”.

In my conversation with Michael, a 24-year old man, he described how a recent and high-

profile daytime shooting in the downtown entertainment district had increased public concern

over gun violence, leading to what he believed to be an additional police presence within his

community. However, in his opinion, the increased law enforcement presence had done little to

curb violence:

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And then it’s like there’s this whole make Toronto safe again because it

happened downtown where they feel like they may get hit or their pocket of the

city gets affected. You know what I mean? It’s downtown, open areas and shit

like that. Toronto hasn’t been safe. We had back-to-back shootings up the road,

and the guy gets shot in front of his daughter in broad daylight. Where’s make

Toronto safe then? It’s just ‘cuz… I feel like it’s bullshit. I don’t like bullshit, I

see through bullshit. So, this whole make Toronto safe again shit is bullshit.

Michael’s comments speak to the wider climate of disillusionment and distrust in policing felt by

many, as well as a pervasive concern over ‘under policing’. In this regard, young people see the

police as ineffectual, unresponsive, and unsympathetic to their safety concerns. Rather, the

police represented another source of risk and danger to navigate and not a buffer between more

serious forms of criminality in the neighbourhood. As a result, many young people live

bracketed by fear of the ongoing violence in their communities and the state actors whose

ostensible job it is to address these issues.

Sources of Danger in the Community

As discussed, many young people described the threat of violence and victimization as

emanating from external threats, not individuals residing within their community. In particular,

many young people described ongoing, intergenerational, neighbourhood-level rivalries with

other marginalized communities as a primary driver of violence. The concept of ‘opps’ or

opposition, a term described by some as having emanated from the underground rap scene in

Chicago’s South Side, was often used to describe these rivalries. For many young people, ‘opps’

have come to represent both the real threat posed by known rivals and the existential threat posed

by unknown persons in the community. As the following interview excerpts describe, ‘opps’ do

not represent the threat posed by police; however, they also do not represent the threats

associated with gang-involved youth:

Idil: Your opps or your opposition, so like your whole neighbourhood could

have like a problem with another neighbourhood, and that’s like your opps.

Interviewer: So, with opps, it’s not necessarily like gang youth?

Idil: No, like it really could be anyone even if you’re not like involved with

gangs or whatever it could just be dangerous for you to like go over there or to

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like be seen by like people your neighbourhood has problems with. This is why

I’m not around much, really like when I do go outside in the neighbourhood, it’s

on my balcony or something.

Interviewer: What kind of people are opps?

Aiyden (22 year-old man): They’re not snitches. It’s just someone who’s not

down with how you’re doing your stuff. They could be someone like, from the

other side who’s just trying to come through your neighbourhood or just be

super extra when they don’t have to be.

Many young people described ‘opp’ rivalries as being reflected in informal conceptions of

neighbourhood boundaries or ‘turf’, with socially and economically marginalized

neighbourhoods often referred to as being in conflict. As the following excerpts describe, these

rivalries between so-called ‘opp blocks’ exist both between geographically bordering areas but

also between communities across the city:

Interviewer: What do you mean opp block?

Michael: Okay so like, you know I said an opp well an opp block is like an ends

that’s got beef with your ends, entirely. The whole block is opps, entirely.

Dominion Court is an opp block around here…

Anton: An opps like, the opposition, the other side. It depends on who you ask,

like for me, an opp could only be an opp if I know like they’re trying to slide or

if they’ve done something super extra, but it’s different for these young boys,

like now they’re trying to say the whole side is opps, regardless of whatever

you’ve done or if they even know you like that.

Interviewer: So, an opp is someone from a rival gang, or how do you know who

an opp is?

Anton: Not even, like say you were from City Heights, and you came around

Bridgeport, then you would be an opp because the whole block is opps.

These excerpts highlight the essentializing nature of rivalries between ‘opp’ blocks. In particular,

these rivalries extended beyond specific, individual-level conflicts to encompass the wider

community. Merely residing in a neighbourhood considered a rival area serves to place

individuals at risk of being considered an ‘opp’. As such, even youth who are not involved with

gang conflicts or individual disputes are increasingly subject to these broader, neighbourhood-

49

level rivalries' tenets. Knowledge of the street codes associated with these rivalries factor into

how young people construct the spatial contours of where is considered ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ and

the risk management strategies they engage in to manage the threat of violence. These strategies

are intersubjective insofar that a combination of personal experiences, socialization, and

collectively constructed codes rooted in shared local histories inform them (Simpson, 1996). As

Teresa, a 19-year old woman and long-time resident of the Queenston Village community

describes:

Yeah, so like Gleason and City Heights they just don’t get along. I’m not even

sure where that comes from, but people know, and like they’re scared, like they

don’t want to get caught out if like someone from the other side catches them or

if like things are going to pop off you don’t want to be caught in the middle in

case someone gets hurt.

Interviewer: So, it’s not just people who are maybe involved in situations or

with crime who are scared, it’s anybody?

Anybody, if you’re from this neighbourhood and you go to that side or even like

if they come here or they catch you out, then you could be in some danger.

Teresa, who was not personally involved with criminal offending or victimization, also described

her reluctance to travel to neighbouring Birchmount for fear of coming under suspicion from

rival peers:

Yeah, so I guess Birchmount and Q-Village have problems, and like Birchmount

doesn’t like Gleason either. So, for me, like I’m not going to Birchmount

because like I’m not from there and I’m not trying to have those problems.

Interviewer: So why would you be worried, like have you been the victim of

violence there or is this just like something people know about?

Nothing like that it’s just like being from here and knowing people in the

community like you just know that certain parts of the neighbourhood and like

certain areas if you go there and like they see you then you’re going to like have

problems, you’ll be a target.

Similarly, when speaking with Kiana, a 16-year old young woman, she described how, even

without directly witnessing an interaction with a suspected opp, she was aware of who potential

opps were. I asked Kiana what it meant to her to be an opp, “an opp is your opposition, the

50

person you don’t fuck with or mess with”. I then asked how she came to know who her opps

were, to which she replied simply, “when I was little”. When I asked from whom she had heard

about this, she told me that this knowledge came from her friends growing up and the music of

local rap artists.

As Venkatesh (1997) suggests, gangs have a powerful influence on the surrounding

community, often imposing a “symbolic map” that serves to guide and influence the behaviours

of other residents as they travel within the gang’s territory (p. 91). Much in the same way, opp

conflicts between smaller subsets of the community have contributed to a shared knowledge of

which spaces are deemed safe and when and how youth can traverse the community. Teresa

poignantly illustrated these risks in the following account as she describes the recent murder of a

young man seen travelling through a rival community:

If you read the story of the stabbing at North Toronto Town Centre two years

ago, this boy… he passed away, and his basketball number is 44, so it’s a respect

thing for his number. His number was 44, and when he passed away everyone

was like “oh long live 44” and all that because that’s his number, and it turned

into something it shouldn’t have been. It went from ‘oh let’s respect our friend

it’s his number’ to now it’s like a gang thing. Like he didn’t even live in City

Heights, he lived in Walton, but because he chilled in [City] Heights so now all

his friends are like, oh it’s a gang thing, so oh I fuck with those people so now

they are 44 too. So, it went from okay let’s respect our friend to now let’s be a

gang, and then 54 is Birchmount and that’s the bus route through Birchmount.

So, Birchmount and Gleason don’t mess with each other.

Interviewer: So, when 44 went from a respect thing to a gang thing, people often

say gangs mean different things from people who commit crimes together to

young people who just live together. How does 44 fit into this?

It’s a bit of both. It’s not like a major gang you see in movies or whatever, but

there is like little youth gang members, “gang bangers” [makes air quotes], and

if they all go to a party everyone knows those guys are from City Heights,

they’re 44 guys, that’s their gang, but they’re not like let’s go rob a bank, let’s

go shoot someone, they’re just repping their side.

During subsequent informal discussions, residents of Teresa’s community also shared portions of

this tragic account. Notably, a youth worker at the local community centre shared that the events

of that day were video recorded by one of the assailants and later posted to a social media

51

message board frequented by youths in the community. While staff at the community centre

acted to have the clip taken down, the youth worker described how the widely shared nature of

the incident had served to reify and even amplify existing conflicts in the community.

The above accounts evidence the salience of shared knowledge as an important

component in managing the risks posed by youth residing in communities characterized by opp

rivalries. By Teresa’s account, being seen travelling through a rival community served to place a

person in danger. For example, in choosing to travel through a rival neighbourhood in such a

public fashion, the young man in Teresa’s account had violated the informal boundaries that

served to demarcate his neighbourhood from an opp block, thus presenting a challenge to the

hegemonic control that rival youths purport to have over their turf. As Anderson (1999) notes,

youth who adhere to the tenets of the code of the street must remain hyper-vigilant to any form

of public provocation and be ready to respond in a way that discourages others from further

challenges.

Appeals to shared knowledge of opp rivalries provided a mechanism by which young

people can make sense of the seemingly indiscriminate or expressive acts of violence that have

come to characterize these conflicts. In essence, young people have constructed persons seen as

violating the tenets of these codes as deserving victims, either by actively provoking their rivals

or by being ignorant of the shared knowledge needed to stay safe. To be found in a

compromising situation was to be ‘caught out’, ‘caught slipping’, or ‘caught lacking’, which

youth actively sought to avoid. I asked Michael what it meant to be caught ‘slipping’ or

‘lacking’:

You don’t want to be caught out, you know? Like, if you’re not from here and

you’re alone, or those boys catch you, and you’re somewhere you’re not

supposed to be, or if you’re out here and it's late, then they’re gonna test you,

they’re gonna wanna know who you with and where you from.

In unpacking Michael’s definition, to be caught ‘slipping’ or ‘lacking’, a person must be found in

a compromising situation that they know they should not be in. Importantly, this situation is one

that, had the person involved taken some additional care and caution, likely could have been

52

avoided. In his analysis of Toronto’s Lawrence Heights community, Bernardi (2018) notes that it

is not uncommon for male victims to blame themselves for their victimization. However, being

caught ‘slipping’ differs in that “culpability and blame in response to victimization is imposed

from the outside” (p. 125) by youths who have shared knowledge of the street codes that should

protect against victimization. Below, I discuss the importance of community-level surveillance

and the practices associated with challenging a potential opp within the neighbourhood.

‘Pressing Up’ on your Opps

The risks posed by violence emanating from sources outside of the community represented a

widely cited safety concern for many young people. In response, many young people described

informal, community-level lateral surveillance strategies designed to identify potential ‘opps’,

determine their intentions, their neighbourhood affiliations, and, if needed, interdict their

movement. These strategies represented a means by which young people could manage the

uncertainty and myriad of potential risks posed by strangers in the community, ranging from loss

of reputation to violent victimization. Central to these practices was the strategy of ‘pressing up’,

‘checking’ or ‘paging’ a potential rival. As young people described, to ‘press-up’ meant to

intercept and confront an unknown person in the community through field interrogation tactics.

Typically, young people described these tactics as a means of ascertaining which neighbourhood

the person hailed from and their intentions. As described in the following excerpts, these

challenges could range in character and intensity, from a simple verbal warning to more serious

forms of violence. For example, when describing what could happen in a potential ‘press up’,

Roger, a 26-year old man, shared the following account:

Somebody would approach him and be like, “Yo, what neighbourhood are you

from?” If you’re not from the neighbourhood, they will ask you, “Where are you

from?” Straight. If you’re from a certain neighbourhood, you either have to

leave, and if you stay, you’re either gonna get jumped, robbed, or stomped on.

In another conversation, Anton would provide a similar account:

Like I said, I’m not really in that anymore, but back in the day we would… say

we spot you and you’re alone, or you know you look like you not from this area

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then we would approach you straight up, figure out you know… okay what’s

good now, you know, where you going, stuff like that.

Interviewer: And say this person doesn’t have the answers you’re looking for, what then?

Then, it could be anything. It could be just, alright get the fuck out, like you

can’t be here, it could be you know, you gotta pay a tax, lemme get those those,

run [give up] your little phone or whatever, that chain… sometimes you know,

people gonna take it further. You never know these days.

As these accounts describe, the behaviours and tactics employed in a press up can vary, with

differing outcomes depending on the degree to which the persons initiating the challenge ascribe

to the street codes associated with opp rivalries and the demeanour and actions of the person

under suspicion. When I asked Sarah, what took place during a press up, she shared the

following with me: “I mean if you’re talking shit or running your mouth, you could get hurt,

people have been stabbed, people have been shot. It really depends on how they want to carry it

or how serious they take it”. A challenge could escalate quickly for street-involved youth who

more closely adhere to the street code governing these behaviours, even bypassing a verbal

warning. As I spoke with Amari, a 23-year old man, he described witnessing a sudden attack,

without warning, on another young person suspected of being an opp:

Like you could be doing nothing, just picking up your mans or whatever, and

they see you it’s on. Like I saw dude just coming out the car, and someone ran

up with a hammer, and the girl in the car screamed, and the guy in the car like

did a u-turn and just took off but not before dude hit his car with a hammer a

couple of times. It’s because their reppin’ a neighbourhood, and they’re out

where they don’t belong.

In some conversations, youth even likened press ups to the field-interrogation tactics employed

by the police, including the controversial practice of ‘carding’ or ‘street checks’. When I asked

Monica why she felt police were engaged in these practices, she replied: “Well, they [the police]

judge them on the way they look. They’re young black youth. Period. Like, if they see if you in

the neighbourhood or even if they see you out of the neighbourhood, somewhere you don’t

belong, they’re going to stop you”. When asked how these tactics compared to press ups, Monica

described them as being similar:

54

The way they [the police] approach them. Let’s say you’re riding on your bike

or something, young black male, police will just pull over and get out of the car

and just walk up them, you know? Even if they’re driving beside them and you

could be walking, they’re talking to you but you’re still walking. That’s what I

feel like most youth do, they just keep walking and they’re being respectful most

of the time but you’re still walking, and the police will stop like hey buddy hold

up a second I’m talking to you and that’s what they would do in a press as well,

like with your opps.

Interviewer: How is it different between street checks and press ups?

I feel like it’s even more intense with press ups. Like cops won’t even take it

that far with the aggression. Like with the police, it’s controlled but still

dangerous, but with the youth anything could happen.

Similarly, in describing tactics used by him and his peers in a press-up, Amari likened them to

tactics he had witnessed being used by police:

Like, say you’re getting carded, and the one cop is like, ‘come over here and talk

to me’ and I’m like, ‘Why? Talk to me right here.’ They do things, and they’re

very well aware. This is the Toronto Police we’re talking about. Toronto Police

are very smart… like I’m pretty sure a lot of these guys have to take psych

courses on how to communicate with people… me and my people grew up in the

hood, and we know how to communicate with each other without speaking, and

I’m pretty sure these guys have the same training.

Some youth would also claim that the police were aware of ongoing neighbourhood conflicts and

factored this knowledge into their decisions to stop youths thought to be outside of their home

community. In stopping persons found to be ‘out of bounds’ or outside of the community they

were thought to reside in, young people viewed police as also trying to determine that person’s

identity and intentions. In talking with Kiana, she described how being seen by police outside of

her community contributed to increased suspicion. I ask her why that was, to which she replied:

Like I said, because I’m from a different hood, and they probably know that.

Some police officers know the politics between hoods, and they might just stop

and be like ‘we know you’re not from here, why are you here?’

Kiana’s comments are echoed in my conversation with Sarah:

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It’s like cops know the politics, they know when someone is out of bounds so if they

see you and you’re not where you belong, then yeah, it’s going to be a problem.

Interviewer: Alright, so cops knowing the politics, can you unpack that a little more?

I don’t care what anyone say, these cops are smart, Toronto cops are smart. So, when

Allendale and Dominion Court have problems or Allendale and Yorkdown have

problems if they see a Yorkdown youth in Allendale they know it’s no good and like if

they don’t recognize you then they’re going to be trying figure out like what are you

doing here?

The knowledge that some police officers were allegedly aware of opp rivalries and that this

knowledge factored into how they determined suspicion served to extend the web of extra-legal

and unwarranted scrutiny Black youth already face from the police. As such, young people who

transgressed the informal boundaries of a rival community now faced increased suspicion and

the potential risk of a confrontation, both from residents and the police. This climate of hyper-

surveillance serves only to intensify the spatial immobility and residential segregation already

associated with the urban underclass; young people trapped in this cycle face a form of panoptic

surveillance (Foucault, [1975] 1977). In this regard, young people live in a constant state of

monitoring while also being aware that a cadre of unknown parties is potentially watching them.

Failure to abide by these surveillance practices is to risk being seen as weak or caught ‘slipping’

or ‘lacking’, but to maintain them is to contribute to and ultimately further the multiple

marginalities young people already face.

If a street-involved young person is unwilling to challenge a potential rival, they risk

losing reputation and status among their peers. I asked Jelani, a 19-year old man, what would

happen if he or one of his peers sighted a potential opp in the community and someone failed to

‘check’ them or ‘press up’ on them:

Interviewer: So, if your opp comes through and you don’t do anything, how does

that look on you?

Well, most of the time people are with their friends, and they get them hyped up,

but if you saw them by themselves, they wouldn’t tell their friends they didn’t

do anything because their friends would like ‘oh why didn’t you do anything

then.

56

Interviewer: So, if your friends saw you not do anything, what would happen?

You would look like you’re a punk, or you’re weak.

I asked Tariq, a 17-year old young man, what happens if he or his peers were to see a suspected

opp:

They usually fight.

Interviewer: And if you don’t fight, what does that make you look like?

It makes you look weak.

Both of these accounts speak the salience of street codes, not only as a defensive mechanism to

protect against violence and the threat of victimization but also as a means of attaining status

amongst one’s peers. As discussed, Anderson (1999) argues that young people adopt a tough

demeanour meant to command respect, deter potential challengers, and protect themselves from

violent victimization. In doing so, the ‘code’ serves a largely defensive function, as Anderson

notes, “for those who are invested in the code, the clear object of their demeanor is to discourage

strangers from even thinking about testing their manhood” (p. 92). While codes associated with

opp conflicts serve a similar function, they are also closely linked to conceptions of pride and

honour, both at the individual and neighbourhood level. The following section will discuss the

relevance of these codes in expressing pride and ‘repping’ the community.

The young people who described facing the dangers emanating from these rivalries also

consistently described facing multiple forms of social and economic marginalization in their

daily lives, including systemic racism, excessive police surveillance, and a lack of spatial

mobility. Similarly, as discussed, many of the same youths also expressed that their communities

faced persistent negative media portrayals throughout the city, which they described as being

rooted in excessive police scrutiny and biased reporting. Against this backdrop, young people

described the ability to control public space and protect it against behaviours that challenged

their honour and hegemonic control over their turf as giving them both protection from

victimization and a sense of agency and pride.

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The salience of pride, even in the face of social and economic barriers, was conveyed by

Roger, who described that, while opp rivalries can stem from economic competition over turf,

‘pride and ego’ remained central concerns:

When it’s all said and done with the utmost truth, pride and ego. People think,

“This is my neighbourhood, this is my block.” That’s all it is. It’s all talk.

Because when it’s all said and done, you don’t own that neighbourhood. You

don’t own that side street. You don’t own that apartment. Somebody else does.

You just live there and pay rent.

Terry would also express similar attitudes to me when discussing a provocation made by a

resident of the rival Birchmount community: “you can’t let this person disrespect where you

come from and where you like and like the people you grew up with”. These comments speak to

the local's importance in young people’s identity formation and the centrality of pride as a

driving factor in the persistence of opp rivalries. Consistent with Anderson (1999), in the face of

limited opportunities to obtain more conventional forms of social status associated with middle-

class values, the importance of the local as both a source of and site of pride and identity takes on

additional meaning.

1.4 Discussion and Conclusion

The findings discussed in this article contribute to the rich body of qualitative scholarship

documenting the climate of uncertainty and danger that has resulted from concentrated racialized

poverty, social marginalization, and the persistence of police practices that have

disproportionately targeted young people while doing little to ensure their safety. Together, these

factors have contributed to widespread legal cynicism and the formation of subcultural codes

designed to provide security through various self-help behaviours. However, the focus of the

existing body of scholarship has been on young people involved with street gangs and the

cultural adaptations that govern violence related to interpersonal disputes and the control of

public space. My findings extend this scholarship by showing how inter-generationally

transmitted rivalries between socially and economically marginalized communities, coupled with

a persistent climate of crime and disorder, have impacted the non-gang youth and youth involved

with delinquent peer groups. In particular, my findings show how these factors have contributed

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to young people’s persistent attachment to the local as a source of identity. In this context, I find

a commensurate development of self-help strategies meant to maintain the honour and social

standing associated with the community and reduce the risk of criminal victimization. These

strategies included practices of informal surveillance and field-interrogations intended to

ascertain the neighbourhood affiliation and intentions of unknown persons found within the

community. However, the use of these strategies has contributed to a climate of hyper-

surveillance for young people, who face daily scrutiny from the police and other young people.

In many ways, the self-help strategies that young people in my study adapted to fill the

void left by the public police have come to resemble the same tactics used by the police that

young people have deemed procedurally unjust and discriminatory. Indeed, some young people

even identified modelling, in part, their surveillance practices on those used by the police.

Further, young people described that, in their opinions, police were aware of the contours of opp

conflicts and drew on this knowledge to inform their discretionary decision-making. In doing so,

police are reifying the social boundaries between rival communities and furthering the relevance

of neighbourhood-identity as a marker of suspicion. As a result, many young people engage in

self-surveillance and restricted mobility practices intended to reduce their exposure to violence

from both the police and other youth. In essence, in adopting the police's tactics to ensure social

control, young people potentially contribute to the broader climate of spatial segregation by

placing further restrictions on their freedom of movement. When young people are afraid to

travel through public spaces or even beyond their communities' informal confines, they are

prevented from potentially accessing services, employment opportunities, educational programs,

and leisure opportunities.

My findings challenge the centrality of gangs as being the primary drivers of both

instrumental and expressive violence in socially and economically marginalized communities.

As evidenced, violence associated with the threats posed by ‘opps’ and persistent conflicts

associated with ‘opp blocks’ resemble the contours of gang violence. However, the core

participants in these practices are young people whose primary motivations are personal security

and territorial pride. In expressing their identification with their community, these young people

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may take on some identifying characteristics of a gang, such as hand gestures and the use of

names and symbols meant to identify them. However, these affiliations lacked any form of

organizational structure, and youth participants were, for the most part, not engaged in other

forms of serious criminality. Furthermore, while knowledge of the street codes associated with

opp rivalries were widespread, young people who professed to ascribe to its tenets closely were

described as a comparatively small minority of the wider community. Here too, my findings

resemble the contours of existing gang scholarship while extending it to reflect better the realities

expressed by study participants. This reconceptualization can better inform policy responses to

violence, including the practices of the police.

The police continue to occupy a central role in the production of public knowledge on

crime and the appropriate policy responses (Sacco, 1995; Ericson & Haggerty, 1997; Katz,

Maguire & Roncek, 2002; Mawby, 2010). Further, police often dictate the nature and extent of

the ‘gang’ problem, including what constitutes a gang and who are gang members (Zatz, 1987;

Decker & Kempf-Leonard, 1991). By strictly attributing growing gun violence to gang-involved

youth and conflicts between gangs, police risk exaggerating the extent of these problems while

also stigmatizing and further criminalizing young people classified with the gang label. In doing

so, there is a real risk of furthering the existing over-reliance on enforcement-focused policy

responses that have contributed to the aforementioned criminalization and stigmatization while

also contributing to future policies that are both disproportionate and improperly focused. In this

regard, the negative impacts of the ‘war on gangs’ have been well-established, including

excessive police surveillance, harassment, allegations of racial bias, and fractured police-

community relations. In ignoring the salience of these neighbourhood rivalries, police risk

continuing to improperly assess the causes and consequences of a growing aspect of urban

violence.

It is reasonable to believe that, barring significant social and structural changes, the

factors associated with advanced marginality (Wacquant, 1996; 2008), including the

retrenchment of the social welfare state, growing economic polarization, and the concentration of

urban poverty within socially and spatially isolated communities will persist. The policing

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strategies that have contributed to widespread distrust in the police and legal cynicism continue

largely unabated. Further, poverty concentration will undoubtedly contribute to the continued

loss of middle-class values (Wilson 1987; Sampson & Wilson, 1995) and opportunities for

young people to achieve mainstream conceptions of status and respect (Anderson 1999). These

factors point to the local's increased relevance in conceptions of pride and identity and

neighbourhood rivalries' potential to persist and grow in both scope and intensity. Against this

backdrop, there is a pressing need to address the policing strategies that continue to contribute to

widespread distrust in the police and the engendering of legal cynicism. The recent and ongoing

movements against police violence and in support of Black lives speak to a growing

acknowledgement of the pervasive harm caused by these tactics and the need to address the

systemic and structural barriers faced by Black Canadians. Moving forward, additional

scholarship is needed to better understand the nature and specific contours of these conflicts,

including their historical origins; how the street codes associated with the rivalries are

transmitted; how young people socially construct the spatial boundaries of their communities; the

social and structural factors that contribute to increased adherence to these codes; and the

strategies employed by young people to navigate these rivalries safely.

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Chapter 3 “It just makes you have more problems”: An Examination of

Anti-Snitching Codes Among Black Youth in Toronto, Ontario

1.5 Abstract

Subcultural codes against compliance with the police, or ‘snitching’, have factored prominently

into public and law enforcement discourses related to urban violence and crime prevention. This

article investigates attitudes towards compliance with the police and perceptions of snitching

among a sample of Black youths who reside in socially and economically marginalized

neighbourhoods in Toronto, Ontario. Drawing on 32 in-depth interviews, it examines how

perceptions of community safety and direct and vicarious experiences with the police have

impacted young people’s willingness to report crimes and comply with police investigations.

However, contrary to popular belief, being seen speaking with police or providing information

did not necessarily constitute snitching. Notably, a complex set of situational and biographical

factors, including age, gender, and the perceived seriousness of the crime, all factored in

determining what constitutes snitching and when someone is considered a snitch. My findings

challenge the essentializing nature of dominant discourses on snitching while also highlighting

how diminished perceptions of police legitimacy and efficacy have impacted young people’s

willingness to report crimes and comply with police investigations.

1.6 Introduction

Just after 3 a.m. on Tuesday, August 4th, 2015 gunfire rang out at a popular downtown nightclub

in Toronto. The event, an after-party for Toronto rapper Drake's annual 'OVO Fest' concert

series, had attracted thousands to the Muzik nightclub. In the aftermath of the event, two people

were dead, and three others were injured. Despite the presence of 70 private security guards, ten

paid-duty police officers, on-duty police, and working security cameras (CBC News, 2015),

Toronto Police Service representatives, including Chief Mark Saunders, described a lack of

witness cooperation as hindering their investigation (Gillis & Corbeil, 2015). Police would later

set up a website to obtain tips from the over 4,000 attendees at the party, including requests for

photos and videos, with little success. When asked to comment on the case, Chief Saunders’

decried the lack of compliance from the public, “People are not talking … Someone out there is

sitting on that fence, thinking about whether to help the police or not.” (Gillis & Corbeil, 2015)

One of the victims, Duvel Hibbert, a young Black man, was described by police as the

attack's intended target. A police theory as to the motive for Hibbert’s murder, who was heavily

involved in drug trafficking, was that another guest identified him as a ‘snitch’ (Gillis & Corbeil,

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2015). This tragic incident, and the events that followed, illuminates a broader issue of cultural

norms against compliance with police or ‘anti-snitching codes’. Police actors frequently cite

these norms as having contributed to a climate whereby witnesses and victims of crime are

unwilling to report crimes and cooperate with police investigations (Police Executive Research

Forum, 2009). However, this narrative belies the complex cultural, situational, and biographical

factors that contribute to decisions to report crimes to the police or cooperate with police

investigations.

The focus of discussions of subcultural norms against compliance with the police, or

‘snitching’, has been inner-city Black communities characterized by higher crime rates and

concentrated disadvantage. Some studies have focused on perceptions of snitching from the

perspective of persons actively involved with street crime (Rosenfeld et al., 2003; Topalli, 2005).

However, others have examined the issue more broadly, drawing on both current and former

criminals, as well as persons living in higher-crime communities (Slocum et al., 2010; Berg et

al., 2013; Boateng, 2016; Brunson & Wade, 2019; Carbone-Lopez et al., 2016; Clampet-

Lundquist et al., 2015; Clayman & Skinns, 2012; Desmond et al., 2016; Huey & Quirouette,

2010; Rosenfeld et al., 2003; Vargas & Scrivener, 2018). The latter body of scholarship

demonstrates that the snitch label, and the potential harms associated with its application, extend

beyond those involved in street crime to the broader community. However, scholarship on

snitching tends to be spatially focused, often drawing on a sample of young people from a single

neighbourhood or a small cluster of adjacent areas. The present study seeks to further our

understanding of attitudes towards crime reporting and compliance with the police, including the

prevalence of anti-snitching codes, their social and structural antecedents, and the social and

cultural transmission of these beliefs. In doing so, I argue that diminished perceptions of police

legitimacy and efficacy, escalating neighbourhood violence, and cultural influences, such as

social media and hip-hop music have contributed to the ongoing salience of subcultural codes

against snitching. However, while the risks associated with snitching are apparent to many,

including the threat of physical retaliation, a more likely and potentially less desirable outcome is

a loss of social standing within the community.

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The remainder of this article is structured as follows: First, I review the literature on

decisions to report crimes to the police and compliance with police investigations. I next discuss

the links between non-reporting behaviour and legal cynicism, the Code the Street, and anti-

snitching codes. Following this, I describe my methodology, study settings, and sample. The

discussion of my findings begins with how young people perceive ‘snitch culture’, including the

sources of these beliefs and how they are transmitted. After which, I explore how young people

define snitching, including conceptions of which actions constitute snitching and who is

considered a snitch. Next, I discuss young people’s interactions with the police and how those

experiences impact their willingness to comply with police investigations. In the final section, I

explore the situational and biographical factors identified by young people as conditioning their

views on snitching. My analysis reveals that several factors, including victim characteristics and

offence seriousness, impact youth's likelihood of reporting crimes to the police. In closing, I

consider these findings as they relate to ongoing efforts to improve police-community relations

and address gun and gang violence.

1.7 Literature Review

The mid-twentieth century saw the growth of community policing models as a response to issues

of growing urban disorder and a crisis of police legitimacy. Central to the community policing

model is a movement away from reactive or ‘incident-based’ approaches to focusing on crime

prevention policing. In doing so, police are seeking to not only respond to offending but also to

prevent it through addressing the social and structural problems that contributed to the incident in

the first place. While the concept of community policing remains disputed, including definitional

questions and the identification of best practices, there is no doubt that at the core of the

community policing ethos is a need to improve police-citizen relations and to engage the public

as co-producers of community safety (Skolnick & Bayley, 1988; Wilson, 2006). In doing so,

proponents of community policing acknowledge that the scope of crime is too broad and

complex to be addressed by the police alone. The cooperation of the public is then essential in

both detecting and ultimately preventing crime. Through community policing, the police seek to

improve their effectiveness by developing more positive relations with the communities they

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serve, thus engendering a greater willingness amongst the public to report suspected criminal

activity and cooperate with police investigations.

The growth of community policing reflects a broader acknowledgement that traditional

investigative methods of solving crimes are not particularly effective and that the police are

dependent on public cooperation to both identify and solve crimes (Skolnick & Bayley, 1988).

The public's compliance is particularly salient when considering that the majority of criminal

victimization incidents in both the U.S. and Canada go unreported to the police11. When crime

goes unreported to the police, it distorts crime statistics and undermines the police's ability to

plan and implement crime prevention initiatives effectively. Further, when members of the

public decline to aid police in investigating known crimes, the police's ability to successfully

investigate those events is diminished significantly.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, both Canada and the United States have experienced steady

overall declines in crime rates, including property crime, violent crime, and homicides12

(Friedman et al., 2017; Department of Justice Canada, 2017). A substantial body of scholarship

has examined the antecedents of this decline within the American (Blumstein, 2006; Blumstein

& Wallman, 2005; Farrell et al., 2014; Krivo et al., 2018; Parker, 2008; Zimring, 2007) and

Canadian contexts (Andresen et al., 2017; Farrell et al., 2018; Farrell & Brantingham, 2013;

Hodgkinson et al., 2016; Mishra & Lalumière, 2009; Ouimet, 1999, 2002). However, while

crime rates have historically been declining, so have the clearance rates for serious violent

crimes, including homicide (Mancik & Parker, 2019; Trussler, 2010). Public confidence and trust

in the police must be considered as they relate to declining clearance rates as both victims and

witnesses are essential sources of information for police in solving crimes.

11 According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 2006 and 2010, more than half of violent crimes in

the U.S. went unreported, representing nearly 3.4 million victimizations annually (Langton et al., 2012). In 2014, the

majority of violent victimizations experienced by Canadians also went unreported to the police, including incidents

involving injury (45%) and incidents involving a weapon (53%) (Perreault, 2015).

12 More recent Canadian data indicates that this trend may be reversing, with both the overall volume and severity

of violent and non-violent police reported crime increasingly steadily from 2014 to 2019 (Moreau et al., 2019).

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Compliance with the Police

For an individual to report a crime to the police, they must believe that the perceived benefits of

reporting outweigh the risks. In this regard, the rational choice theory can be used to analyze the

choice to report or not report crimes. This perspective maintains that individuals engage in a

cost-benefit analysis before deciding to involve the police (Clarke & Cornish, 1985; Clayman &

Skinns, 2012; Meares, 1997; Murphy et al., 2008). There are several reasons why persons may

choose not to report victimization to the police. These reasons can include fear of retaliation

(Clayman & Skinns, 2012; Langton et al., 2012; Papp et al., 2019; Singer, 1988), offence

seriousness (Laub, 1981), the immigration status of the victim (Xie & Baumer, 2019), victim age

(Bosick et al., 2012), a belief that police will not take the matter seriously (Kidd & Chayet, 1984;

Perreault, 2015), and a belief that the gravity of the offence is not serious and thus not worth the

time and effort it would take to report (Langton et al., 2012). Further, individuals must also

consider the risks of reporting through the lens of perceived police legitimacy and efficacy. This

consideration is particularly salient for young people who reside in economically and socially

marginalized communities and are disproportionately subject to aggressive policing tactics.

Examinations of the antecedents of public judgments regarding the police have been

considered in relation to both procedural and outcome-based measures. Historically, these

judgments were thought to be based on official metrics of the efficacy of the police. These

measures include the rate by which police investigations result in a criminal charge, the

clearance rate, and the ability of police to control crime more generally, expressed as crime rates

(Staubli, 2017). More recently, scholars have advanced a procedural-based, normative model of

police legitimacy. The procedural justice model contends that perceptions of fair treatment at the

hands of the police matter more than outcome-based considerations in determining public

support for the police (Bradford, 2014; Sunshine & Tyler, 2003; Tyler & Fagan, 2006; Tyler,

1994). When the public evaluates interactions with the police as procedurally just or fair, this

contributes to higher levels of satisfaction and a greater willingness to accept the outcomes of

police interactions, even if that outcome is otherwise unfavourable (Tyler & Fagan, 2006; Tyler

& Wakslak, 2004). Further, through procedural justice, police are better able to secure the

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cooperation of the public and compliance with police investigations, as well as overall

compliance with the law (Mastrofski et al., 1996; Mastrofski et al., 2000; McCluskey et al.,

1999; Reisig et al., 2004; Tyler, 2016). Conversely, procedurally unjust treatment may diminish

perceptions of police legitimacy (Bradford, 2014; Sunshine & Tyler, 2003), reduce cooperation

with the police, and even lead to open defiance of police interests (Sherman, 1993).

In both the U.S. and Canada, young people from Black, Indigenous, and Latinx

backgrounds are continually overrepresented at various of the criminal justice system. In

particular, young Black men are represented disproportionately as the targets of police

surveillance, police-led field interrogations, searches, and arrests (Brunson & Miller, 2006;

Fitzgerald & Carrington, 2011; Hayle et al., 2016; Jones, 2014; Wortley & Owusu-Bempah,

2012). Furthermore, racialized disparities faced by Black people extend to reduced access to pre-

trial release, longer sentence lengths than their white counterparts, and higher rates of

incarceration (Blumstein, 2015; Wortley & Owusu-Bempah, 2012). The impacts of these

disparities are also evident in the lived experiences of Black youths in their interactions with the

police.

Negative experiences with the police are cited continually as contributing to perceptions

of racial injustice and diminished perceptions of police legitimacy and efficacy (Gau & Brunson,

2015; Tyler & Wakslak, 2004; Wortley & Owusu-Bempah, 2009, 2011). In particular, Black

people hold more negative views of the police and the criminal justice system than white people

and other racialized groups. In this regard, young Black men report experiences of ‘over-

policing’, including being unfairly stopped and searched by police, experiences of police

harassment, and excessive use of force (Brunson & Miller, 2006; Gau & Brunson, 2015; Hayle et

al., 2016; Jones, 2014; Wortley & Owusu-Bempah, 2009, 2011). Conversely, these same young

people report being ‘under-policed’ (Loader, 1996). Experiences of under policing include long

wait-times for officers to respond to calls for service, disrespectful treatment, perceptions that

officers are unsympathetic to their needs, and that they are unwilling to address serious crimes in

their community (Brunson & Miller, 2006; Brunson & Wade, 2019; Brunson & Weitzer, 2011;

Carr et al., 2007; Clampet-Lundquist et al., 2015; Gau & Brunson, 2015). Taken together,

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experiences of ‘over’ and ‘under-policing’ have fostered an overall climate of legal cynicism in

urban Black communities (Berg et al., 2016; Gau & Brunson, 2015; Kirk & Papachristos, 2011).

Legal Cynicism

Legal cynicism is a cultural framework by which individuals make judgements about both the

law and its agents (Kirk & Papachristos, 2011). According to this framework, individuals draw

on judgments about the law's legitimacy and responsiveness when deciding whether to cooperate

and comply with the law and its agents. As such, legal cynicism results when agents of the law

are viewed as “illegitimate, unresponsive and ill equipped to ensure public safety” (Kirk &

Papachristos, 2011, p. 1191). Importantly, legal cynicism is engendered in those who come into

direct contact with the police and transmitted socially throughout the wider community. In

socially and economically marginalized communities, persistent negative experiences with the

police have contributed to the formation of a widespread climate of legal cynicism, thus

diminishing the rule of law's effectiveness in constraining individual behaviour. However, in

these same communities, negative perceptions of the police lead many residents to be unwilling

to report crimes, resulting in many offences going undetected and unsanctioned (Kirk &

Matsuda, 2011). These factors have contributed to the cycle of crime and violence that plague

many inner-city communities.

As discussed, legal cynicism can be the product of both direct experiences with the police

(Berg et al., 2016; Brunson & Miller, 2006; Carr et al., 2007; Gau & Brunson, 2015) and

experiences that are witnessed or shared by others (Brunson & Weitzer, 2011; Geller & Fagan,

2019; Stuart, 2016). As such, direct and vicarious experiences and shared cultural scripts that are

transmitted through social interactions guide perceptions of the police. As Kirk & Papachristos

describe, “residents of a neighborhood share a common existence and are subject to the same

ecological constraints. From this shared existence, as well as direct and vicarious experiences

with the police, emerges a culture” (2011, p. 1202). Within socially and economically

marginalized communities, these shared experiences are manifested in an oppositional culture

that values toughness and self-reliance while putting a premium on extralegal forms of dispute

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resolution (Anderson, 1999). In this regard, the Code of the Street (Anderson, 1999) is a central

theoretical pillar of the focus on culture and its role in explaining attitudes towards violence.

As discussed by Anderson (1999), the Code of the Street is a cultural adaptation to the

various forms of social and structural disadvantage faced by residents of disadvantaged, inner-

city communities, including concentrated poverty, joblessness, residential segregation, and a

history of negative interactions with the police. For some residents, experiences with the police

are a reminder of the persistent climate of hopelessness, discrimination, and despair that have

come to permeate their communities. In the absence of faith in the police, some residents turn to

the code as an alternative value system, and form of social control meant to ensure their safety as

they seek to navigate public life (Anderson, 1999; Bourgois, 2002; Contreras, 2013).

Central to the code is the concept of ‘respect’ or ‘juice’, which comprises a sort of

‘cultural currency’ that grants the bearer both material and immaterial benefits. Through respect,

Anderson (1999) contends that residents can better ensure their safety by mitigating the threat of

being challenged or otherwise victimized. In being seen as tough, self-reliant, and willing to

respond to a provocation through violence, a young person may cultivate respect. The value of

respect is so great that to preserve or garner it, some young men will go as far as risking their

safety by precipitating potential violent confrontations with other residents (Stewart & Simons,

2010). In particular, in handling their problems without involving the police, young people are

granted respect. Indeed, as Anderson (1999) describes, the code “emerges where the influence of

the police ends and where the influence of the police ends and where personal responsibility for

one’s safety is felt to begin.” (p. 34). This premium placed on self-reliance reflects a broader

culture of distrust in the police rooted in a collective history of negative experiences with the

police and an overall dissatisfaction with police performance (Anderson, 1999). Conversely,

those who fail to abide by the code risk being seen as vulnerable or otherwise unwilling or

unable to protect themselves, thus making them fit targets for potential victimization (McNeeley

& Wilcox, 2015; Stewart et al., 2006). However, by adopting the same behaviours thought to

keep them safe, adherents to the code may be placing themselves at additional risk for violent

victimization (Stewart et al., 2006). By choosing to respond to suspected provocations

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disrespectfully or violently, adherents to the code are courting similar if not more extreme

responses from other parties, thus increasing their risk of violent victimization and increasing

overall community violence levels.

The ‘Code’ and Compliance

In communities where the code has come to regulate social life, it is of little surprise that

residents are unwilling to involve the police when responding to victimization. When citizens

believe that the police act in a procedurally just manner, they are more likely to report crimes to

police (Bradford, 2014; Brunson & Miller, 2006; Mazerolle et al., 2013; Tankebe, 2013).

Conversely, when citizens have poor perceptions of police legitimacy and efficacy, they are less

likely to contact the police or comply with police investigations. Rather than relying on the

police, many residents of marginalized communities resort to a variety of self-help strategies.

These strategies include avoiding areas of the community known to be at higher risk for

violence, travelling together in groups for mutual protection, and various forms of pre-emptive

and retaliatory violence, including lethal force (Brunson & Wade, 2019; Gau & Brunson, 2015;

Jacobs, 2004; Jacobs & Wright, 2010; Kubrin & Weitzer, 2003; Rosenfeld et al., 2003; Stuart,

2016). Through adherence to extra-legal forms of dispute resolution and the use of private

violence, residents are simultaneously expressing their lack of confidence and trust in the police

(Anderson, 1999; Berg et al., 2016; Brunson & Wade, 2019; Carr et al., 2007; Kirk &

Papachristos, 2011), while also avoiding the potentially stigmatizing, or even dangerous label of

the ‘snitch’ (Anderson, 1999; Brunson & Wade, 2019; Clayman & Skinns, 2012; Morris, 2010;

Rosenfeld et al., 2003; Whitman et al., 2007; Woldoff & Weiss, 2010). In the following section,

I review the literature on anti-snitching codes and conceptions of snitches in disadvantaged urban

communities.

The Snitch

Racialized youths, and in particular Black youths and youth from marginalized backgrounds,

have continually been the focus of scholarship investigating issues of non-compliance with the

police and cultural norms against ‘snitching’ (Berg et al., 2016; Bradford, 2014; Brunson &

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Miller, 2006; Brunson & Wade, 2019; Carr et al., 2007; Clampet-Lundquist et al., 2015;

Clayman & Skinns, 2012; Daiute & Fine, 2003; Giordano, 1976; Rosenfeld et al., 2003;

Whitman et al., 2007). These examinations have consistently evidenced substantial complexities

in what constitutes snitching and when a person is considered a snitch. Notably, justifications for

non-compliance extend beyond diminished conceptions of police legitimacy and efficacy to

encompass various situational, biographical, and social factors.

Clayman and Skinns (2012) examine the role of relationships with the police and social

influences in the community on young people’s decisions to cooperate with the police.

Respondents in their study identified three central concerns that factored into their decision to

provide information to the police. First, respondents described their prior personal experiences

with the police and how they impacted their level of trust in law enforcement. Here, the authors

document that individuals’ history of procedurally unjust police encounters, involuntary police-

citizen contacts contribute to distrust of the police organization as a whole. Interviewees also

believed that policing priorities should focus on more severe forms of crime in the community

and not on stop and search tactics intended to detect minor crimes. Second, respondents

discussed the role of social influences in shaping their attitudes towards compliance with the

police. Individuals described how peers, family, music, and shared social norms in the

community all influenced their decision not to snitch. Here, respondents explained how the risks

associated with snitching, including violent reprisals from known gang members, far exceeded

any potential benefits. However, two key exceptions superseded these concerns: if the incident

involved a family member, or they were confident that their cooperation with the police would

go undetected. Finally, respondents described the rational calculus they engaged in when

deciding whether to snitch. Snitching was viewed as not only socially unacceptable but also

dangerous. For many, the perceived risks associated with snitching, including social exclusion

and potential violent reprisals, outweighed any potential benefits.

Clampet-Lundquist and her colleagues (2015) advance a ‘sliding scale of snitching’

based on various personal and contextual factors. Far from being all-encompassing, definitions

of what constitutes snitching and whether it is appropriate to condemn or punish persons seen

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cooperating with the police varied greatly among study participants. Young men of colour

described persistent negative experiences with the police, including harassment, stops, and

searches that they perceived as being guided by officers' racial biases. Informing young people’s

views on when and how it was appropriate to snitch were direct and vicarious experiences with

the police, neighbourhood factors, and peer influences. For some, offence seriousness was the

determining factor, with only the crime of rape justifying a police report. For others, the nature

of the perceived harms associated with the crime was key. For example, drug trafficking did not

merit calling the police, while serious assaults did. Involvement with crime was also relevant,

with persons involved in crime being more likely to be seen as a snitch than a layperson in the

community. Similarly, older residents were less likely to be seen as a snitch or subject to

retribution, particularly if the reported crime directly impacted them. Finally, many participants

described a ‘family exemption’ to codes against snitching, whereby a family member's

victimization justified involving police.

More recently, Brunson and Wade (2019) examined perceptions of snitching among

young men who reside in low-income, higher-crime communities. Negative experiences with the

police were widespread among study participants, including frequent, police-initiated encounters.

Further, many participants also described being aware of well-publicized incidents of police

misconduct. More broadly, participants felt that their communities faced both ‘over’ and ‘under’

policing. These experiences have contributed to widespread legal cynicism. Despite residing in

communities characterized by higher levels of gun violence, 90% of participants indicated they

would be unwilling to involve the police if they or a loved one was the victim of gun violence.

Instead, many participants described a preference for self-help behaviours consistent with the

code of the street. In addition, many participants reported adherence to anti-snitching norms,

with some going as far as describing snitching as a violation of “their personal morals and

ethics” (p. 639). In considering the rational calculus associated with snitching, respondents

reported that they would rather risk being subject to retaliatory violence over the potential

reputational harms associated with being seen as a snitch. However, consistent with prior

research, respondents described some exemptions to codes against snitching. In particular,

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crimes against female family members, other loved ones, and underage male siblings merited

police involvement.

In short, definitions of what constitutes snitching and who is considered a snitch are

complex. It is clear that overly simple conceptions of snitching, as portrayed by the police and

popular culture, belie the complexity of this issue. In my analysis, I find evidence of similar

complexities among the beliefs of study participants, including both utilitarian and expressive

reasons for not reporting crimes or complying with police investigations. These factors included

moral prohibitions against ‘snitching’, individual biographical factors, shared cultural norms,

neighbourhood-level factors, peer influences, perceptions of the police, and the influence of

popular culture. However, the existing body of scholarship has focused almost entirely on the

United States, with little in the way of Canadian research.

As much of the data on snitching has been collected in the United States, the resultant

theoretical examinations are also rooted in that context. To this end, it is important to note that

several contextual factors distinguish Toronto from many American cities where research on

snitching is conducted, including shooting and homicide rates and overall levels of criminal

offending. For example, when compared to Philadelphia, where Clampet-Lundquist et al. (2015)

and Carr et al. (2007) conducted their studies, Toronto’s 2018 homicide rate was 2.26 per

100,000 while Philadelphia's was 21.8 per 100,000, while the violent crime rates were 818 per

100,000 and 826.7 per 100,000, respectively. Further, while my data collection took place during

a period of rising gun violence, Toronto still experiences significantly less gun violence than

most American cities13. Again, when compared to Philadelphia, for 2019, Toronto experienced

492 shootings and 44 firearms-related deaths, while Philadelphia experienced 1,435 shootings

and 351 firearms-related deaths (Palmer, 2019; Toronto Police Service, 2020).

13 Toronto’s 2019 homicide rate was significantly lower than the 12 cities in the United States with the highest

homicide rates, with Tulsa (13.7 per 100,000) being lowest and St. Louis (64.6 per 100,000) being the highest

(Mirabile & Nass, 2019).

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1.8 Research Questions

With this in mind, and to address this gap by contributing to the Canadian body of scholarship on

non-compliance and snitching, this paper will examine the following research questions:

1. What experiences, either direct or indirect, have disadvantaged Black

youth in Toronto had with the public police? What happened during these

encounters? How did those encounters impact their perceptions of the police?

2. What experiences, either direct or indirect, have these youth in Toronto had with calling

the public police for assistance? What happened during this encounter, and were they

satisfied with the police response? Why or why not? 3. How do these young people perceive the police? Do they trust them and have confidence

in them to keep them safe? Why or why not? 4. Have these young people witnessed or heard about a serious crime and, if so, did they call

the police? Why or why not? If yes, how did the police respond and were they satisfied

with the police response? Why or why not? 5. Do these young people believe there are ‘anti-snitching’ codes against compliance with

the police? Is this true in their community? What activities constitute ‘snitching’ and who

is considered a ‘snitch’? How did they come to learn about these codes, and how are they

transmitted? 6. What do these people believe the police need to do to improve trust and confidence

between themselves and people in their community? How can police improve their

relationships with young people?

1.9 Methodology and Study Setting

The data presented here represent 32 interviews drawn from a larger dataset collected for my

dissertation research14. My analysis for this paper focuses on the experiences of Black youth

with policing and neighbourhood violence as prior research has demonstrated that Black youth in

Toronto and the GTA are the most vulnerable to involuntary police contacts (Wortley & Owusu-

Bempah, 2011; Fitzgerald & Carrington, 2011; Rankin & Winsa, 2012; Meng, 2017). Further,

data collection took place between 2017 and 2019, a period of escalating gun violence across

Toronto and the GTA, including a spike in both shootings and gun-related homicides (Gillis,

2018; Bharti & Bañares, 2018). Historically, Black youth and particularly young Black men, are

14 The larger dataset contains 57 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with young people residing in the Greater

Toronto Area (GTA). I conducted and transcribed 54 of these interviews, with research assistants affiliated with my

graduate department at the University of Toronto conducting and transcribing an additional three.

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disproportionately represented as both the victims and perpetrators of gun violence in Toronto

and the GTA (Khenti, 2013). Historically, this violence has been concentrated in low-income

neighbourhoods characterized by high levels of concentrated disadvantage, more extensive

police presence, and higher proportions of Black residents. It is in many of these same

neighbourhoods where the young men and women in my study reside.

I conducted and transcribed 31 of the interviews examined in this paper, with a doctoral

colleague in my graduate department conducting and transcribing the remaining interview.

Participants were between 16 and 29 years of age, with a mean age of 20.1 years. The majority

of the sample identified as men (65.6 per cent), with the remaining respondents identifying as

women (34.4 per cent). A brief description of the sample is found in Table 1.3.

Table 1.3: Demographic Characteristics of Black Youth Respondents

Demographic Characteristics

Gender:

Men:

Women:

65.6

34.4

Employment status:

Employed (full-time)

Employed (part-time)

Unemployed (Not Looking for Work)

Unemployed (Looking for Work)

Unknown

6.2

50.0

31.3

12.5

0.0

Educational attainment:

Elementary of less

Some high school

Completed high school

Some-post secondary

Completed college

Bachelor’s degree

Professional or graduate degree

0.0

53.1

34.4

12.5

0.0

0.0

0.0

Sample Size 32

Sampling employed a purposive approach intended to recruit Black youth who resided in the

aforementioned socially and economically marginalized communities. To this end, I conducted

outreach activities in a variety of youth-focused settings in these communities, including youth

athletic programs, libraries, community centres, and a gang prevention and intervention program.

Before commencing data collection on this project, I was a research assistant on two multi-site,

youth-focused studies examining gun and gang violence in Toronto and the GTA. My

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experiences with these studies served to guide much of my initial outreach strategy, including

identifying and selecting the neighbourhoods for data collection. My prior experiences allowed

me to develop an extensive network of contacts who worked with or who were otherwise in

contact with youth in the target population, including outreach workers, program coordinators,

activists, and community members. Many of these contacts would act as gatekeepers, facilitating

my initial access to various community settings where I conducted outreach and by putting me in

contact with youths who they believed would be interested in participating in the study. Through

these initial connections, I was also able to engage in chain-referral or ‘snowball’ sampling,

granting me access to opportunities for data collection, both in the initial communities of study

and in other areas. As sampling employed a purposive approach, it is difficult to generalize the

findings of this study to the wider city or other urban centres. However, the study's focus was to

understand better the experiences of a specific set of participants rather than attempting to

develop a generalizable sample.

The choice to sample across various neighbourhoods and in different community settings

was important to better understand youth’s perceptions of community safety and the impacts of

poverty concentration. Toronto enjoys an international reputation for safety and livability.

Recently, The Economist ranked Toronto the 7th most livable city globally (The Economist,

2018) and the 6th the safest (The Economist, 2019). However, over the past 30-years, Toronto

has faced growing poverty concentration and income polarization. In his study of income

polarization and neighbourhood inequality in Toronto, Hulchanski (2010) found that the

proportion of middle-income neighbourhoods had decreased from 66% of Toronto’s population

in 1970 to only 29% in 2005. During the same period, low-income communities grew from 19%

to 53%, and high-income communities grew from 15% to 19%. Further, low-income

neighbourhoods have become increasingly concentrated areas outside of the downtown core,

with poor access to transit and other services. These low-income communities face several social

and structural barriers, including higher rates of gun violence, residential instability, and lower

levels of educational attainment. The populations of low-income communities are also

disproportionately composed of racialized persons and recent immigrants, with higher

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percentages of single-parent households, children, and young people (Hulchanski, 2010, p. 10-

12).

Participation in the study was completely voluntary, and all participants completed an

informed consent protocol before taking part in an interview. Each participant was paid a $20

honourarium in recognition of their time. Participants were advised of the anonymous and

confidential nature of the interviews during the consent process. All interviews were audio-

recorded with the full consent and knowledge of participants. Interviewers did not collect

specific identifying information, including names, dates, and specific locations of events

described by participants. Participants were asked to refrain from providing information of this

nature before commencing the interview. The interviewer informed potential participants that

they had no affiliation with the police, the courts, child and youth services, or other

organizations. The names of individuals and communities used in this paper are pseudonyms.

The interview employed a semi-structured strategy. Interview questions examined several

topics, including personal background information, self-reported contact with the criminal justice

system, prior offending history, gang involvement, experiences of family and friends with the

criminal justice system, and experiences with other institutions and aspects of Canadian society.

Participants were asked about the causes and consequences of involvement with either of these

activities, along with best practices for preventing the onset of either form of deviance. A copy of

the interview schedule is found in Appendix A.

Following the interview, the audio recordings were first transcribed and then the audio

files deleted to further ensure respondent confidentiality. The resultant textual data was compiled

and coded using the nVivo12 software suite. Before initial coding, I read each interview

transcript in its entirety to review the data and make preliminary memos. Following this, I

engaged in open coding, whereby I identified and labelled the core themes and concepts in the

data. These themes were then reviewed and compared through the process of axial coding, which

allowed for the development of subthemes and linkages to theory (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). I

attempted to engage in true ‘bottom-up’ coding, where “codes are suggested by the data, not by

the literature” (Urquhart, 2013, p. 38). However, I believe that the resultant analysis more closely

77

resembles ‘middle-range’ coding, whereby codes are derived from both the data and common

sense themes from the literature that supported the project's research design (2013, p.38).

1.10 Findings

‘Snitch Culture’

The first issue I explore is the cultural processes embedded within the snitching discourse. Codes

against snitching are not recent phenomenon. Indeed, subcultural codes against compliance with

police investigations and crime reporting have a long history across various social settings.

Within policing circles, the ‘blue code of silence’ has been used to describe commonly held

norms embedded within the police subculture against reporting fellow officers for misconduct or

complying with investigations into police corruption (Skolnick, 2002). The concept omertà, a

code of secrecy that requires the members to eschew any involvement of law enforcement in

their affairs and to seek redress for all grievances through extra-legal mechanisms, famously

binds the Sicilian and American Italian mafias (Catino, 2015). However, public attention and

criminological scholarship focus on the relationship between police and young men of colour

who reside in socially and economically marginalized communities.

Beginning in the late 1990s, codes against compliance with the police among Black urban

neighbourhoods started to gain national attention, first through hip-hop lyrics and then through

the 2004 release of the ‘Stop Snitching’ documentary film, a direct-to-DVD offering initially

released on the streets of Baltimore, Maryland (Natapoff, 2009). To date, discussions of codes

against snitching remain a central facet of hip-hop music. In 2015, popular Canadian hip-hop

artist Drake released the popular song ‘No Tellin’, featuring the lyrics, ‘Yeah, police comin’

‘round lookin’ for some help on a case they gotta solve, we never help ‘em’ (Graham et al,

2015). While lyrics of this nature are not necessarily reflective of actual behaviours, they

represent a sort of lyrical expression of the street codes that govern daily life among residents of

inner-city communities (Kubrin, 2005).

Many interviewees discussed anti-snitching codes, including references to their continued

cultural relevance within their communities and the influence of popular culture on shaping the

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contours of these codes. In this regard, many young people described how anti-snitching codes

are transmitted socially, both through interactions between friends and by intergenerational

transmission from older siblings and parents. Similarly, popular culture, including underground

hip-hop artists and social media, played an important role. In the following excerpt, Abdi, a 17-

year old young man, discussed the central role that he believed ‘snitch culture’ has played in the

reluctance of many young people to cooperate with the police:

Yeah, and that’s like from snitch culture, it’s quite hot.

Interviewer: How did you hear about snitching or snitch culture?

Like I grew up in it, to be honest.

Interviewer: Is that a common thing in the neighbourhood?

Yeah, it’s a common thing like through the whole of North America, to be

honest.

Interviewer: Aside from the neighbourhood, do you see it in other ways? Do you

see it in music or in videos on YouTube or social media?

Yeah, like, like in trap music15. Like from the South Side [Chicago] they talk

about like being a snitch. It's not good like everywhere you go… Not like all of

it no like we have our own music now but like that’s where it started from still.

When asked about where she heard about codes against snitching, Tricia, a 16-year old young

woman, provided a similar account:

Interviewer: Is this something you heard about from friends, or how did you

come to know about this?

15 Trap music is a subgenre of hip-hop that emerged in the 1990s in the southern United States. The name makes

reference to a ‘trap house’, a location where illegal drugs are both made and sold (Kaluža, 2018). Since its inception,

trap music has gained international popularity and spawned several regional styles. In this passage, Abdi is referring

to a regional style of trap music known as ‘drill’ music, which emerged in the early 2010s in Chicago’s South Side.

Drill music is well-known for its ‘underground’ nature and close associations with violent street gangs. In particular,

drill music artists are known for their prolific use of social media to both taunt rivals and assert their own dominance

(Stuart, 2020).

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Just like, it’s something you know growing up here. But also like in the music

like mostly rap songs and stuff and on social media you see rappers talking

about it.

As Kubrin (2005) argues, “[t]he street code and rap music lyrics do not compel one to act, but

they do provide an accountability structure or interpretive resources that people can draw upon to

understand violent identity and conduct” (p. 366). In this regard, Abdi and Tricia’s accounts

speak to an important theme in the data, namely the powerful role that music and social media

have played for many young people in transmitting both the norms against snitching and the

consequences of this behaviour.

Along with the influence of music, many young people described the role of anti-

snitching narratives shared by friends and family members. The salience of these narratives came

up in my conversation with Hani, a 19-year old woman. In this excerpt, Hani and I discuss a

hypothetical situation where she has witnessed an armed robbery of a local convenience store.

Despite being assured the robbers did not identify her, Hani remained reluctant to cooperate with

any investigation of the crime. When asked why she replied:

Why not? Well, only because like, I dunno, it almost tells me like if there were

to like, don't ever like be seen helping the police because something bad happens

afterwards? Like, I don’t know, things happen to people who help the police

like, I don't know, like, I don't know. I guess just stories that I have been told

like it ruins your life.

Interviewer: How so? Or like what kind of things have you heard?

Like, about being a snitch, basically.

Denise, a 19-year old woman, would share similar concerns. In discussing the aforementioned

hypothetical situation, Denise shared her willingness to call the police, but also that she would be

then unwilling to provide testimony in a courtroom setting as she feared for her safety:

Um, I just don't think it's my place to have, you know, I don't know. I just feel

it's not my place to have an opinion on what happens to someone's life they got.

Interviewer: Do you think that negative things could happen to you if somebody

found out that you testified?

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Yeah.

Interviewer: What would you be worried about being considered a snitch, for instance?

Yeah, I think you would get killed for something like that.

When asked whether her concerns were related to codes against snitching in her community,

Denise referenced those concerns, but also that she was not “raised” to do this:

It's a real thing. Yeah. It's a real thing. But like me, myself and other people and

like I guess in our community we weren't raised like that. We weren’t raised to,

you know, go tell on someone when they did something.

Interviewer: Yeah, how so?

Just like, we weren’t raised like that. I would never think about testifying on

people ever… Even my parents would say to say all my friends say the same

thing. My parents told me the same thing… Aunts and uncles, friends like their

mothers and fathers, they say the same thing. Like everyone in the community

knows. Yeah, just don't cooperate.

As Denise describes, her reluctance to comply with the police is rooted in more instrumental

concerns over police efficacy, the threat of violent reprisals, and shared conduct norms found in

her community. As such, this account speaks to the salience of socially transmitted local conduct

norms, both between family members and among young people in the broader community, a

finding consistent with prior research in the U.S. (Brunson and Weitzer, 2011). As Kirk and

Papachristos (2011) note, legal cynicism, while based on individual experiences with and

attitudes towards law enforcement, is made cultural through a process of social transmission

within communities. In this regard, communities come to develop a shared understanding of both

“the behavior of the law and the viability of the law to ensure their safety” (p. 1201). For many

young people, prohibitions against snitching were both intergenerationally transmitted and

reified through daily patterns of social interactions. In the following section, the concept of

snitching will be further explored, including how young people apply these norms in their daily

lives.

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Defining What Constitutes Snitching and Who Is a Snitch

Within Black urban neighbourhoods, snitching has emerged as a subcultural norm developed in

response to concentrated structural disadvantage, diminished collective efficacy, and persistent

distrust of the police. As a subcultural norm, attitudes towards snitching are learned through

direct and vicarious experiences with threats and assaults against witnesses and a broader process

of socialization to community-level norms (Woldoff & Weiss, 2010, p. 202). As such, the snitch

label extends beyond those involved in street crime to residents of the wider community.

As discussed, definitions of snitching are complex and often vary based on situational,

biographical, and neighbourhood-level factors. Among study participants, Black youth expressed

a widespread and pervasive distrust of the police and an unwillingness to report crimes and

provide substantial assistance with police investigations. These experiences, however, did not

equate to a consensus as to what constituted snitching or who was considered a snitch. Further,

while definitions of snitching varied along many key dimensions, there was a remarkable degree

of consistency in the core precept of snitching involving the provision of information to the

police. This consistency is evidenced across Black youths of different ages and genders and

between youth from various neighbourhoods with differing levels of prior involvement with the

criminal justice system. To this end, and all but one Black respondent expressed knowledge of

this central precept of normative anti-snitching codes. In short, while anti-snitching norms were

both widespread and relatively consistent, determining what constitutes snitching and when

someone is a snitch both differed depending on several contextual factors.

Being seen speaking with the police in and of itself did not necessarily entail snitching.

Neither did contacting the police for service or even providing information related to an

investigation. For many young people, there was a clear distinction made between the actions of

a known criminal as opposed to a bystander or ‘civilian’ when making judgments about

snitching. I asked Tracy, a 17-year old young woman, whether a bystander would be considered

a snitch. In her reply, she notes that this was dependent on the relationships between those

involved:

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Interviewer: For a snitch, if you’re not involved with situations and you see a

crime and call the police, or you cooperate with them trying to investigate, does

that make you a snitch?

It depends, do you know them, or do you not know them?

Interviewer: If I do know them?

Yeah, you’re a snitch.

Interviewer: And if I don’t?

Yeah, you are because you’re bringing cops here. You’re bringing heat.

The block’s hot.

However, when asked whether being seen merely speaking with the police constituted snitching,

Tracy did not believe this to be the case:

Interviewer: So, if the cops come around asking questions, do people have to for

sure not be seen talking to them [the police]? If you see someone talking to them

do you assume they may be snitching?

No. Like I can’t just say, oh, you’re a snitch because you’re talking to cops.

Cops may just tap you on the shoulder and ask you, ‘what happened here? Do

you know anything?’ and you’re just responding to their question and answering

it.

Interviewer: Okay, so that’s fine, but if you see them doing more than that it’s a problem?

Yeah.

Here, Tracy’s remarks suggest that judgments related to snitching also considered the relevance

of the information provided to the police and whether that information was pertinent to a known

crime. In another conversation, Abdi shared a similar perspective. In his account, Abdi described

that, while being seen having a conversation with the police was acceptable, this did not extend

to volunteering information on crimes that did not involve the person providing information:

No, I'm just like talking to police, like having a conversation normally that’s fine

it’s just like when you’re seen talking about situations or like giving information

when it doesn’t involve you that’s it, that’s when you’re seen as a snitch.

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I asked Chris, a 24-year old man, what he thought it meant to be a snitch, to which replied, “if

you enter that game, you enter that life, and you give up information on someone else you’re a

snitch”. Conversely, when asked whether a civilian who contacted the police or cooperated with

a police investigation was considered a snitch, Chris was adamant that this was not the case:

I don’t think so, man. I think people like… there’s streets and then there is

civilians. If someone can stomach that and can’t come from that and wants to

tell, you know, maybe you should have been moving a little smarter. And with

civilians you can put pressure on them too but don’t think they’re a snitch,

they’re not a rat, you’re a rat when you’re involved and you start telling because

you get caught.

When asked whether a victim seen reporting a crime was viewed a snitch, Chris again

argued that this was not snitching:

Nah, if you’re walking down the road and you’re a random person and you get

robbed that’s different too. But like if you’re a high school kid a lot of kids in

high school just swallow it because they gotta see that nigga everyday in high

school, you know? They gotta protect themselves, but that doesn’t make them a

snitch.

Clayton, a 27-year old man, would share a similar perspective:

Like if you’re in the ghetto and you’re like a civilian that has nothing to do with

you.

Interviewer: So, a bystander who’s not involved at all can’t be a snitch?

Yeah, at least that’s how I see it. But like if you’re involved in situations

[crime], and you go telling, that’s what like they call snitching.

Chris and Clayton’s remarks suggest that civilians may be exempt from the label of

snitch. These comments also appeal to distinction related to blameworthiness and guilt

rooted in conceptions of involvement with crime, with known criminals not benefiting

from a ‘civilian pass’ extended to others. However, as Chris’s comment alludes to,

civilians may still be subject to witness intimidation from persons seeking to prevent

them from complying with police investigations. In contrast, for many interviewees, and

in particular younger persons, prohibitions against snitching extended to the community

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as a whole, regardless of known or suspected involvement with crime. I asked Malik, a

17-year old young man, whether just being seen talking with police placed someone in

danger:

Yeah. Well, at least like I feel like it doesn't matter. Even if you’re gang-

involved or not gang-involved, just like being, talking to police, being seen with

the police on a regular basis or on a certain type of basis. People watch that,

they're going to see that, and they'll be like, yeah, this guy… let's do something

about him.

Darius, a 19-year old man, would share similar concerns. In his view, not only was anyone

potentially subject to the snitch label, but the severity of the crime was immaterial:

Interviewer: Does it matter what the crime is, like a robbery versus a murder or

is it all the same?

It’s all the same.

Notably, while the core precepts of snitching remained relatively consistent, more nuanced

understandings were expressed by young people with more extensive prior histories of

involvement with the criminal justice system and by older interviewees. For many in these

groups, assessments of prohibitions against snitching were not uniform. Instead, youth made

judgements on a case-by-case basis, taking into account various situational and individual-level

factors. In particular, exemptions for civilians were made often, either as witnesses to a crime or

as victims themselves. If anything, as Chris identified, those who committed the crime faced a

reverse onus for being caught. This reverse onus represents a possible extension of the concept of

being ‘caught slippin’ or ‘caught out’. To this end, to be ‘caught slippin’ denoted a situation

whereby blame falls to the person found in a vulnerable position for being unprepared, a concept

discussed by many interviewees. As Bernardi (2018) notes, being ‘caught slippin’ differs from

other forms of judgment within the street code as “culpability and blame in response to

victimization is imposed from the outside” (p. 125). Persons ‘caught slippin’ typically are found

in situations where they are vulnerable to victimization. However, persons who did not take

sufficient precautions to have their actions go undetected or otherwise unobserved, either by a

civilian or by the police, have been ‘caught slippin’. In this regard, an arrest caused by a civilian

85

or bystander providing information to the police would not necessarily reflect negatively on that

person for providing information but rather on the perpetrators of the crime.

Finally, an important distinction was made by many between being seen talking with

police and the act of snitching, as Malik would go on to describe:

People are just scared of what's gonna happen cause everyone, the walls have

ears. Literally every, everyone says the walls have ears. Like that's what the

motto in our building is. The walls have ears. So, no matter how thick your wall

is, no matter what everyone, everything's going to be heard. Everything's going

to go around. It's no secrets.

Here, Malik speaks to a central theme in the data: despite the best efforts of many young people,

frequent and unpleasant interactions with the police were a facet of daily life. Further, residents

shared knowledge of these interactions quickly with the broader community. In this regard, the

ability of the police to keep suspected snitches safe was seriously doubted by many. This finding

was particularly interesting as it seemingly acknowledges the almost omnipresent nature of

police surveillance faced by many racialized youths, including involuntary police-citizen

contacts and field interrogations (Brunson & Miller, 2006; Hayle et al., 2016; Wortley & Owusu-

Bempah, 2011). By this standard, it would be functionally impossible for many young people to

avoid interacting with the police while attempting to navigate public life and for those

interactions to go unnoticed. To this end, while some respondents described being willing to

comply with the police if they were guaranteed their anonymity, many others felt that this would

be impossible, given the nature of social life in their community.

Experiences with the Police

The Black youth in my study almost exclusively resided in communities that have been the focus

of aggressive, order-maintenance policing tactics. As a result, direct and indirect experiences

with the police were commonplace among study participants, their friends, and their families.

These experiences often included daily surveillance by the police, verbal harassment, field

interrogations and ‘carding’ interactions, searches, and even incidents of police brutality. As

Jones (2014) describes, for Black youth living in disadvantaged communities, frequent and

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unpleasant encounters with the police are part of the “regular routine” (p. 34). To safely navigate

these encounters, young people draw on a ‘tool kit’ of intergenerationally transmitted conduct

norms meant to reduce the chance of a negative outcome when dealing with the police (Brunson

& Weitzer, 2011). These norms include measures intended to avoid coming into contact with the

police, refraining from areas known to be under police surveillance, avoiding associating

delinquent peers, avoiding volunteering information to the police, and showing respect and

deference when interacting with officers.

In a similar finding, Stuart (2016) describes the collateral consequences of street-level

criminalization and the development of an alternative cultural frame that he terms as ‘cop

wisdom’. Through ‘cop wisdom’, residents are able “to render seemingly-random police activity

more legible, predictable, and manipulable” (p. 280). In practice, Stuart describes how

individuals draw on ‘cop wisdom’ to manage the threat posed by heightened police scrutiny and

avoid involuntary police contacts. To accomplish these goals, persons engage in “creative and

circumspect tactics for evading, deflecting, and subverting criminal justice interventions” (p.

280), including avoiding furtive or suspicious movements in the presence of the police and

restricting when and where they travelled through public spaces. In considering the

generalizability of these norms, Stuart points to their salience across marginalized and

criminalized communities, both in the United States and abroad. To this end, discussions of

similar conduct norms proved to be a central theme in my conversations with Black youths.

The importance of behaviours meant to manage the dangers associated with police

contacts was a central theme in the data. Almost all Black youth respondents described either

having direct or vicarious knowledge of strategies meant to end interactions with the police as

safely as quickly as possible. In the following excerpt, Demarcus, a 21-year old man, who

described having extensive prior contacts with the police, including self-reporting being stopped

and questioned at least 50 times in his life, shares an example of these conduct norms. When

asked to describe his most recent interaction with the police, Demarcus shared how he had been

pulled over while driving in his neighbourhood in what he describes as an unwarranted stop. As

we talked, I asked Demarcus how this particular encounter ended, to which he replied, “you say

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what you gotta say, and you keep it moving”. In deferring to the dictates of officers, Demarcus

seeks to end this encounter with the police as quickly and as safely as possible. These tactics,

which were similarly expressed in different forms by many young people I spoke with, are

intended to manage the dangers posed by the police, including the risk of a potentially violent

confrontation. The salience of these norms is a product of the ongoing cycle of direct and

vicarious negative experiences with the police. These experiences have contributed to a climate

of distrust and unwillingness to comply with police requests for information or report crimes.

Consequently, when youth see the police as illegitimate or uncaring, the decision to involve them

becomes less appealing than other methods of recourse, thus increasing the likelihood of

resorting to extra-legal forms of dispute resolution while further solidifying the salience of anti-

snitching codes.

‘Keep You Safe’

For many young people I spoke with, while aggressive policing had contributed to short-term

decreases in crime, the longer-term trend saw an increase in seemingly indiscriminate violence

emanating from more youthful residents. To this end, many youths expressed that the police

could not or would not keep them safe from these new threats. Thus, the police's perceived

effectiveness in solving crimes forms a critical element of the rational calculus that young people

engage in when deciding whether to report crimes to the police. In this regard, the perceived

ineffectiveness on the part of the police comprises another dimension of legal cynicism

(Anderson, 1999; Carr et al., 2007; Corsaro et al., 2015; Hagan et al., 2018; Hitchens et al., 2018;

Kirk & Papachristos, 2011; Kubrin & Weitzer, 2003). In the following account, Fawzia, a 26-

year old woman, describes her experience when calling the police to report that her mother’s car

had been vandalized, and the resultant impact on her willingness to report a crime:

But why would I call them when there's a situation? One of the little kids threw

something in my mom's car window. Our old car broke, and then afterwards,

whatever, what we call the cops, they took forever to come and obviously, they

had levels to the emergency whenever they came. They're just like, oh just

mischief stuff da da da. We have nothing we can do for you, just call insurance.

So, they don't take it seriously… But if, yeah, so it's like, okay, so you don't

want to come for this stuff and at least treat me decently and talk to me

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respectfully. Then why would I call you if I saw a shooting? So, don't ask me for

my help that’s something serious where I'm putting my life on the line and you

can't respect me with the little car? You gotta be respectful on all levels. Period.

You want trust then you need to show it and give it in all areas. Your response

has to get better.

Fawzia’s comments highlight the vital relationship between treatment deemed to be procedurally

just during the seemingly minor and routine police practices that characterize daily life and the

willingness of residents to report more severe forms of crime or comply with investigations into

those types of offences. For Fawzia, the threat of violence associated with being seen as a snitch

heightens this tension, thus diminishing her likelihood of complying with the police.

Among study participants, negative experiences with police-citizen contacts were much

more common than positive experiences. Negative experiences often related to calls for service,

police-initiated contacts, and vicarious experiences with police misconduct. Conversely, positive

experiences were often associated with police-led community relations initiatives designed to

engender a positive response, including outreach programs, school liaison officer programs, and

interactions with officers outside of their duties, such as coaching a sports team. Further, when

asked whether police made them feel safe, almost all Black youth expressed that the police could

not – or would not – protect them from harm. In my conversation with Hani, she described why

she believed many people in her community were unwilling to cooperate with police

investigations:

Because no one ever wants to like get involved. I guess like it will come back to

you like I don’t know. Like, say you are seen talking to police or if you even like

testify in court and people recognize your face and then they like see you later

on in life, then what, you know?

Interviewer: So, do you think the police could protect you from criminals if you

reported a crime?

I don’t think so, no.

Interviewer: Can’t, or won't?

I don’t know about like, won’t, but like what are they going to do? Like, watch

you for the rest of your life?

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For many young people, the perception that the police would be unable to ensure their safety

constituted a significant barrier to reporting crimes or complying with police investigations. As I

spoke with Tracy, she described how in a situation where someone’s life was in danger, such as a

shooting, she would call for an ambulance, but not the police. I asked Tracy whether she

believed the police could keep her safe if she reported a serious violent crime, to which she

replied:

Honestly, no, and it’s not because they can’t it’s because they just don’t care.

Interviewer: Why not like why don’t they care?

Because it’s just like Black boys shooting each other and getting killed, and that’s not

really who they’re out here for.

Roger, a 26-year old man, would describe similar reservations:

I’m not saying anything cause my fear is if somebody sees you talking to the

cops, they’re gonna say, “Oh this guy is snitching.” They’re gonna come after

you. Cause remember, this is your community, this is your neighbourhood. Once

the police officer leave, you gotta deal with all these sets of people.

In a later discussion, Michael, an 18-year old man, would echo Tracy and Roger’s comments. I

asked Michael whether he trusted the police and whether he had confidence in them to keep him

safe:

No.

Interviewer: Why not?

Because I think they’re not like my family or nothing, and I know they’re not

out here for the community, so there’s no point in trusting them. Like I know

they’re not looking out of me. They’re looking out for people but not me, and

sometimes they do some crazy things.

The above accounts reflect a deeply held cynicism shared by many Black youths, both of the

motives of the police and their priorities. For young people who reside in communities

characterized by aggressive, order-maintenance policing strategies, the police's increased

presence has not equated to increased feelings of safety. Kiyana, a 16-year old young woman,

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described her frustration with the police presence's seemingly dual nature in her community. I

asked her why she believed persons would be reluctant to report crimes or provide information to

the police:

Because you have like, police around constantly when you’re just minding your

own business, but when you need them or like someone needs help then it’s like

they’re never around or it takes them forever to show up.

Kiyana’s comments speak to a commonly held conception among young people who resided in

marginalized communities. While their community was ‘over-policed’ when it came to the daily

routine of police surveillance and harassment, it was simultaneously ‘under policed’ when it

came to calls for service. Consequently, experiences of under-policing weighed heavily when

ultimately deciding whether to report crimes to the police or otherwise assist with police

investigations. In turn, Kiyana described a preference for informal methods of dispute resolution,

consistent with the code:

Interviewer: So, you have a lot of police in the neighbourhood pressing up on

people and asking questions, but when you call the police they’re not around for

help. How does that make you feel?

I don’t feel no kinda way about it because I can protect myself, and people can

protect me, but what about the little kids? They have nobody.

Similarly, Jada, a 20-year old woman, described the assault of a close friend and the resultant

conflict she and her friend faced when deciding whether to call the police. Jada’s friend, a young

woman, had been assaulted and beaten by a group of six to seven young men from a known rival

community. However, in being seen to involve the police, Jada and her friend risked being

considered snitches in their neighbourhood and the rival community:

Yeah. I wasn’t known as a snitch because they didn’t know I asked her to call

them, but I feel like I would have been known too if they knew I wanted to call

them. She would have because it’s like, ‘why you gonna call the police, let’s just

go do something back’.

Interviewer: So, would you be considered a snitch in both your neighbourhood

and the rival area?

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Yeah, both.

Interviewer: So, you mentioned about in your own area just doing something back?

Yeah, it’s like, come bring it back to the guys, and we’ll deal with it.

Interviewer: Does that go for any crime or any issue?

That’s for everything. Nothing is too serious.

With that in mind, I asked Jada how her friends and persons in her social network may choose to

respond to victimization without involving the police:

Interviewer: So how do people solve problems if they don’t go to the police?

That’s where the rivalry comes in. They would do something about it. You

wanna rob one of our people? We’re gonna rob one of your people.

As Jada describes, there is no offence so severe for her and her friends that it would merit

involving the police. However, in choosing to invoke extra-legal means of retribution, young

people are potentially intensifying existing conflicts. In turn, acts of retaliatory violence have the

potential to contribute to the very climate that has, in part, precipitated aggressive, order-

maintenance policing strategies and diminished perceptions of both the police and community

safety. However, while Jada’s comments reflected the views of many study participants, not all

interviewees shared her explicit rejection of police involvement. For example, others described

the importance of considering specific aggravating and mitigating factors when electing to

contact the police or judging the actions of others who do. Central to these considerations were

the age and gender of both victims and complainants.

Age

Age factored prominently in definitions of who would be considered a snitch. As Roger

describes, codes against snitching were, in his view, are concentrated primarily among young

people to young adults:

I feel that the no-snitching code is predominantly within the youth to young

adult age range. Like I’m going to say between the ages of 10-maybe 43 to 45,

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you don’t [snitch]. It’s not talked about. Don’t get involved. You know about it,

don’t talk about it. If someone asks you, say, “I don’t know.” Don’t get

involved.

When asked why he did not consider older people cooperating with the police as snitching,

Roger attributed this to their status within the community and aged out of neighbourhood street

codes. Further, the motives of older residents were less likely to be in question:

I feel like it’s permitted because they are considered the senior citizens, and they

have seen things and done things, and I feel like at that point, most of them in

that older generation, they don’t care. They don’t side with the rules, with the

street codes. Even though they’ve been in that environment for years and years

on end, they don’t care. If an officer comes to them and they say, “This is what I

saw. I don’t know who was involved.” They will keep it to the book.

Similarly, Sagal, a 17-year old young woman, described codes against snitching as being

primarily concentrated among younger residents, with more mature individuals being more likely

to cooperate with the police:

That’s the little like 14-year olds. But if you act like a mature person, hey, this

happened in your neighbourhood, I really wanna figure it out. Do you have any

information? Can you help me? And if they're mentally mature, they'll help you.

Sagal would also share that, in her view, concerns over potential retaliation are of greater risk to

younger residents. In similar account, Elaine, a 19-year old woman, described witnessing a

friend robbed at gunpoint outside of a party. Despite the seriousness of the offence, Elaine and

her friend elected not to call the police. When asked why, she was quick to reply, “just like,

people aren’t doing that, especially the younger youth, you can’t be seen as snitching”. Reduced

culpability for snitching among older residents is not a surprising finding in and of itself and is

consistent with results from similarly situated studies (Clampet-Lundquist et al., 2015).

Young people, particularly those who reside in economically marginalized communities,

have a limited ability to own property and thus must occupy public spaces to a higher degree

than adults (Childress, 2004; Skelton & Valentine, 1998). As such, the defensive role the code of

the street plays as young people try to navigate public life safely takes on additional significance.

Further, the relationship between age and crime is a well-establish mainstay of criminological

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scholarship, with patterns of offending peaking in adolescence (Farrington, 1986; Hirschi &

Gottfredson, 1983; Steffensmeier et al., 1989). As Roger contends in his account, older residents

are accorded a measure of deference based on their lived-experiences. Further, he also suggests

that, while older residents may be familiar with the code, they have since ‘aged out’ of adherence

to its tenets, which supports the perspective that events later in the life-course may contribute to

desistance from street code beliefs (Forrest & Hay, 2011; Laub & Sampson, 2009).

Gender

Several interviewees identified gender as influencing conceptions of snitching. Given the

centrality of masculinity in the code of the street, it was not surprising to encounter gendered

exemptions to anti-snitching codes. Again, this finding was consistent with other similarly

situated studies (Clampet-Lundquist et al., 2015; Huey & Quirouette, 2010). However, young

women more frequently discussed gendered exemptions, while young men rarely discussed

them. For example, the topic of gendered exemptions came up in my conversation with Trina, a

19-year old woman. As we spoke, Trina described how, for young people in her neighbourhood,

being seen as a snitch served to engender the risk of both reputational and physical harm.

However, she also shared that she would be willing to contact the police if she witnessed a

robbery despite acknowledging the risks. When I asked Trina why she would be willing to do so,

she replied that, in her experience, the risks were different for women:

Like, no one is going to like come back on a female. Like, they might try to get

another girl to fight you, but none of these boys are going to lay hands on a

female they think they’re a snitch or that they’re snitching.

Here Trina acknowledges that, while young women also faced the risk of social stigmatization

associated with being a snitch, they potentially did not face the same risk of violent reprisals

from young men in the neighbourhood. However, Trina also introduces a potential tactic by

which young men might navigate street codes against excessive male-on-female violence

through enlisting a young woman as a proxy to retaliate for them.

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In a later conversation with Kiyana, she also raised the previously discussed recent assault of

Jada’s friend. This assault had generated considerable discussion among some interviewees as a

notable exemption to codes against snitching. As discussed, Kiyana professed to be unwilling to

involve the police in her affairs, instead indicating a preference for private dispute resolution

mechanisms consistent with the code. However, when if asked norms against snitching extended

equally to women, she would cite the assault the assault on Jada’s friend as an exception:

Interviewer: So how about for women, is it [snitching] seen differently?

I mean, if you got a male putting his hands on a female, that’s different. Like,

there was this female that got beaten up recently but a group of boys and like

yeah, then go call the police and do your thing.

Interviewer: So, that happens and it’s a young woman beaten up by males. How

is that seen differently?

That’s crazy like… just because she like identifies herself as a female or

whatever but like…. You shouldn’t… putting your hands on a girl, that’s some

weak shit. You can’t do that like even if she put her hands on you. If she spits on

you that’s different you should hug that.

However, Kiyana would qualify this comment by specifying that, if the victim were involved in

gang-life, regardless of their gender, they should not call the police and instead seek a resolution

through the gang:

Interviewer: In a situation like that, would it be okay if the person who got attacked

called the police?

Nah ‘cause that just makes you look weird. Like, if you gangbang and you

gangbang hard, you shouldn’t call police. Period. You know what to do.

Within socially and economically disadvantaged communities, men have come to dominate

street life. In particular, conceptions of the street code have highlighted toughness, aggression,

and the domination of women as means of both constructing an identity and attaining respect

(Anderson, 1999; Bourgois, 2002). When someone challenges a young man’s respect, he is

expected to respond in a gendered manner, often through the use of violence (Mullins, 2006).

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Conversely, young men often reject male perpetrated violence against women, seeing it both as

unnecessary and a potential threat to the masculinity of those involved (Mullins et al., 2004).

Violence against women may constitute a circumstance where males may view reporting

victimization to the police as acceptable, which Huey and Quirouette (2010) describe as the

‘chivalry exception’ (p. 287). However, a man being physically violent against women may be

accepted if the woman involved has violated conventional gender norms (Mullins et al., 2004).

In this regard, women participating in street life are equally subject to the code of the street and

its tenets. Indeed, as more recent scholarship shows, many young women in inner-city

communities are subject to similar forms of violence as their male counterparts and thus are not

protected by ‘chivalrous’ attitudes (Jones, 2008). Finally, the involvement of young women in

gangs is more extensive than previously thought. Far from operating in a supportive or

subordinate role, women engage in the same types of legal and illegal activities as their male

counterparts, with their own reasons for involvement in gang life (Esbensen et al., 1999;

Esbensen & Winfree, 1998; Miller, 2000). As such, it stands to reason that they may share

similar anti-snitching norms as their male counterparts and thus face similar threats of reprisal, a

finding to which Kiyana’s account gives credence.

Offence Seriousness and Degree of Harm

As discussed, many young people expressed a lack of confidence in the ability and willingness of

the police to keep them safe from the potential harms associated with snitching. However,

several participants identified specific situational exemptions to prohibitions against snitching. In

particular, as the following accounts describe, situations involving life-threatening physical

injury warranted involving the police:

Jerome (22-year old man): Yeah. I mean I don’t really agree with [snitching].

Like if it’s real serious and I know someone or like I see the murder or

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something like that I would probably call 222-TIPS16 , but I’m not sure about

that going directly to the police officer. I’m not trying to like get caught up in

that publicly because there’s like possible repercussions for me. But I don’t

really agree with it, like messing with someone who’s maybe trying to help. At

the same time, if it’s none of your business, then don’t get involved.

Malik: You know, I don't do it. And maybe if, if you've seen someone get

murdered, that's the only time I think you should've called the police. Other than

that, if it's an argument, if it this dispute, anything like that, police to me are just

gonna make the situation worse.

Trevor (16-year old young man): Anyone could be a snitch, but like if you’re

calling because like you’re hurt, or someone was shot, and they’re like bleeding out

or whatever, that’s not snitching, but if no one was hurt and it’s nothing to do with

you then just mind your own business.

Similarly, Tamara, an 18-year old woman, described being reluctant ever to call the police.

However, in the event someone was seriously injured, she would call other first responders:

I mean, if someone was hurt, I would call the ambulance still. But like, if

someone was robbed or something like that, that’s not my problem.

In my conversation with Denise, she described witnessing a shooting and her reaction. I began

by asking Denise whether she had called the police:

Yeah.

Interviewer: Did you wait for them to come?

No, cause I had to leave. No, but it was a situation where it was like it was a

shooting, and then what's it called? I was already late leaving. And then I called

them. I told them that's the area, but I don't want to get involved.

Interviewer: Somebody who was injured that you knew of?

No, it wasn't like, you know, it was just like he got shot in the foot or something.

So, whatever. I said that's what happened. The person people are there. So, they

16 222-TIPS is a phone service operated by the Toronto Police Service where callers can provide anonymous

information about known or suspected criminal activity.

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told me, you know, I just called them. I said, this is what this person looks like,

he’s alive, the alleged injury, whatever. Okay? Yeah, I'm leaving.

Interviewer: So, say you didn't have to leave. Would you want to hang around

and talk to them when they arrived?

Okay. But the thing is, in that situation now, if it was a situation where

somebody got shot or killed, I'm a witness.

Denise’s concern speaks to a related issue discussed by several participants. While the harms

associated with severe forms of violence like a shooting necessitated a potential exemption to

codes against snitching, doing so also exposed them to potentially more severe forms of

retaliation. As Denise would go on to describe:

I guess, you know, like fear for your safety. I guess people fear for your safety

and tell you don’t testify. Especially for like a murder case cause that's like all

we ever get like murder cases. Um, if you testify in one of those, somebody will

come after you. Definitely, I think.

Interviewer: So, could the police keep you safe if you reported a crime or helped them

out?

No. No way. Definitely not.

Tracy also discussed the threat of retaliation associated with reporting a shooting. As we spoke,

Tracy shared that she doubted both the intentions of the police in the community and their ability

to protect her should she choose to report a crime. However, while she described being unwilling

to call the police for a robbery or a fight, she expressed her willingness to call an ambulance in

the event of a shooting. As she describes, “Yeah, like I don’t want to see them die or nothing but

like I would call an ambulance I wouldn’t call the police”. When I asked Tracy why she would

be reluctant to contact the police, she replied:

Because it’s not my place. Like it’s different if someone is getting shot but if it’s

something to do with the cops. I just stay out of it because it can put me in

danger later on.

Interviewer: What kind of danger can that put you in?

Nobody takes snitching lightly.

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Discussions of the risks related to snitching were widespread and included the concerns related

to a loss of social status, social alienation, and violent reprisals. Further, young people with

varying degrees of involvement with crime and deviance and differing prior experiences with the

police widely shared these concerns. In particular, the threat of retaliatory sanctions associated

with being seen as a snitch was a central factor in deciding whether to report a crime or comply

with police investigations. However, despite very few interviewees having direct or even

vicarious knowledge of persons being subject to retaliatory violence, the cultural script of

‘snitches get snitches’ was continually cited as a possible and likely outcome of being seen

cooperating with the police.

Further, while some young people described concerns over retaliation as primarily related

to gang members and known criminals, many more would express this concern as extending the

wider community. Renee, a 22-year old woman who had more extensive prior involvement with

street crime and a history of arrests, shared this concern.:

Snitches get stitches. It’s real. Like, not in all situations like, oh you snitched on

me or whatever, but like if you do that, then you’re on your own. Like you have

no back up, no friends, no nothing you’re just fake. But if it’s like a big situation

and people can go to jail or whatever, then snitches get stitches.

However, as discussed, while discussions of the contours of anti-snitching codes and the

associated sanctions were widespread among interviewees, none would admit to having

experienced these sanctions, either as victim or perpetrator, and very few discussed any vicarious

experiences. To this end, it is possible that discussions of codes against snitching represent a

form of boasting or reputation management, which would be consistent with the code of the

street, with young men vying for respect or ‘juice’ by cultivating a reputation for being tough or

violent (Anderson, 1999). The threat of sanctions, as opposed to actual violence, came up in my

discussion with Chris. When asked what happened to someone thought to be a snitch, he replied:

They get dealt with like they get dealt with. Sometimes they may not even get

dealt with. People try to act like they’re super on it like that, like they’re going to

off [kill] a snitch or whatever, but these guys don’t really want bodies like that.

That’s just how I feel. That’s the way I feel about it. Sometimes people know

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people who are telling, but they can just move away. They just won’t be able to

stand on their block or whatever anymore like that.

Here, Chris describes the threat of a physical sanction as being less likely than the loss of

reputation or status within the community. When asked what kinds of problems a person seen as

a snitch might experience, Tamara shared a similar perspective:

I mean, for sure people won’t fuck with you anymore. But it could be worse, like

you could get hurt.

The threat of physical retaliation against snitches, while present, is potentially reserved for more

serious transgressions involving greater legal peril to the perpetrators, if used at all. As Garot

(2009) describes, even when young men desire revenge, recognizing the resultant social damage

their actions would cause can inhibit them from acting. The more likely outcome described here

is a loss of status and reputation and the long-term risks therein.

The deterrent value of a potential loss of respect is again consistent with the code, which

contends that respect, not unlike a commodity, “is hard-won but easily lost” (Anderson, 1994).

Similarly, within inner-city communities, “[w]ord on the street travels fast, and the reputational

damage can be serious and long-lasting” (Jacobs, 2004, p. 297). In this regard, those who lack

respect are often seen as ‘weak’ and thus more likely to be the recipients of harassment and the

target of various forms of criminal victimization. Thus, while the threat of violence may

represent the most serious consequence of snitching, the reputational loss represents a more

likely, lasting, and potentially worse long-term outcome.

1.11 Discussion and Conclusion

The findings discussed in this article demonstrate both the antecedents and contours of anti-

snitching codes among young people who reside in economically and socially marginalized

communities. Knowledge of anti-snitching codes was widespread among almost all Black youth

study participants. However, far from being monolithic or all-encompassing, conceptions of

which actions constituted snitching who is considered a snitch varied based on several situational

variables, including the age and gender of those involved in the incident and the perceived

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severity of the crime. Except for situations involving severe harm, such as a shooting, or the

victimization of a woman, most young people were very reluctant, if not wholly unwilling, to

either report crimes to the police or to assist the police with their investigations. This lack of

cooperation represents a fundamental barrier to police crime prevention efforts and attempts to

improve police-community relations. To that end, the attitudes towards snitching held by many

participants both reflect and contribute to overtly negative views of police legitimacy and

efficacy.

Far from being guardians of public safety, young people often described police were as

akin to an ‘occupying army’ whose goals and priorities did not reflect those of the community.

While many young people described a climate of escalating violence in their communities, in

their view, the priorities of the police are focused seemingly on minor crimes. Further, among the

Black youth I spoke with, police interactions were frequent and unpleasant, including being

subject to aggressive stop and search tactics, harassment, and police brutality. Moreover, young

people consistently described race and not legitimate investigative purposes as motivating these

encounters. These experiences often underscored the unwillingness to report crimes to the police

or comply with investigations.

For almost all interviewees, shared norms related to snitching reflected a wider

knowledge rooted in popular culture and shared meanings derived from interactions within their

communities. Brunson and Weitzer (2011) describe both the sharing of norms between young

people and the ‘tool kit’ Black parents impart upon their children to help them safely navigate

interactions with the police, including avoiding volunteering information when stopped.

Evidence of the transmission of similar conduct norms is evident in the accounts shared by many

young people in my study. Further, while very few study participants professed direct or

vicarious knowledge of retaliation against alleged snitches, the consequences of violating these

norms were both clear and present to all involved. Interestingly, while the ubiquitous ‘snitches

get stitches’ adage was well-known, some young people would challenge the veracity of its

central claim. Indeed, it seems evident that the threat of violence did not foreshadow action, at

least in some cases. However, this finding does little to diminish the other potential harms

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associated with being seen as a snitch. As many young people noted, a known snitch faced

ostracism and a loss of vital respect. In essence, they would be ‘cast out’ of the community.

While snitching as a concept holds considerable cultural currency, including among

policing actors, in inner-city communities, and more broadly through popular culture, there is

relatively little in the way of social-science scholarship on this issue, with some notable

exceptions. To this end, my findings contribute to the relatively underdeveloped body of

scholarship examining young people's lived experiences as they relate to both the causes and

consequences of anti-snitching codes. In particular, I am unaware of any Canadian scholarship

that explicitly examines this issue. In particular, my study draws on the experiences of Black

youths from various socio-economically disadvantaged neighbourhoods across Toronto and the

GTA, including both non-criminally and criminally involved respondents. In this regard, the

relative stability and continuity of beliefs expressed by study participants speaks to the continued

salience of anti-snitching codes.

The pervasive and intergenerational nature of anti-snitching codes represents a central

concern for governments, the police, and disadvantaged communities. The Toronto Police

Service is in the midst of an ambitious ‘modernization’ plan designed to address several systemic

issues facing the service (Toronto Police Service, 2017). A core goal of this plan is to repair

historically fractious relations between the police and minoritized communities. In doing so, the

police are hoping to address the ‘root causes’ of crime through partnerships and collaboration

with communities. This effort comes against a backdrop of rising gun violence, which the police

have publicly attributed to street gangs (Gollom, 2018). However, it is this same violence that

many young people have identified the police being as ineffectual in addressing.

In short, without the willing cooperation of young people in the most affected

communities, the police have little hope of detecting (Perreault, 2015), let alone preventing many

serious crimes (Skolnick & Bayley, 1988; Wilson, 2006). It is clear that the daily realities of

policing in these communities have both reified and potentially intensified anti-snitching codes,

which constitute a barrier to cooperating with the police that many young people will not cross.

Without a sustained effort to improve both perceptions of both their legitimacy and efficacy, the

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police will continue to face chronic barriers to soliciting the information that is vital to their

mission. The discourse that anti-snitching codes alone form a barrier to this cooperation serves to

oversimplify a complex issue with systemic and structural roots.

Further scholarship is needed to understand better the extent and contours of anti-

snitching codes and their relationship to other issues in the policing scholarship, including

procedural justice, legal cynicism, and street codes. In particular, future scholarship must take

care to consider this issue broadly, not only from the perspective of the young men and women

who have been the focus of much of the policing scholarship but also from diverse constituents

in the affected neighbourhoods. Additionally, research is needed to examine anti-snitching codes

among white youths and youths from other racialized backgrounds, including youths who reside

in more socio-economically advantaged communities. Only in doing so can we hope to

understand better the extent of this issue, including the role of gender; victim-offender relations;

victim criminality; prior experiences with the police; perceptions of the wider society; socio-

economic status; media discourses; the experiences of known snitches; and how young people

both construct and apply anti-snitching discourses in their communities.

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Chapter 4 “I feel like this happens all the time”: Young People’s Lived-Experiences with Policing and Community Safety in Toronto

1.12 Abstract

Research shows that Black youth are disproportionately subject to aggressive, order-maintenance

policing tactics, including field-interrogations, searches, and use-of-force. However, while this

issue has received extensive study in the United States, comparatively less is known about the

intersections of race and policing in the Canadian context. In particular, the lived experiences of

young people with proactive policing and the resultant impacts on their perceptions of the police

remain understudied. The present study explores these issues through 44 in-depth interviews

with Black and white youths in Toronto, Ontario. Study findings highlight the overwhelmingly

negative impacts of police practices on Black youth, including frequent and unpleasant

involuntary police contacts contributing to diminished perceptions of police legitimacy and

efficacy. The data also highlights the importance of vicarious contacts in shaping perceptions of

the police, including the intergenerational transmission of conduct norms. Finally, the article

considers these findings as they relate to young people’s views for improving relations with the

police, including strategies consistent with the procedural justice framework.

1.13 Introduction

An extensive body of scholarship has examined the relationship between race, ethnicity,

neighbourhood, and perceptions of the police. These studies have included examinations of the

experiences of both young people (Brunson, 2007; Brunson & Miller, 2006; Brunson & Weitzer,

2009; Gau & Brunson, 2010; Gau & Brunson, 2015; Hayle et al., 2016; Hurst et al., 2000; Jones,

2014; Lurigio et al., 2009; Solis et al., 2009) and adults (Murphy & Worrall, 1999; Sampson &

Bartusch, 1998; Schuck et al., 2008; Schuck & Rosenbaum, 2005; Weitzer, 1999, 2000; Weitzer

et al., 2008; Weitzer & Tuch, 1999, 2005; Worrall, 1999; Wu, 2014). Young people, particularly

those who reside in economically and socially marginalized, higher-crime communities, are

more likely to experience involuntary police contacts (Brunson & Miller, 2006; Skogan, 2006).

These disparities can be attributed both to their increased reliance on activities in public spaces

to occupy their time (Childress, 2004; Skelton & Valentine, 1998) but also the disproportionate

police presence that has come to characterize many of these neighbourhoods (Bass, 2001;

Bowling & Phillips, 2007; Peterson et al., 2006; Peterson & Krivo, 2009; Sampson &

Raudenbush, 2004). While prior research has examined young people’s experiences with the

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police from various perspectives, including comparisons of adolescents and young adults from

different racial and ethnic backgrounds, much of this research has focused on the United States

(Peck, 2015). As such, there remains comparatively little in the way of Canadian scholarship on

these issues, including a pronounced lack of qualitative scholarship that considers the lived

experiences of young people (Adorjan et al., 2017; Hayle et al., 2016; O’Grady et al., 2011;

Wortley & Owusu-Bempah, 2011).

The present study contributes to this body of scholarship by examining the lived

experiences of a diverse sample of young people with police, policing, and other aspects of

public life in Toronto, Ontario. In doing so, study findings will explore how young people

perceive the nature of policing in their communities, how they safely navigate public life, and the

relationship between experiences with policing and perceptions of racial justice and structural

inequality. The paper draws on a series of in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with

young people from various communities across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) to explore these

issues. Study findings highlight racialized disparities in police tactics experienced by Black

youth, including excessive police surveillance, involuntary police contacts, search activities, and

police use-of-force. While concentrated among Black youth who resided in lower-income,

higher-crime communities with larger racialized populations, these experiences also extended to

Black youth in other geographic areas, including higher socio-economic status, lower-crime

communities. Further, both direct and vicarious experiences with police misconduct were

consistently reported by Black youth, regardless of their involvement with the criminal justice

system. Finally, while white youth reported negative experiences with the police, these were

comparatively rare. In particular, white youth who reported these experiences often resided in

racially segregated, higher-crime communities, were more heavily involved with street crime and

had Black associates or network members.

The impacts of police practices were far-reaching and included lack of trust and

confidence in the police, diminished police legitimacy, and reduced perceptions of community

safety. In exploring these issues, I have structured the paper as follows: first, I review the

literature on neighbourhoods and crime, including the ecological patterning of social inequality

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and crime rates. Following this, I review selected scholarship examining racialized disparities in

police-citizen contacts and the impacts of these experiences. Next, I discuss my theoretical

perspectives, including procedural justice, legal cynicism, and the Code of the Street. I then

describe my methodology, including the study settings, sampling, recruitment, and the interview

process. I begin the discussion of my findings by reviewing young people’s perceptions of the

police. Following this, I discuss experiences with the police shared by young people, including

harassment, unwarranted stops, physical abuse, and unnecessary use of force. I then examine the

impacts of these practices, including developing a climate of mutual hostility that has come to

characterize police-citizen relations for many young people. I close by considering the

theoretical implications of my study and young people’s recommendations for improving trust

and confidence in the police, including how these recommendations relate to current policy

issues facing the police.

My findings illustrate how accumulated direct and vicarious negative experiences with

the police have contributed to an overall climate of legal cynicism among Black youths and some

white youths from lower socio-economic backgrounds. In doing so, I highlight the nature of

police practices faced by young people from lower socio-economic backgrounds, including

significant racialized disparities in the nature and extent of contacts faced by Black youth. One of

the most consistent findings from this study was the ubiquity of unjustified and intrusive police

surveillance and involuntary police contacts faced by Black youth. This finding remained

constant, regardless of self-reported prior involvement in criminality or other factors that would

reasonably attract police suspicion. As discussed, while also experienced by similarly

disadvantaged white youths, these practices were more likely to involve young people with more

extensive prior histories of criminality. By comparison, the reporting of comparable experiences

by white youths from more affluent backgrounds was almost unheard of. My findings evidence a

high degree of consistency with the limited body of available Canadian scholarship and similarly

situated studies of the United States, thus dispelling long-standing nations of Canadian

superiority or exceptionalism regarding racial bias issues in police practices.

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1.14 Literature Review

An individual's race is a central factor in predicting perceptions of the police (Wu, 2014). To this

end, prior research has consistently found that Black people hold more negative views of the

police than white people (Brunson & Weitzer, 2009; Buckler & Unnever, 2008; Tuch & Weitzer,

1997; Weitzer, 2000; Weitzer & Tuch, 1999; Wortley & Owusu-Bempah, 2011) and other

racialized groups (Cochran & Warren, 2012; Drakulich & Crutchfield, 2013; Hagan et al., 2005;

Ong & Jenks, 2004; Sampson & Bartusch, 1998; Schuck & Rosenbaum, 2005). While a

comprehensive review of these studies is beyond the scope of this paper, a recent meta-analysis

by Peck (2015) found that, in comparison to white people, Black people, non-whites, and other

racialized minorities were more likely to hold negative perceptions and attitudes towards the

police. Further, experiences with police have an ecological context, with the racial composition

of the neighbourhood, levels of concentrated disadvantage, and neighbourhood socioeconomic

composition all influencing evaluations of police performance. To this end, Black people living

in socially and economically marginalized communities with higher crime rates are less likely

than whites living in similar conditions to hold favourable views of the police (Reisig & Parks,

2000; Schafer et al., 2003; Schuck et al., 2008; Weitzer, 1999; Wu et al., 2009). As will be

discussed, it is a combination of direct and vicarious experiences with the police and

neighbourhood context that serves to shape public perceptions of the police.

Police Contacts and Neighbourhood Context

Black men, and in particular young men, consistently report living under the almost omnipresent

gaze of the police. As Jones (2014) describes, even if they are “not a suspect,” they are “always

suspect” (p. 40). Indeed, in the eyes of the police, young Black men represent what Skolnick

(1966) terms the ‘symbolic assailant’, “whose gesture, language, and attire” is seen by police “as

a prelude to violence” (p. 43). More recently, Russell-Brown (2009) has used the expression

‘criminalblackman’ to describe the process by which Black people are criminalized in the eyes

of the police, thus rendering them suspect and seen to be deserving of additional surveillance.

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By its very nature, policing is highly discretionary, and officers rely on a host of legal and

extra-legal factors when choosing a course of action (Alpert et al., 2005). Further, patrol officers

engaged in ‘street-level’ policing routinely operate in a ‘low-visibility’ (Goldstein, 1960)

environment without any immediate oversight, thus rendering their actions difficult, if not

impossible, to scrutinize (Rowe, 2007). Unfortunately, it is these same factors that make police-

citizen contacts ripe for abuse. As Bowling and Phillips (2007, p. 938) describe:

It is important to remember that the power to stop and search is an investigative

power used for the purposes of crime detection or prevention in relation to an

individual suspected of a specific offence at a specific time. In practice

however, police officers frequently use stop and search powers for other

purposes such as ‘gaining intelligence’ on people who are ‘known’ to the

police, to break up and move on groups of people, and for the purposes of

‘social control’ more generally. Although there is no basis in law for the police

to use the power to stop and search for these purposes, the practice

is widespread.

To this end, racialized youth are disproportionately subject to involuntary police contacts, both

within their home communities and in other public settings. These disparities stem, in part, from

the increased use of proactive, order maintenance policing strategies, which have

disproportionately targeted racialized individuals and communities (Fagan & Davies, 2000; Gau

& Brunson, 2010; Geller & Fagan, 2010; Jay & Conklin, 2017). Through order maintenance

policing strategies, police are ostensibly seeking to regulate the use of public spaces by enforcing

several ‘quality of life’ offences, including disorderly conduct, public drinking, panhandling, and

other low-level offences. However, in practice, order maintenance strategies have resulted in the

increased use of aggressive police tactics, including field interrogations and searches (Brunson &

Miller, 2006; Brunson & Weitzer, 2009). At the outset, order-maintenance strategies operate on

the premise that there is a consensus between police and residents regarding the scope and nature

of disorder within the community (Gau & Brunson, 2010). However, there are often substantial

variations between these groups regarding the nature and extent of the most problematic offences

and the appropriateness of the police response. As such, conceptions of neighbourhood-level

disorder are socially patterned and reflective of implicit biases that operate irrespective of

objective indicators of disorder. In particular, minority group presence and poverty levels

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contribute to increased perceptions of disorder beyond actual neighbourhood conditions

(Sampson & Raudenbush, 2004). Further, as Gau and Brunson (2010) note, the police tactics

associated with order-maintenance strategies are often viewed by residents as being procedurally

unjust, thus negatively impacting overall police-community relations.

The enactment of order-maintenance policing tactics has a distinct ecological dimension.

Research demonstrates that police disproportionately employ these tactics in lower-income,

higher-crime communities with large, racially heterogeneous populations. In their analysis of

NYPD stop and frisk reports, Fagan and Davies (2000) show that these tactics were employed in

a racially biased manner, targeting neighbourhoods with large minority populations. Further, in

communities with comparatively small minority populations, Black people were stopped

disproportionately relative to their population representation. Geller and Fagan (2010) find

similar patterns in their examination of marijuana enforcement by the NYPD. According to their

results, between 2004 and 2008, marijuana enforcement was concentrated primarily in low-

income communities with larger racialized populations. Further, both marijuana enforcement

activities and stops more broadly were disproportionately targeted towards Black people. Lastly,

in a recent study, Laniyonu (2018) finds that the gentrification processes17 in New York City

also led to increased use of order-maintenance policing in communities that border the

gentrifying area, many of which are composed of larger Black and Latinx populations.

17 Gentrification or ‘neighbourhood revitalization’ refers to the process of displacement that occurs when

historically racialized and marginalized communities are reinvested in, often resulting higher housing costs and

more affluent and well-educated residents moving into the area. Changing demographic patterns are often reflected

in fewer racialized residents and a higher proportion of white residents (Laniyonu, 2018).

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Looking to Toronto, a growing body of scholarship suggests that neighbourhood context

is a significant determinant of police stops against Black youths. In a recent study of police stop-

and-search activities (Meng et al., 2015), the authors find that Black youths, aged 15-29, were

more likely than their white counterparts to be stopped and questioned for suspected drug, gun,

and traffic-related reasons, as well as general ‘suspicious’ activity18 (p. 128). Further, drug-

related stops against Black youths were more likely to occur in neighbourhoods characterized by

less concentrated disadvantage and a higher percentage of white residents (p. 133). In short,

Black youth thought to be ‘out of place’ by police were more likely to be deemed suspicious, a

finding consistent with prior American scholarship (Meehan & Ponder, 2002; Stults et al., 2010).

In a later study, Meng (2017) examines stops and arrests by Toronto police against youth aged

15-24, finding that these stops were ecologically patterned. Again, stops against Black youths

tended to be clustered either in areas with higher percentages of white residents or higher crime

rates. This finding again speaks to the salience of ecological factors in structuring police

discretion (p. 16).

Racialized Disparities in Police-Citizen Contacts

As discussed, an extensive body of research has demonstrated that Black, Indigenous, and Latinx

youth face elevated levels of police suspicion and are more likely than whites and other

racialized groups to be detained, interrogated, and searched by police (Piquero, 2008; Brunson,

2007; Brunson & Miller, 2006; Laniyonu, 2018; Solis et al., 2009; Terrill & Reisig, 2003; Vera

Sanchez & Adams, 2011). To date, most of this scholarship has examined the American context,

with comparatively less in the way of Canadian research. However, the available Canadian

scholarship has found evidence of similar racialized disparities.

18 Looking to the outcomes of these stops, a recent independent review by Ontario Justice Michael Tulloch (2018)

found that they were conducted overwhelmingly in situations where police failed to document any reasonable or

probable grounds that an offence had would occur. Further, the vast majority of these encounters did not result in an

arrest or the laying of charges.

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In their examination of police stop and search activities in Toronto, Wortley and Owusu-

Bempah (2011) find that Black people were over three times more likely than white people or

Asians to be subject to multiple police stops. In particular, stop and search activities were more

likely to target young Black males than any other group. Further, Black people were also three

times more likely to be searched during a stop. Importantly, these disparities are statistically

significant, even when controlling for relevant factors that should predict police stops, including

self-reported drug and alcohol use, prior criminal record, neighbourhood crime levels, and

frequency of public activities. To this end, the authors contend that Black racial background

represents a “master status” (p. 402) in attracting police suspicion and guiding the decision to

initiate a search.

In another study, Fitzgerald and Carrington (2011) examine police contacts among a

nationally representative sample of Canadian youths aged 12-17. Again, study findings show that

even when controlling for relevant variables such as self-reported delinquency, youth from

Indigenous, Black, and West/Asian backgrounds were disproportionately represented in police-

citizen contacts. Additionally, this disproportionality was the most pronounced among young

people who self-reported no involvement with violent delinquency and thus should be in the

lowest-risk category for police contact (p. 469). In their findings, the authors conclude that

differential levels of criminal involvement cannot account for racially disproportionate rates of

police contacts. Rather, racial biases in police tactics were the only means of accounting for

these disparities.

In their examination of police-initiated field-interrogation tactics or ‘carding’19 by the

Toronto Police Service (TPS), analysts from the Toronto Star found significant racialized

disproportionalities. Between 2008 and 2011, Black males were 2.5 times more likely to be

19 Carding’ or ‘street checks’ closely resemble the use of ‘Terry stops’ or ‘stop and frisk’ tactics by police in the

U.S. The TPS have practised tactics resembling carding since the late 1950s. However, their use intensified between

2003 and 2012, ultimately peaking between 2009 and 2011, when officers would generate 1.1 million carding

database entries (White, 2019). Between 2008 and 2012, Black people were three times more likely to be carded

than their representation in the population and this disparity was maintained across all TPS patrol zones.

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stopped and documented than their white counterparts. City-wide, between 2008 and 2012, 22%

of all Black males were stopped and documented, compared to 6% of white males (Rankin &

Winsa, 2012). Further, during the same period, it is suggested that, within certain communities,

all young Black male residents had been stopped and documented by the TPS (Wortley, 2013).

In her analysis of the TPS carding data, Meng (2017) finds significant disparities in

police stops against young people aged 15-24. Between 2003 and 2007, the number of stops

against Black and white youths increased sharply, growing by 93.2% and 59.5%, respectively.

By comparison, between 2008 and 2012, the city experienced a decline in stops, decreasing by

26% for Black youths and 54.7% for white youths. However, while the number of stops of both

groups declined, the overall number of stops in 2012 against Black youths still represented a

42.7% increase since 2003, while the number of stops for white youths in 2012 represented a

27.9% decrease for the same period. Further, the overall increase in the number of stops against

Black youths took place against a backdrop of overall declining crime rates in Toronto.

As the above findings suggest, Black Canadians experience similar forms of racially

biased police contacts as those documented in the United States. However, it is also vital to

consider the character of these encounters, including how young people perceive their treatment

during these stops. To this end, fair treatment during police-citizen contacts is a central

determinant of overall perceptions of both the police and the wider criminal justice system.

The Impacts of Police Stops

Judgements related to how the police treat persons are essential in shaping evaluations of police

legitimacy and compliance with the law. The procedural justice model contends that to be seen

as legitimate, the police must act in a manner that is deemed both fair and just20 (Bradford, 2014;

Sunshine & Tyler, 2003; Tyler & Fagan, 2008; Tyler, 1994; Tyler & Wakslak, 2004). When the

20 Procedural justice has been operationalized as having four key components: 1) citizen voice or dialogue in the

decision making process; 2) perceptions of neutrality; 3) treatment during the interaction was judged to be fair and

dignified; 4) belief that the person in authority’s motives were trustworthy (Mazerolle et al., 2013).

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public sees the police as legitimate, they are more likely to engage willingly in several law-

related behaviours. These behaviours include complying with police directives (Mastrofski et al.,

1996; McCluskey et al., 1999), aiding in police investigations (Cherney & Murphy, 2013; Huq et

al., 2011; Sunshine & Tyler, 2003; Tyler, 2016; Tyler & Fagan, 2008), and self-regulating law-

abiding behaviours (Murphy et al., 2008; Murphy, 2015). Importantly, evaluations of procedural

justice are separate from concerns over the outcome of the interaction. In short, when persons

view the process by which their dispute was resolved to be fair, they are more likely to accept

and abide by the outcome of that decision, even if it does not favour them (Hollander‐Blumoff &

Tyler, 2008). An extensive body of scholarship has found support for the procedural justice

model and its vital role in improving police legitimacy. To this end, the policies of police

departments across the world frequently refer to the importance of procedurally just tactics

(Mazerolle et al., 2013). However, while police departments are increasingly turning to

procedural justice principles in their policies to foster legitimacy, these goals are seemingly at

odds with the reality of police practices.

Within many Black communities, perceptions that policing tactics are both unfair and

racially biased are widespread. These beliefs are influenced by shared experiences with the

police, while also shaping expectations of future experiences (Weitzer & Tuch, 2006; Wortley &

Owusu-Bempah, 2011). As discussed, there are significant variations in the frequency and

character of police-citizen interactions between Black people, other racialized groups, and white

people. These disparities are of particular concern as some studies suggest that negative

experiences with the police are significantly more impactful than positive ones (Skogan, 2006;

Weitzer & Tuch, 2006). Further, experiences with the police are socially transmitted through

personal networks and communities, leading to many people having both direct and vicarious

knowledge of police practices (Brunson & Weitzer, 2011; Gau & Brunson, 2009; Gau &

Brunson, 2015; Weitzer & Tuch, 2006; Wortley & Owusu-Bempah, 2011). Vicarious

experiences can have an equally significant impact on perceptions of the police as direct

experiences. Indeed, repeated negative experiences with the police may increase the odds that a

person will report their experiences to others (Weitzer & Tuch, 2006). In short, when persons

expect unfair treatment in an interaction with the police, or anticipatory injustice, they will

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potentially react to subsequent police-citizen contacts in a distrustful or even hostile manner. In

turn, this can contribute to a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, whereby the police will return this

same behaviour, thus increasing the likelihood of a negative outcome to the interaction (Engel et

al., 2012; James et al., 2018; Nix et al., 2017; Reisig et al., 2004; Wortley & Owusu-Bempah,

2011).

As discussed, Black youths are disproportionately subject to aggressive, order-

maintenance policing tactics. These contacts' frequency and nature have contributed to a

pervasive climate of distrust and antipathy towards the police in many disadvantaged

communities (Gau & Brunson, 2015; Kirk & Papachristos, 2011). In particular, research shows

that young Black men routinely report experiences consistent with both ‘over’ and ‘under’

policing. Through ‘over’ policing, young people have become subject to frequent and unpleasant

police contacts, including experiences of harassment, unwarranted stop and search activities, and

excessive use of force (Brunson & Miller, 2006; Gau & Brunson, 2010; Hayle et al., 2016;

Jones, 2014; Wortley & Owusu-Bempah, 2009, 2011). However, while young people describe

being subject to excessive police scrutiny, they also describe being ‘under’ policed in their

assessments of calls for service and the quality of those interactions. In this regard, community

members see the police as unresponsive to their needs and unwilling to provide substantial

assistance in responding to their grievances. Experiences of this nature include long-wait times

for the police to respond, disrespectful treatment during citizen-initiated encounters, the blaming

of victims for precipitating their victimization, and victims being treated as crime suspects

(Brunson & Wade, 2019; Carr et al., 2007; Clampet-Lundquist et al., 2015; Gau & Brunson,

2010; Gau & Brunson, 2015; Solis et al., 2009).

Police activities consistent with ‘under’ policing run contrary to the tenets of procedural

justice and can significantly impact perceptions of police legitimacy. Research concerning the

effects of police practices has found that experiences deemed procedurally unjust can contribute

to a lack of compliance with the police requests (Mastrofski et al., 1996; McCluskey et al.,

1999), a preference for self-help strategies, including private violence (Anderson, 1999; Gau &

Brunson, 2015; Kennedy, 1988), unwillingness to report victimization (Carbone-Lopez et al.,

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2016; Carr et al., 2007; Desmond et al., 2016), and ultimately defiance of the police (Sherman,

1993). These negative experiences have come to dominate perceptions of both the police and the

wider criminal justice system for persons who reside in racialized and marginalized communities

and particularly for young people. In this regard, individual and shared experiences play a central

role in producing and reinforcing a widespread climate of legal cynicism (Berg et al., 2016; Carr

et al., 2007; Gau & Brunson, 2015; Hitchens et al., 2018; Kirk & Papachristos, 2011).

Both direct and vicarious experiences with the police and the broader criminal justice

system contribute to a process of legal socialization (Geller & Fagan, 2019). Through legal

socialization, individuals go through a “process of internalizing values, forming perceptions, and

developing attitudes regarding legal, authorities, legal institutions, and the law that results from

accumulated social experiences” (Reisig et al., 2011. p. 1266). Individuals form beliefs

consistent with legal cynicism when they judge agents of the law as being “illegitimate,

unresponsive and ill equipped to ensure public safety” (Kirk & Papachristos, 2011, p. 1191). For

residents of socially and economically marginalized communities, legal cynicism represents a

pervasive cultural script transmitted socially throughout the community (2011, p. 1202). In

communities that are already characterized by higher crime rates, unwillingness to comply with

the law can contribute to the forming of an oppositional culture that is more permissive of

criminality and violence and police involvement is eschewed over the use of extra-legal forms of

dispute resolution. However, as discussed, while there is an extensive body of scholarship

examining racialized disparities in the policing of young people in urban settings, this

scholarship is mainly quantitative in nature21and almost exclusively examines the United States.

As such, comparatively less is known about how young people assign meaning to direct and

vicarious experiences with the police, the sources of vicarious experiences, and how direct and

vicarious experiences interact to shape perceptions of the police.

21 Of the 92 studies identified in a recent meta-review of perceptions of the police across racial groups, only seven

of the studies that matched the selection criteria employed in-depth interviewing as an analytical technique (Peck,

2015).

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While the available scholarship suggests that Black Canadians are subject to police

practices that resemble those found in the United States, including excessive police surveillance

and disproportionate rates of involuntary police-citizen contacts, there remains a notable lack of

Canadian scholarship on these issues. In particular, there is scant research employing a

qualitative approach in comparing lived experiences with policing between racial groups. My

study seeks to contribute to the Canadian body of scholarship exploring the individual and

community-level impacts of policing by examining the following research questions:

1. What direct encounters have young people in Toronto had with the public police? What

happened in those encounters, and were they satisfied with the police response?

2. What indirect or vicarious experiences have young people in Toronto heard about from

friends or family members with the public police? What happened in those encounters? How

did hearing about those encounters make them feel?

3. Do young people in Toronto draw on news media and social media sources for information

about the police? If so, where do they derive this information, and what types of narratives

have they encountered? What role do those sources play in shaping their perceptions of the

police?

4. How do the direct and vicarious experiences of Black and White youths with the public

police compare?

5. What do young people believe the police need to do to improve trust and confidence between

themselves and the people in their communities? How can police improve relationships with

young people?

1.15 Methodology and Study Setting

The data presented here represent 44 interviews drawn from a larger dataset collected for my

dissertation research22. My analysis for this paper focuses on the experiences of Black and white

youths with policing and neighbourhood violence. Prior research has demonstrated that Black

youths in the GTA are the most vulnerable to involuntary police contacts, while white youths are

underrepresented in these contacts (Wortley & Owusu-Bempah, 2011; Fitzgerald & Carrington,

2011; Rankin & Winsa, 2012; Meng, 2017). Recent data has also evidenced significant racialized

disparities between Black and white people in both arrests and charges laid by the Toronto Police

22 The larger dataset contains 57 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with young people residing in the Greater

Toronto Area (GTA). I conducted and transcribed 54 of these interviews, with research assistants affiliated with my

graduate department at the University of Toronto conducting and transcribing an additional three.

116

Service, with Black people being grossly over-represented across various charge categories

(Wortley & Jung, 2020). Further, data collection took place between 2017 and 2019, a period of

escalating gun violence across the GTA, including a spike in both shootings and gun-related

homicides (Gillis, 2018; Bharti & Bañares, 2018). Notably, Black youth and particularly young

Black men, have historically been disproportionately represented as both the victims and

perpetrators of gun violence in the GTA (Khenti, 2013). This violence is disproportionately

concentrated in lower-income neighbourhoods beset by high levels of concentrated disadvantage,

residential instability, more extensive police presence, and higher proportions of Black residents.

It is in many of these same neighbourhoods where the young men and women in my study

reside.

The final sample included 32 youth who identified as Black (72.7%) and 12 youth who identified

as white (27.3%). The mean age for Black youth was 20.1 years old. By comparison, the mean

age of lower socio-economic status white youths was 19.1 years old, while the mean age for

more affluent white youths was 21.6 years old. Table 1.4 provides a basic description of the

demographic characteristics of youth participants.

Table 1.4: Demographic Characteristics of Youth Respondents

Demographic Characteristics Black % White

(Lower SES)%

White

(Higher SES)% Gender:

Men:

Women:

65.6

34.4

71.4

28.6

100.0

0.0 Age:

16-18 years

19-21 years

22-24 years

25-27 years

28-29 years

46.8

25.0

12.5

9.4

6.3

28.6

57.1

14.3

0.0

0.0

0.0

80.0

20.0

0.0

0.0 Employment status:

Employed (full-time)

Employed (part-time)

Unemployed (Not Looking for Work)

Unemployed (Looking for Work)

Unknown

6.2

50.0

31.3

12.5

0.0

42.9

14.2

42.9

0.0

0.0

0.0

20.0

80.0

0.0

0.0

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Table 1.4: Demographic Characteristics of Youth Respondents (Continued)

Educational attainment:

Elementary of less

Some high school

Completed high school

Some-post secondary

Completed college

Bachelor’s degree

Professional or graduate degree

0.0

53.1

34.4

12.5

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

42.9

14.2

42.9

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

100.0

0.0

0.0

0.0 Sample Size 32 7 5

Sampling employed a purposive approach intended to recruit young people who resided

in the aforementioned socially and economically marginalized communities, as well as in more

affluent communities. To this end, I conducted outreach activities in a variety of youth-focused

settings, including youth athletic programs, libraries, community centres, a gang prevention and

intervention program, and both the Toronto and Mississauga campuses of the University of

Toronto. Before commencing data collection on this project, I was a research assistant on two

multi-site, youth-focused studies examining gun and gang violence in the GTA. My experiences

with these studies served to guide much of my initial outreach strategy, including identifying and

selecting the neighbourhoods for data collection. In addition, my prior experiences allowed me to

develop an extensive network of contacts who worked with or were otherwise in contact with

young people in the target population, including outreach workers, program coordinators,

activists, and community members. Many of these contacts would act as gatekeepers, facilitating

my initial access to various community settings where I conducted outreach and putting me in

contact with youths who they believed would be interested in participating in the study. Through

these initial connections, I was also able to engage in chain-referral or ‘snowball’ sampling,

granting me access to opportunities for data collection, both in the initial communities of study

and in other areas. I also engaged in campus-focused recruitment activities, including

presentations to undergraduate courses in criminology and sociology, outreach to student-serving

organizations, and posting flyers in locales frequented by students. As sampling employed a

purposive approach, it is difficult to generalize the findings of this study to the wider city or

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other urban centres. However, the focus of the study was to understand better the experiences of

a specific set of participants rather than attempting to develop a generalizable sample23.

The choice to sample across various neighbourhoods and in different community settings

was important to better understand youth’s perceptions of community safety and the impacts of

poverty concentration. Toronto enjoys an international reputation for safety and livability.

Recently, The Economist ranked Toronto the 7th most livable city globally (The Economist,

2018) and the 6th the safest (The Economist, 2019). However, over the past 30-years, Toronto

has faced growing poverty concentration and income polarization. In his study of income

polarization and neighbourhood inequality in Toronto, Hulchanski (2010) found that the

proportion of middle-income neighbourhoods had decreased from 66% of Toronto’s population

in 1970 to only 29% in 2005. During the same period, low-income communities grew from 19%

to 53%, and high-income communities grew from 15% to 19%. Further, low-income

neighbourhoods have become increasingly concentrated areas outside of the downtown core,

with poor access to transit and other services. These low-income communities face several social

and structural barriers, including higher rates of gun violence, residential instability, and lower

levels of educational attainment. The populations of low-income communities are also

disproportionately composed of racialized persons and recent immigrants, with higher

percentages of single-parent households, children, and young people (Hulchanski, 2010, p. 10-

12).

Participation in the study was completely voluntary, and all participants completed an

informed consent protocol before taking part in an interview. Each participant was paid a $20

23 It should be noted that my dataset significantly oversamples Black youths, relative to their representation in the

Toronto’s population. As my study progressed, I engaged in theoretical sampling based on emergent themes found

in my initial coding of the data. In particular, this coding process identified several themes related specifically to the

experiences of lower socio-economic status Black youth respondents, including police practices in their

communities and topics related to cultural codes in the Black community. While the choice to sample theoretically

limits my ability to make certain race and class comparisons, it did allow for me to develop a greater understanding

and body of rich-data related to the experiences of Black youths who are consistently at the centre of academic,

policy, and public discourses related to urban crime and disorder, but whose voices are often rendered silent by

powerful institutional discourses.

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honourarium in recognition of their time. Participants were advised of the anonymous and

confidential nature of the interviews during the consent process. All interviews were audio-

recorded with the full consent and knowledge of participants. Interviewers did not collect

specific identifying information, including names, dates, and specific locations of events

described by participants. Participants were asked to refrain from providing information of this

nature before commencing the interview. The interviewer informed potential participants that

they had no affiliation with the police, the courts, child and youth services, or other

organizations. The names of individuals and communities used in this paper are pseudonyms.

The interview employed a semi-structured strategy. Interview questions examined several

topics, including personal background information, self-reported contact with the criminal justice

system, prior offending history, gang involvement, experiences of family and friends with the

criminal justice system, and experiences with other institutions and aspects of Canadian society.

Participants were asked about the causes and consequences of involvement with either of these

activities, along with best practices for preventing the onset of either form of deviance. A copy of

the interview schedule is found in Appendix A.

Following the interview, the audio recordings were first transcribed and then the audio

files deleted to further ensure respondent confidentiality. The resultant textual data was compiled

and coded using the nVivo12 software suite. Before initial coding, I read each interview

transcript in its entirety to review the data and make preliminary memos. Following this, I

engaged in open coding, whereby I identified and labelled the core themes and concepts in the

data. These themes were then reviewed and compared through the process of axial coding, which

allowed for the development of subthemes and linkages to theory (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). I

attempted to engage in true ‘bottom-up’ coding, where “codes are suggested by the data, not by

the literature” (Urquhart, 2013, p. 38). However, I believe that the resultant analysis more closely

resembles ‘middle-range’ coding, whereby codes are derived from both the data and common

sense themes from the literature that supported the project's research design (2013, p.38).

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1.16 Findings

Perceptions of the Police

The first finding to be discussed will be perceptions of the police among young people.

Perceptions of the police varied among study participants, including by race and socio-economic

background24. Among white youths, all but one of the lower socio-economic status respondents

reported distrusting the police, including a lack of confidence in their ability to keep them and

their communities safe. Conversely, only one of the five white youths from higher socio-

economic expressed an outright lack of trust and confidence in the police (see Table 1.5).

Table 1.5: Respondents feelings about their trust in the police

Trust Police Black

No. %

White (Lower SES)

No. %

White (Higher SES)

No. %

Yes

No

Situationally / Not Sure*

Refused

3

24

3

2

9.4

75.0 9.3

6.3

1

6

0

0

14.3

85.7 0.0

0.0

3

1

1

0

60.0

20.0 20.0

0.0

Sample Size 32 7 5

*Youth in this category reported either only trusting certain officers or only trusting police in particular contexts.

Among the more-affluent white youths, Ian, a 21-year old male, shared that he felt ‘indifferent’

towards police, noting that, while he had confidence in the police to investigate more serious

forms of criminality, he lacked confidence in them investigate internal misconduct by officers,

24 It should be noted that, while perceptions of the police varied by race and socio-economic background, there was

a remarkable degree of consistency regarding the impact of gender. When examined by race, young men and women

shared broadly similar views regarding the police, including the nature of police practices in their communities, their

impacts, and strategies for responding to police misconduct. However, young men and women differed regarding the

nature of their contacts with the police and how their views on the police were informed. Young men were

significantly more likely to report direct contact with the police. In contrast, young women were more likely to have

vicarious contacts, including witnessing police practices and hearing about them from male peers and family

members. This finding in and of itself is not surprising when considering the racial typification of young Black men

as criminals (Henry & Tator, 2006) and the nature of police practices in Toronto and the GTA (Rankin & Winsa,

2012; Meng, 2017). As such, the analysis does not engage with more systematic gender comparisons.

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and to hold those responsible accountable. By comparison, perceptions of the police, both in trust

and efficacy, were almost universally negative among Black youth.

Looking to the experiences of Black youth participants, almost all participants expressed

distrust of the police and a lack of confidence in both their willingness and capacity to keep their

communities safe25. Of the 32 Black youths I interviewed, only three expressed unconditional

trust in the police. At the same time, an additional three indicated that they trusted certain

officers, but not the police force as a whole. By comparison, only two Black youths described

having complete confidence in the ability of the police to keep their communities safe. A further

five youths expressed confidence, but again only in certain officers known to them, but not in the

police more generally. This pervasive climate of distrust in the police is evidenced in my

discussion with Samatar26, a 21-year old Black man. I asked him how he felt about the police, to

which he replied: “I don’t like the police, nor do I respect them”. Later, when asked whether he

had confidence in the ability of the police to keep his community safe, Samatar shared the

following:

They don’t even keep it safe, and I don’t think they try either. Like, I don’t think

they’re interested in keeping us safe or like even doing their job here. They’re

just here to arrest us and charge us. They’re not interested in solving crimes in

the community. They just come to cause ruckus. If you’re chilling somewhere,

they’ll come and find you and tell you that you can’t be there, and they’ll try to

arrest you for trespassing or to write you up every single time

In a later conversation, Amina, a 17-year old young Black woman, shared with me a similar

concern:

We don’t really see the police as helping us. We just seem them as like they’re

trying to put us away, or they’re just trying to hit you with charges back-to-back

they’ve never really done anything personal to help us feel safe or anything.

25 All Black youth participants came from lower socio-economic backgrounds, thus not allowing for comparisons

between disadvantaged and more affluent youth.

26 In the interest of privacy and confidentiality, pseudonyms are used for the names of all participants and the names

of their neighbourhoods or communities.

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Interviewer: So, when the police say they’re trying to solve crimes and make the

community safer, you don’t believe them?

Never.

Both Samatar and Amina’s comments speak to several important themes in the data, including

the contradiction of ‘over’ and ‘under’ policing faced by Black youths and the nature of police

practices within their communities. For Black youths who reside in communities characterized

by higher levels of police surveillance, the presence of the police was widely described as

harassing and even threatening in nature and not as a source of security. This finding is

consistent with prior scholarship examining perceptions of police among Black youth (Brunson,

2007; Brunson & Miller, 2006; Solis et al., 2009; Wortley & Owusu-Bempah, 2011). By

comparison, perceptions of the police varied significantly among white youth.

Rationalizing Police Misconduct: ‘Bad Apples’

Among white youths who resided in the same disadvantaged communities as Black study

participants, direct and vicarious experiences with police stops were relatively common, with

four of seven interviewees reporting experiences of this nature. By comparison, these

experiences were less common among more affluent respondents. Two of the five youths I spoke

with described prior experiences with involuntary police contacts, and only one reported

knowledge of vicarious contacts. However, given the ecological dimension of police

surveillance, this finding should come as no surprise. To this end, perceptions of the police

varied significantly, with those youth who had more frequent contacts with the police holding

more negative views of the police than those with lower levels of police contact.

Notably, even among white youth who had direct or vicarious experiences with police

conduct deemed to be procedurally unjust or unfair, these practices were rationalized as

individual officers' actions or ‘bad apples’ and not necessarily reflecting the police institution as

a whole. For example, Beth, a 20-year old white woman, who resides in a low-income

community in North West Toronto, described having friends from racialized backgrounds who

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had been subject to police stops and poor treatment by the police, which she attributed to racial

profiling. However, despite this, Beth still held positive views of the police as a whole:

I feel pretty good about them, I feel like there is a lot more people in the police

force that are good than bad, but I also feel like there are some bad ones. You

know how one bad apple spoils the bunch, it’s kind of like that. It's not one

corrupt cop corrupting everyone, he is just giving everyone a bad reputation.

This is based off of my experiences, and I generally have a good feeling towards

the police.

A similar belief is shared by Terry, a 19-year old white man. During our conversation, Terry

expressed that, in his view, Canadian society treated everyone equally, “We all have the same

opportunities if that makes sense. Like, no one is going to like stop you from trying to do

something”. However, he also described seeing the police engage in stops he believed were

biased, “you do see like certain people getting stopped by the police more and in like poorer

areas or whatever you see more like immigrants and people from certain backgrounds”. When

asked how he reconciled his view that Canadian society treated everyone equally with the

practices of the police, he replied:

Well, like, I think that’s like, um, more generally, if that makes sense. Like, the

police aren’t necessarily like all of Canada or Canadian society, and there are

those like bad officers. Like, there’s more racism in the police than there is in

the rest of Canadian society, but it’s not all officers.

As discussed, these comments appeal to an individualist or ‘bad apples’ explanation for police

deviance, whereby misconduct is an aberration ascribed to a deviant officer and not institutional

corruption (Punch, 2003). This perspective, to which the police themselves often appeal, situates

deviance as an individual, human failing, which allows the claims of systemic issues to be

disputed (Tator & Henry, 2006). Indeed, attributing misconduct, such as racial profiling, to the

actions of individual officers has been a central facet of both official and academic discourses

(Engel et al., 2002). However, while this narrative is widespread in both the United States and

Canada, it holds particular salience within the Canadian context, where there is a national official

multiculturalism policy (Tator & Henry, 2006). Through appeals to multiculturalism, Canadian

police leaders have routinely sought to deflect allegations of racial profiling by labeling them as

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incongruent with official commitments to tolerance and increasing diversity among officers

(Satzewich & Shaffir, 2009). However, not all white interviewees shared Terry and Jessica’s

views on the police.

As discussed, distrust of the police was common among white interviewees from lower

socio-economic backgrounds, including those with varying degrees of prior experiences with the

police and the criminal justice system. For example, Michael, a 19-year old white man, shared

his views of the police with me. It should be noted that Michael self-reported being heavily

involved in street crime, including being stopped and arrested on multiple occasions. During our

conversation, Michael shared that he did not feel safe around the police, nor did he believe that

they did a good job keeping his community safe. However, when I asked Michael whether he

had confidence in the police, he would also refer to the ‘bad apples’ thesis:

Interviewer: Do you have confidence in them [the police]?

Like I do if they do it right. Like some of them really do messed up stuff

like… there’s good cops and bad cops.

By comparison, Elena, a 16-year old white young woman, would also report having negative

views of the police. However, while also residing in a low-income, higher-crime community,

Elena had no prior history with direct or vicarious police contacts. Despite this, she described

both distrusting the police and believing that they engaged in discriminatory practices:

They [the police] can be hypocrites sometimes, and like a lot of stuff you do

hear, like a lot of the times, it's something racial where they think like, oh, for

example, like, oh how everybody thinks like a lot of the times people think that

Muslims are terrorists and this, which in these circumstances where people do

like bad things and then now it's just like the whole community, the whole

Muslim community or the whole black community, it's now like shamed upon

and a lot of the times it's not true. Like none of what’s being said is true.

Interviewer: So, in terms of the police being racist or being hypocrites, do you

think that that's something about the police themselves, or do you think that is a

wider issue in our society?

125

Yeah, those issues exist, like in our wider society, but it's like the police

obviously, like they're supposed to enforce the law. So, like, more often

than not the police are a part of it too, or like they make it worse.

Elena would attribute her attitudes towards the police as emanating from exposure to stories of

police misconduct on social media:

I don't know exactly where the videos are from or if it’s the USA or not, but like

I do see videos of like, if it's like someone who's Black and sometimes I see

them not do anything wrong and then white cops like police, they come in and

they, they either search them or they just, they do with things that are just not

necessary.

Interviewer: How does it make you feel when you see those kinds of things?

I feel really bad because a lot of people don't like people because of their race,

religion, and stuff. Like, I think it's just ridiculous.

Elena’s comments speak to another interesting theme in the data: continued references made by

Black and white youth to the United States as a point of comparison when discussing police

misconduct. For example, Rachel, a 22-year old Black woman, who reported prior unwarranted

contacts with the police and overall negative views of policing, still maintained that her

experiences would have been worse in the United States. As Rachel shared with me, “Like I’m

happy that out of all the cops we got Canadian cops. Like, I could be in the States and it would

be way worse”. Similarly, when asked how his experiences with policing impacted his views of

Canadian society, Marcus, a 24-year old Black man, who was heavily involved in street crime

and highly distrustful of the police, would share the following perspective:

I mean, police in this country be fucked up still, but like it’s nothing compared

to how shit be down south.

Interviewer: How so? Like the U.S. is worse for policing?

Definitely, like they don’t even need a reason down there to approach you, you

know what I mean? It’s like you could just be out there, minding your own

business and not bothering nobody and then bwoy [police] could be on you.

Interviewer: So, what do you think causes that or why like, are you more likely

to get stopped by police down there?

126

I mean, it’s like still how you carry yourself, no matter where you are if you’re

acting extra then you’re going to get touched, but like down there it’s more than

that like you don’t have rights and shit.

Comparisons to the United States extended to white youth as well. For example, in the following

excerpt, Terry and I discuss whether he believed that racism is a problem in Canadian society:

For sure there’s going to be some racism in any society really, but I think that like as a

whole it’s not as a big of a problem here as say the U.S.

Interviewer: So, what kinds of problems do they have there?

I mean, just look really, they have so many problems.

Interviewer: So, how is Canada different then?

We don’t have Trump, for one, plus, like, Canada is a diverse place, it’s a

multicultural place. In the U.S. like, everything just seems so much more like

adversarial between, say, people and the police or like in government.

Among study participants, there was a strongly internalized perception of Canadian superiority

over the United States concerning issues of racial bias in policing and overall concerns related to

police misconduct. Importantly, these attitudes were widespread among Black and white

interviewees, despite most having no direct or vicarious experiences with American policing.

These attitudes may reflect a sort of ‘Canadian exceptionalism’ whereby local issues seem less

significant when compared to more widely publicized issues in the United States. However, this

is not to say that interviewees were discounting issues of biased policing in the Canadian context,

but that they constructed them as being somehow less severe or less virulent than those

experienced in the United States. These widespread comparisons to the United States speak to

both the important role that media sources play in shaping views of the police, but also the

continued salience of the ‘myth of difference’ (Millard et al., 2002) that permeates the thinking

of Canadians when making comparisons with the United States. The perspectives shared by

young people may also represent a manifestation of democratic racism (Henry & Tator, 2006).

Democratic racism contends that, while racism is widespread in Canadian society,

powerful social actors draw on twelve racialized discourses to diminish and discredit these

127

concerns (Henry & Tator, 2006). Together, these discourses serve to couch racist ideas within

liberal ideals of equality, diversity, justice, and fairness, thus allowing for the coexistence of

seemingly liberal ideals with the differential treatment of racialized and minoritized persons

(Tator & Henry, 2006). Comparisons made between Canada and the United States reflect the

discourses of ‘binary polarization’ and ‘otherness’. Indeed, the construction of an enemy other is

often central to nation-building and forming a national identity (Johnson & Coleman, 2012). In

this regard, the ‘other’ is, “he or she who possesses certain undesirable characteristics that stand

in the way of progress, unity, cohesion” (2012, p. 865). In referring to the spectre of difference

between Canada and the United States, young people are evoking a form of the myth of Canada

as a ‘post-racial’ or ‘multicultural’ society. These beliefs likely reflect the systematic

underreporting of issues related to the intersections of racialization in criminal justice in Canada

(Millar & Owusu-Bempah, 2011; Wortley, 1999b), but also the extensive consumption of

American media sources by Canadian youth (Dowler et al., 2006), where more frank discussions

of the racialization of crime are commonplace.

In short, while white respondents were less likely than Black people to have either direct

or vicarious experiences with the police, these were not the sole factors contributing to

perceptions of policing. In this regard, young people cited lived experiences and information

derived from media sources as relevant. This finding is consistent with prior scholarship

identifying the complex interplay of personal experiences and media consumption in shaping

attitudes towards the police (Desmond et al., 2016; Jefferis et al., 1997; Weitzer & Tuch, 2004).

Indeed, as Weitzer and Tuch (2004) note, “repeated exposure to media reports on police abuse is

one of the strongest predictors of citizens’ perceptions of misconduct” (p. 321). In this regard,

both Black and white interviewees reported frequently hearing of police misconduct through

media sources, including more traditional news media outlets, but also through social media

channels. As such, perceptions of police conduct derived from media reports were common

among both groups. However, while white youth were more likely to refer to media sources as

shaping their perceptions, Black youth often referred to direct or vicarious contacts as key. This

finding likely reflects Black youth’s greater likelihood of involuntary police contacts and their

increased exposure to vicarious experiences rooted in their immediate social networks. Thus, to

128

better understand the types of interactions that have contributed to these perceptions, it is

important to examine young people’s experiences with police contacts.

Harassment and Unwarranted Stops

As discussed, for Black youth who reside in higher-crime communities, frequent and involuntary

contacts with the police are a facet of everyday life (Gau & Brunson, 2009, 2010, 2015; Hayle et

al., 2016; Jones, 2014; Wortley & Owusu-Bempah, 2011). These findings are consistent with the

experiences of Black youth study participants, with almost all interviewees reporting having

either direct or vicarious experiences with these tactics, and often both. Among the 32 Black

youth I spoke with, 25 described being stopped and questioned by police in their lifetime, with

16 of those interviewees indicating they had been stopped in the past two years (see Table 1.6).

Additionally, these same youths reported extensive vicarious experiences with police stops, with

25 youths reporting knowledge of stops against friends and family members.

Table 1.6: Percent of respondents who have experienced police stops, searches,

arrests, and charges

Police Stops, Searches, Arrests,

and Charges Black

No. %

White (Lower SES)

No. %

White (Higher SES)

No. %

Stopped by police (Lifetime):

Yes

No

Refused

25

6

1

78.1

18.8

3.1

4

3

0

57.1

42.9

0.0

2

3

0

40.0

60.0

0.0 Stopped by police (past 2 years):

Yes

No

Refused

16

15

1

50.0

46.9

3.1

1

6

0

14.3

85.7 0.0

1

4

0

20.0

80.0 0.0

Stopped (Vicarious):

Yes

No

Refused

25

7

0

78.1

21.9

0.0

4

3

0

57.1

42.9 0.0

1

4

0

20.0

80.0 0.0

Searched:

Yes

No

Refused

12

19

1

37.5

59.4

3.1

2

5

0

28.6

71.4 0.0

0

5

0

0.0

100.00 0.0

Arrested:

Yes

No

Refused

9

21

2

28.1

65.6

6.3

2

5

0

28.6

71.4 0.0

0

5

0

0.0

100.00 0.0

129

Table 1.6: Percent of respondents who have experienced police stops, searches,

arrests, and charges (Continued) Charged:

Yes

No

Refused

7

23

2

21.8

71.9 6.3

1

6

0

14.3

85.7 0.0

0

5

0

0.0

100.00 0.0

Sample Size 32 7 5

Importantly, only five Black youths would report having neither direct nor vicarious experiences

with involuntary police stops.

The reality of living under constant police suspicion was a central concern shared by

Malik, a 17-year old young Black man, who resides in the Northam-Regal Road community, a

disadvantaged community with higher crime rates in North West Toronto. I asked Malik how

many times he had been stopped and questioned by police:

All the time. From my identity, me looking like someone looking like this guy

looking like that guy, me just dressed in general. I like, I could be wearing

jogging pants like this, but the shoes I'm wearing right now, and I'm black

windbreaker, and I'm just wearing a hood just ‘cause I want to wear my hood,

and they'd go, just come up to me and be like, so what are you doing today?

What do you have on your dah, dah, dah, this and that. And was like, I literally

feel so like sometimes just pulling my pants down in public and be like, you

want to search me right now? Cause there's guys are so annoying. You guys are

always trying to harass me about something. And sometimes I feel like, yeah,

maybe they do actually get reports where there's someone that looks like me,

and I'm in the wrong area at the wrong time, and then I look like the person. But

at other times, I'm just like, there's no way. Like dude, they did a full u-turn, they

looked at me, they just wanted to try to see if they could find something to get

me in trouble with or like not even the only get me in trouble, just to occupy

their day.

When asked why he felt he was being stopped, Malik was quick to reply:

Just to do something in general, they just want to have something to do.

They want to know they're getting paid.

Malik’s account reflects a continuous cycle of police surveillance and harassment, a reality

shared by many Black youths. Far from being guardians of public safety, police were often

described as being focused on street-level interrogations and seemingly minor crimes, while

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more severe forms of criminality went unchecked. Roger, a 26-year old Black man, who lives

near the Jane-Finch community, a disadvantaged community with higher crime rates in North

West Toronto, shared a similar experience. In the following account, Roger describes an incident

where he and a friend were driving a luxury car when they were pulled over by two white police

officers, in what he described as a racially motivated stop:

They had no good reason to stop us. They had no possession of any drugs,

marijuana, cocaine, or anything like that. We weren’t drinking. We had not been

involved in any violent actions that night, so it wasn’t anything for them to do at

that moment. We weren’t doing anything. They just saw a luxury car and two

black men in the car, and they decided to stop and just question.

In Roger’s view, his stop was unwarranted and discriminatory in nature:

I feel like they stopped us because they saw a luxury car, they saw two black

men in the car…the car must be stolen. What’s their excuse? How can they live

in this neighbourhood and afford this car? They must be drug dealing they must

be doing this…

Roger would go on to describe how both he and his friend had become accustomed to stops of

this nature that they had both come to normalize these frequent intrusions as an aspect of daily

life:

Interviewer: How did the way the police treated you make you feel?

Honestly, because I’ve been so accustomed to it –and that’s not a good thing to

say that you’re accustomed to being bothered by constables – I didn’t feel any

real ways about it, and if I were to say if it did affect me…it felt awkward, and it

was unpleasant, and it was shameful that I’m getting stopped because of the

colour of my skin. It’s not that I’ve committed a crime or I’ve verbally or

physically abused anybody. I’m literally getting stopped because of the colour of

my skin and how I look like and to me as I sit and I think about it…what have I

don’t wrong as a black man that I deserve to be treated like this? And because

they cannot come up with a solid answer like that, it makes it very difficult to

create a relationship. Me personally, it basically makes it very difficult for me to

make a relationship with constables because of what I’ve experienced, because

of what friends of mine have experienced and what I’ve seen growing up and the

experiences that I’ve gone through.

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When asked whether the officers had provided a reason for the stop, Roger replied simply, “No”.

Roger’s experience speaks to the centrality of race when determining police suspicion, a

perception shared among almost all the Black youths I interviewed. By failing to account for

their actions in a manner perceived to be legitimate and transparent, the officers furthered

Roger’s perception that the basis for the stop was his race and not a legitimate investigative

purpose. In short, his only offence was being caught ‘driving while black’ (Harris, 1993; 1996).

The pervasive nature of these stops also came up in my conversation with Shaquille, a 16-year

old young Black man, who resided in Regal Heights, a lower-income area in North West

Toronto. As Shaquille describes, being stopped by the police was a common occurrence among

his peers:

Interviewer: Of the people that you know, how many would you say have been

stopped by police and questioned?

Multiple, multiple.

Interviewer: Would you say it’s like half, more than half, less than?

Much more than half, like almost all of them to be honest.

Shaquille described officers frequently asking persons for their IDs and intended destinations in

the community during these stops. When I asked Shaquille how these activities made

him feel, he shared:

It shows like I gotta have boundaries like I can’t be walking in certain areas at

certain times or I’m gonna get stopped for no reason or l can’t like wear certain

clothes, or I’m gonna get stopped.

Further, when asked how these practices had impacted the people who lived in his community,

he would go on to describe:

It just makes them like not trust police or think like, oh police could like scoop

you up at any time even if you’re not like doing anything and there’s nothing

like you can really do. Like you can’t like trust them if like you had a problem or

something because they’re not your friend.

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In a later conversation, Richard, a 27-year old Black man, shared that he had been stopped and

questioned by police an estimated 30 times in his life, despite not being involved with crime. In

the following excerpt, he describes his experience with a recent stop by two white police officers

in his community of Forest Glen, a low-income neighbourhood in North-West Toronto:

There was a later night where I was walking like under a shortcut to go to a

friends house, and it was midnight and cops were like by the tunnel off the road

like in the grass, and they come out, two like 6ft, 7ft, big dudes and they

automatically like start questioning me about where am I going and what’s in

your pockets and stuff like this and what I am I going to do about like if I just

went into your pockets what are you going to do about it and then they said the

n-word and I think they were looking for me to physically do something so they

could take me and like place me under arrest.

In describing the interaction, Richard was adamant that officers had used a racial slur in an

attempt to provoke him into a further confrontation, a tactic which he described as

commonplace: “To be honest, I feel like this happens all the time and like not just to me”. When

asked why officers would want to escalate the situation, he was quick to respond, “Because they

need that excuse to do something to you and like stick you with a charge like assaulting an

officer”. Within Richard’s community, experiences with unfair police stops of this nature are not

uncommon. Indeed, when asked how many of his friends and family and been unfairly stopped,

Richard replied simply, “I think they all have”. By comparison, both direct and vicarious

experiences with the police were less common among white interviewees, including those who

resided in similarly disadvantaged communities.

While white youths did report both direct and vicarious experiences with the police, the

frequency and nature of these stops differed from those reported by Black youth. In particular,

white youth who reported frequent and unpleasant police stops often resided in communities

characterized by aggressive, order-maintenance policing while also having more extensive prior

histories of criminality, including arrests and charges. By comparison, the majority of Black

youths who reported these interactions had no major prior histories with the criminal justice

system. Further, Black youths reported frequent contacts in their communities and when

travelling throughout the city, something not reported by white youths. Finally, the nature of

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these interactions differed, with white youths being more likely to report police as acting

respectful and courteous during police-initiated contacts, which stands in stark contrast to

accounts shared by most Black youths.

The dichotomy of experiences between Black and white youth is further illustrated in a

conversation with Michael, a 19-year white man who resides in the Dunhill community, a low-

income neighbourhood in North-West Toronto. Michael, who had been arrested on multiple

occasions and was currently awaiting trial for an indictable27 offence, described being stopped

by police upwards of 50 times in a year. However, Michael would note that these stops occurred

within his neighbourhood, and thus he attributed some of these encounters to the officers

involved having existing knowledge of his charges:

Most of the times they all know me already, and most of the time, they

recognize me already, so as soon they come out, they know who I am and make

sure I don’t have a ******28 on me because I have an ****** charge on me

from being a YO [young offender] and I’m still on the charges currently so I

cannot obtain a ****** or whatever the case is.

Further, Michael’s experiences differed significantly from Black youth in that he reported never

having been subject to an unwarranted stop outside of his neighbourhood:

I’ve never really been stopped randomly outside of my neighbourhood unless I

was like the suspect or whatever or someone was calling in on me. I’ve never

just been stopped like that.

It should be noted that, when describing some of his interactions with the police, Michael shared

that he had been in the company of his Black male friends. Similarly, he was dressed in

distinctively urban clothing for our interview, including a hooded sweatshirt, baggy jeans, and a

27 In Canada, more serious offences are referred to as indictable. This would be equivalent to a felony charge in

most U.S. jurisdictions.

28 To further protect Michael’s privacy, specifics related to his charges have been redacted.

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backward baseball cap. These factors, taken together, likely contributed, in some way, to

Michael’s continued interactions with the police.

However, this is not to say that all white youths with prior experiences with police stops

had similar criminal histories to Michael. For example, Allan, a 21-year white male, who resides

in the Forest Glen community, a lower-income neighbourhood in the eastern part of Toronto,

shared a contrasting experience. As we spoke, Allan described how, in his youth, he was stopped

on multiple occasions by the police, both in his neighbourhood and while travelling in the

downtown entertainment district. Allan, who described never having been in conflict with the

law or involved with gang activity, had still experienced stops that he described as both

unpleasant and unjustified. In particular, he described instances of being stopped while in the

company of his friends, which included young Black men from his neighbourhood. In the

following excerpt, Allan describes one such stop, where he and some friends were stopped and

questioned while spending time outside in their neighbourhood:

Interviewer: Can I ask what you were doing when you were stopped?

Honestly, it was nothing, and it’s so stupid because you know it’s because they’re [the

police] are trying to get their numbers or their quota or whatever.

Interviewer: So what happened?

It’s more of the usual, you know? We’re just in the park over by ******, and I’m getting

ready to leave when they [the police] show up like boom out of nowhere, no provoking,

not like someone was doing something, or we were playing music loud or anything like

that so anyways I’m not stopping because I didn’t do anything and really if I’m required

to talk to them I’m not because I know that they can’t detain me. So I’m going to walk

away, and the one guy comes walking over to me real quick and gets in front of me like

right, right in front of me and basically is just asking why I’m walking away and just

remember right I have no record and this man doesn’t know me, so I tell him I was going

to leave before you guys showed up. You could tell he didn’t really like that, so he’s

basically saying I have to go back with them.

Interviewer: What happened next? Did you go back?

I’m not trying to have trouble, so yeah. So I walk back and it’s just straight questions but

they’re not even really asking me anything it’s just my boy ********.

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Interviewer: What were they saying, or what kinds of questions were they asking?

Just the usual stuff, cop bullshit, where are you going, are you from around here, do you

have any warrants, stuff like that.

I went on to ask Allan why he believed that the police stopped him and his friends:

Like I said, for nothing, but if I had to say, what like is this man thinking [the police]

you know it’s probably because they’re seeing us out there and thinking that they, you

know, gotta control the situation.

In describing how the stop ended, Allan shared that neither he nor his friends were searched or

arrested. However, the stop continued for an extended period as the officers questioned more of

his friends and subsequently documented in the encounter in their notebooks, a process he

described as being ‘jotted up’. Indeed, an individual’s attire and the company they keep

contribute factors in determining police suspicion (Fagan & Geller, 2015; Skolnick, 1966;

Weitzer, 2000). Further, as prior research suggests, white youth found to be in predominantly

Black neighbourhoods, or the company of Black peers are at a higher risk for being stopped by

the police (Brunson & Weitzer, 2009; Weitzer, 2000). Conversely, Black youth are at higher risk

of experiencing racially biased policing when found in a predominantly white community

(Stewart et al., 2009).

Physical Abuse and Unnecessary Use of Force

The capacity of the police to use force in the commission of their duties has been described as

the defining aspect of the police role (Bittner, 1970, 1985). In principle, the police are expected

to use the least amount of force required to overcome suspect resistance and secure compliance;

anything more can potentially be considered excessive use of force (Alpert & Smith, 1994;

Geller & Toch, 1959). However, the dynamic nature of police-citizen encounters often

contributes to situations where there are disagreements between the public and the police as to

the appropriateness of the level of force used (Klinger & Brunson, 2009; Paoline & Terrill,

2011). In particular, an extensive body of scholarship has found significant ecological, suspect,

and officer-level disparities in police use of force.

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Ecologically, research suggests that there is a neighbourhood context to use-of-force,

with its use being disproportionately concentrated both in predominantly Black communities,

and in communities with higher levels and racial and ethnic heterogeneity (Lautenschlager &

Omori, 2019; McCluskey & Terrill, 2005; Smith, 1986; Terrill & Reisig, 2003; Zimring, 2017).

Studies have also found that the police, and white officers in particular (Paoline et al., 2018) are

more likely to use force against Black suspects (Morrow et al., 2017; Ontario Human Rights

Commission, 2018; Terrill & Mastrofski, 2002). As will be discussed, my study findings are

consistent with prior scholarship in finding that Black youth consistently reported direct and

vicarious experiences with use-of-force.

Use of force incidents described as unjustified and often excessive were common themes

in my discussions with Black youths. Importantly, these experiences were not limited to young

people in conflict with the law, nor were they spatially limited to highly racialized, low-income

communities. Indeed, of the 25 youths who describe being stopped by police, 12 indicated they

had been searched, with 8 of those sharing that they had been subject to excessive or unnecessary

use of force in the course of these interactions. Further, vicarious experiences with excessive use

of force were widespread, with 20 Black youths reporting either witnessing the police using

excessive or unnecessary force or hearing of these experiences from friends or family members.

By comparison, among white youths from disadvantaged backgrounds, two described being

subject to excessive or unnecessary use of force, while none of the more affluent white youths

reported such experiences. Looking at vicarious experiences, three of the more disadvantaged

youths described either witnessing or hearing of these tactics. In contrast, none of the more

affluent youths described having prior vicarious experiences.

For Black youths, discussions of unjustified and often excessive use-of-force often

accompanied descriptions of police conduct during involuntary police contacts, including traffic

stops and field-interrogations. For example, in the following account, Amina, a 17-year old

young Black woman, describes a particularly contentious traffic stop against her and a group of

friends by a group of white male officers:

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Like a recently they stopped us in a car and one of the boys, like there’s four

people in the car and we’re all like Black kids in the car we all have our hoods

on so one of them pulls us over and they like follow us into the parking lot for

the closest building and they just went off like they pulled out a gun and the put

it on us, and they’re just screaming and so many of them came, and they brought

dogs, and they said like all they gave us was a fail to stop ticket like didn’t stop

completely at the red light.

Interviewer: So, before that even happens, they came up with guns drawn?

Yeah like we’re all in the car and like the driver of our car was ready to put it in

park and before he could even do that, the one cop came up with his gun out,

and the other guy was like grabbing us really hard, and they both ended up like

grabbing us and pulling us out the car and handcuffing us and then like 15 cars

and dogs and everything just to search the car, and they said they would charge

us with possession of marijuana, but there was nothing in the car.

When discussing how the stop made her feel, Amina shared, “It got me mad because it was like

really cold and late at night, and they were just dragging us around and like making us sit on the

cold ground. And the way they searched me like they brought a female in, and she just grabbed

my sweater and jerked me up, and we all got upset, but we couldn’t do anything”. In Amina’s

view, this situation was particularly unfair as the officers declined to explain the reason for the

stop, and no charges were laid:

Interviewer: How did the officers treat you?

Badly.

Interviewer: Did you think they were unfair to you?

Yeah, definitely. Like we weren’t doing anything and like they didn’t even find

anything or charge anyone.

In a later discussion, Grace, a 20-year old Black woman, describes her friend, a young Black

man, being assaulted by the police after protesting what he believed to be an unjust arrest of his

older brother:

They literally grabbed him, threw him down, knee was in his back, and there are

videos everywhere, and they pick him up and hit his head on their side mirror

and all that, and they threw him in the car and slammed the door… and I

remember she [the police officer] pulled out her pepper spray, and she’s telling

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everyone to get back. If you feel like you’re under that much pressure because

everyone is around you, look at what you just did. Why would you do that?

When they did all this, and my friend went to jail, they charged him with

destruction of police property for the car, threatening an officer, this and that, all

this stuff because they were mad.

In Grace’s opinion, not only was the arrest of her friend unjust, but the situation could have been

handled without resorting to force, “Yeah because they showed up to arrest his brother on the

situation that had happened prior. Like if they had just shown calmly and spoken to us, the

situation could have been handled differently. Definitely”. Both Grace and Amina’s accounts

speak to a character and tenor in use-of-force incidents shared by many Black youths.

Looking to vicarious experiences, accounts of either witnessing or hearing of experiences

involving police brutality were common. The pervasive nature of these tactics came up in my

conversation with Richard, who described assaults by the police as a fact of everyday life,

“Beating people, like arresting people and putting them in cuffs and using unnecessary force, you

know. Actually, like arguing and yelling at people, shit police shouldn’t be doing”. In a

particularly concerning finding, many young people described police using excessive force in

situations characterized by considerable asymmetry, with several police officers forcefully

detaining or arresting a single individual. For example, Jack, a 17-year old young Black man,

who resides in the low-income Midland community, described both regularly witnessing and

hearing accounts from friends or family of the police assaulting or ‘draping up’ residents. As he

describes, these accounts were not limited to persons involved with street crime, “Like my

family, like I’ve had people involved with you know, like drugs and guns and stuff, but also like

just you know my friends and people I know living here it happens to them like regularly”. I

asked Jack about the types of events he witnessed, to which he replied, “Just you know like,

throwing people against the cars, holding them down when they arrest them, grabbing them, stuff

like that”. Jack went on to share that, in his view, these actions often involved too much force,

“Well when it’s like three to four officers and one person and that person isn’t even fighting and

they got him down with his face in the pavement you know that’s just not right, like that person

no matter what they did no one deserves to see that”. Again, Jack’s experiences speak to wider

themes in the data.

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In another account, Idil, a 17-year old young Black woman, who lives in the Regal Road

community, a low-income neighbourhood in North West Toronto, describes a recent experience

shared with her by a friend:

Just like last night, I was talking to a friend about cops, and he was telling us

like how he got arrested before, and they were also trying to arrest one of his

friends, and they beat up one of them and but they wanted to beat up the next

one, but the kids' mom came out, and they just looked at him, and his mom and

they said we really want to bash your head in but your mom is here, so they just

took him in instead.

Interviewer: How did it make you feel to hear this?

Like mad but also scared -- this could happen to any of us, and it's only like the

kid’s mom being there, or it could have been much worse.

In a similar finding, Monique, an 18-year old Black woman, who lives in the low-income

community of Matheson Court in North Toronto, described witnessing police arresting a young

Black man at a nearby shopping plaza. As she shared, “The police had one of the young boys at

the plaza, and they were arresting him, and it just looked like they were hurting him… They had

him on the ground, and he wasn’t fighting or anything, but the one cop had his knee like on his

neck and was just like being rough with him. There was no need for that”. Monique’s account is

particularly disturbing as it describes police officers using a knee-to-neck manoeuvre, the same

tactic used by Derek Chauvin, the white Minneapolis police officer who murdered George Floyd,

a 46-year old Black man29. The above accounts provide a distributing view into the violence and

considerable asymmetry in police encounters described by many Black youths.

By comparison, both direct and vicarious experiences with police use of force were

extremely uncommon among white youth. When white youths described witnessing the use-of-

force, it usually was related to an incident involving a Black friend. Further, in situations where

29 The use of this tactic is banned by many American police agencies and the RCMP. Toronto Chief of Police Mark

Saunders has since publicly stated his service does not employ knee-to-neck restraints (Global News, 2020; Russell,

2020).

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white youths described being subject use-of-force themselves, the occurrence took place in a

neighbourhood with a high proportion of Black residents. For example, when asked to describe

his most negative experience with the police, Michael shared being assaulted by police officers

during a late-night encounter in the Forest Glen area:

There were these two guys, and they were in a cruiser, and they kept circling me

and watching me and watching me, and I went around the corner, and I went

into a store and waited there for two minutes, and they pulled into the parking lot

so they were watching me. So I got up and I left and I went around the corner,

and there was another cruiser right there so they got out they literally got out and

just started chasing me so I just ran and then I ended up getting tased, and they

ended up hitting me, and they put handcuffs on me and then they kept hitting me

again after that, while I was handcuffed.

Michael went on to describe that, in his view, there was no justification for his being chased and

ultimately detained. However, when asked whether the police had ever been violent towards him

when it was not required, Michael was quick to reply, “Nah”. While experiences like Michael’s

were uncommon among white interviewees, his account does speak to some interesting

considerations. As discussed, Michael self-reported being heavily involved in street crime,

including being arrested on eight to nine occasions. Despite this, he had limited experiences with

police use of force, both directly and vicariously. Further, he believed that he had not been the

victim of unwarranted violence, which stands in contrast to the accounts shared by many Black

youths, including those who were not in conflict with the law.

In a democracy, police have exceptional powers, including the authority to use force in

the commission of their duties. As such, the public must accept that the police have a legitimate

right to use force, including lethal force, and that the application of force will be inevitably

asymmetrical in nature (Bittner, 1970). To this end, the involvement of the police in any given

situation introduces the possibility of force being used to resolve the encounter (1970, p. 95). As

Bitter describes, “the role of the police is best understood as a mechanism for distribution of non-

negotiably coercive force” (1970, p. 46). Further, once the police mandate has is invoked, they

will not desist from their task until the situation has been made orderly, what Ericson (1982)

describes as ‘reproducing order’. In this regard, the use of force is but one of the tools available

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to police in this task. However, several factors contribute to police disproportionately using force

against Black youth.

As discussed, racially and spatially segregated areas, with large Black populations, are

disproportionately represented in urban crime rates (Morenoff et al., 2001; Peterson & Krivo,

2005, 2009a, 2009b; Sampson & Wilson, 1995). This disparity is both reflected in and a product

of the allocation of police resources, which are focused mainly on the perceived criminal threat

posed by large racialized populations (Chiricos et al., 2001; D’Alessio et al., 2005; Kane, 2003;

Lautenschlager & Omori, 2019; Parker et al., 2005). Further, the perception of these

communities as dangerous has led to police favouring the use of aggressive and often

confrontational tactics designed to enforce social order (Anderson, 1999; Mastrofski et al., 2002;

Solis et al., 2009; Stewart et al., 2009; Terrill & Reisig, 2003). As Herbert (2001) describes, the

masculinist nature of policing has contributed to the coding of specific spaces or neighbourhoods

as ‘anti-police’ and thus dangerous. In patrolling these areas, officers enter with a pre-existing

expectation of the dangers they will face and therefore adopt an aggressive orientation intended

to “maintain territorial control over such areas” (p. 60). The impacts of these practices are

evident in the mutual hostility that has come to characterize relations between the police and

Black youths.

Mutual Hostility

The behaviours of individuals during police-citizen contacts have a significant influence on

officer behaviours, and thus the outcomes of the interaction (Engel et al., 2012; Engel, 2005;

Friedman et al., 2004; Mastrofski et al., 2002; Mears et al., 2017; Reisig et al., 2004; Smith &

Hawkins, 1973; Sykes & Clark, 1975). When police perceive that an individual is disrespectful

towards them, they will be more likely to exhibit similar behaviour in response (Reisig et al.,

2004). Conversely, when members of the public show deference to the police, they will be more

likely to receive similar treatment (Brunson & Weitzer, 2011). The dynamics of these encounters

also vary by the age of the individual involved, with young people being less likely to comply

with police directives (McCluskey et al., 1999). These findings are of particular concern for

young people who reside in communities characterized by aggressive, order-maintenance

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policing as they are more likely to experience involuntary police contacts (Brunson & Miller,

2006; Brunson & Weitzer, 2009; Gau & Brunson, 2009; Hayle et al., 2016; Wortley & Owusu-

Bempah, 2011). The character of these encounters is an important factor in shaping overall

perceptions of the police and the criminal justice system, including attitudes consistent with legal

cynicism. Notably, prior research shows persons holding attitudes consistent with legal cynicism

are less willing to show deference to the police (Geller & Fagan, 2019). The presence of a

climate of mutual hostility was evident in the accounts shared by study participants.

Fatima, a 26-year old Black woman, who resides in the Regal Heights community,

discussed why, in her view, young people in the community were unwilling to call the police for

assistance or comply with police investigations. In the following account, she describes a

conversation she had with a Toronto police officer:

Some people, I personally think, just want to flex power. You know, you get

paid very well to be a police officer. You have to carry a gun. You know

everything. So why not? The whole trigger happy, whatever. So, whatever, I

asked him, I'm like, why you guys do that? And listen, one was a straight-up

asshole. But he said to me it's how you treat me, I treat you, straight up. If you

talk to me in a disrespectful manner and I’m pulling you over, or I'm telling you

to stop, and you start catching an attitude, I'm going to catch one back with you.

Who's going to be the bigger guy now? It’s like a cycle now, right? So, it's like

that.

The perspective shared by the officer in Fatima’s account is reflected in the following excerpt from

my conversation with Sarah, a 17-year old young Black woman, who also resided in Regal Heights:

People don’t feel safe around the police, like not all of them again, but most of

them, and like if they have problems, they’re not going to talk to police about it.

If anything, like the police being violent and rude just brings that out in others.

And in an account shared by Durene, a 24-year old Black woman:

Interviewer: What kind of things happen when young people get mad with

police or overreact?

Them doing something stupid, like out of ignorance or rage because police are

not very popular around them so when they see a police or police approaches

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them they’re going to be like what the fuck get away from me or like escalate

the situation and like it seems like they’re looking for a fight.

Interviewer: The youth are?

I mean, both the youth and the police are looking for a fight. Like the police are

looking to intimidate you, so you give a reaction and bring the fight to them.

Like it’s mutual aggravation, but like police should know better.

I asked Durene why she believed the police would engage in such tactics, to which she replied,

“So like they can charge you or so they have like a reason to then control the situation and like

once they do that they can get you in the system”. Importantly, these beliefs were shared by

some white youth as well. As Michael describes:

I don’t know, I know a lot of them are assholes [the police]. Them and people.

But like that’s what I mean when I say it a two-way street, it depends on how

you act with them too. I know a lot of young kids are assholes, and they don’t

treat them nice neither. They want to struggle, they want to talk foul.

Interviewer: So, what kinds of problems does this cause?

Like listen, if you come with the bad attitude, they’re going to do the same…

Most of the time the way they [the police] try to find out things is just not the

right way to do it. They come at you with like tension, and they really trying to

make you feel like you’re in the wrong. They’re not trying to come at you with

respect.

Many young people believed that the police engaged in such behaviours to provoke young

people in the neighbourhood. In doing so, young people saw the police as seeking to document

residents as a form of social control. As a result, many young people would also describe

engaging in practices meant to avoid being ‘put in the system’ through avoiding police contacts

or deferring to police in order to end problematic police-citizen encounters or ‘keep it moving’.

Both direct and vicarious experiences with the police can contribute to the development

of alternative conduct norms and behaviours meant to both reduce the risk of coming into contact

with the police and to safely negotiate unwanted and unwarranted police encounters (Brunson &

Weitzer, 2011; Stuart, 2016; Weitzer & Brunson, 2009). In racially segregated, higher-crime

communities, being law-abiding is insufficient to avoid drawing police suspicion. Strategies to

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prevent police contacts can range from strategically avoiding areas known to be frequented by

the police to running from the scene of a potential encounter (Stuart, 2016; Weitzer & Brunson,

2009). Further, when dealing with police, young people are often advised by older residents to

show deference and to avoid volunteering any unnecessary information that might prolong the

encounter or place them in further legal jeopardy (Brunson & Weitzer, 2011). Among many

Black youths, strategies of this nature were central to safely navigating public life.

Among Black youth, the intergenerational transmission of conduct norms was a

reoccurring theme in the data. However, a similar finding was not evidenced among white

respondents, even among those who resided in higher-crime neighbourhoods, or had more

extensive histories of prior conflicts with the law. An example of the transmission of conduct

norms among Black youth is shared by Shamar, a 17-year old young Black man:

My parents now that like I’m older and grown up they like stop me and tell me

to watch out for police because they know that like police are like on some shit

and they know that police are judgmental so they tell me just like if you see

police go the other way because they might think like oh you’re doing

something wrong or like they’re just going try and talk to you and look to start

problems and obviously you don’t want problems, so they just tell you like stay

away from them.

Similarly, in my conversation with Blake, a 23-year old Black man, he described emulating

practices to avoid the police imparted by his mother:

I grew up around my mom a lot more, and I know my mother really had a high,

high alienation from like the police. She would go out of her way to avoid them

and so growing up you see that and you’re doing that with your mother, you’re

avoiding police. Say they’re at the gas station and you got off at the bus stop you

cross the street you’re not going to go through the gas station which may be a

short cut you’re going to walk around the gas station which might be a bit of a

longer walk but you’re looking to avoid them.

However, given the ubiquity of police surveillance that has come to characterize the daily lives

of many Black youths, entirely avoiding the police was functionally difficult, if not impossible. I

asked Samatar whether he did anything to keep himself safe from the police, to which he simply

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replied, “Get away from them. If you see them coming, just get away as soon as possible”.

Unfortunately, the same behaviours that young people engaged in to avoid police contacts likely

also served to make them more suspicious in the police's eyes, a finding that is consistent with

prior scholarship on this issue (Gau & Brunson, 2015). As Samatar would share when asked

whether police had stopped him for being seen as trying to avoid them, “Yeah, all the time. That

happens all the time”. In this regard, , many Black youths shared strategies they employed if

contact with the police could not be avoided. These included tactics intended to manage the

encounter and thus end it safely, including showing deference to the police, avoiding interacting

with the police in the absence of witnesses, and refusing to volunteer any extraneous information

under questioning.

In the following excerpt, Monique describes her reaction after being approached by two

police officers as a passenger in a parked car in a shopping plaza near her home. As she would

explain, the stop was, in her view, was based on her race and not any reasonable suspicion.

Despite this, Monique elected to defer to the officer’s questions and their order for her and her

friend to leave the parking lot, “Anyways, it’s the same thing like, okay officer, da da da, just so

the whole situation can end. Like I’m not trying to argue because we would have been leaving

anyways”. When asked how the stop made her feel, Monique replied:

A part of me was mad, like here I am doing nothing wrong and why you got to

come harass me like that, but at the same time I’m just like, you know you’ve

been through it so many times that it’s just another part of life, another part of

things you gotta deal with like on a regular basis and if you fixate on every little

thing like that you’re not going to be able to do your life in a positive way.

In another account, Richmond described being pulled over by two police officers in his

neighbourhood. In attempting to justify the stop, the officers claimed that a car resembling

Richmond’s was seen leaving the scene of a robbery. I asked him whether he believed the reason

he was given for the stop:

Fuck no, but like, what are you going to do about it? I’m not gonna argue about

that shit and just make the situation last any longer than it has to. So, I just told

him, ‘that wasn’t me officer, I’m just coming from work on my way home’ and

that I didn’t know anything about a robbery. Like, in the end, it’s not even worth

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it to, you know, fight or whatever unless they’re going to slap a charge on you. I

just kept saying ‘that wasn’t me officer’. Right so the officer is asking me like,

‘do you know anything about this’ and I’m just denying because I’m not trying

to get involved in any of that.

I went on to ask Richmond how he felt when the stop ended, to which he laughed and replied,

“Relieved. Like the younger me would have been mad, but now I just know that it ain’t worth

the problems it’s gonna cause. You say what you gotta say and you keep it moving”.

Richmond’s comment speaks to another important theme in the data, namely that tactics young

people employed when interacting with the police were influenced by age. For example, younger

persons were more likely to be openly hostile to the police, including resisting questioning and

defying police commands. Again, this finding is consistent with prior scholarship showing that

young men and, in particular, young Black men are less likely to be compliant with the police

(Anderson, 1999; Brunson & Weitzer, 2011; Engel, 2003; McCluskey et al., 1999).

Improving Trust and Confidence in the Police

Promoting confidence and trust between the police and minoritized communities has been a

central focus of police reform efforts across various national and international jurisdictions

(Boateng, 2013; Bradford, 2014; Goldsmith, 2005; Myhill & Bradford, 2012). In particular,

many police agencies have sought to repair historically fractious relations with members of the

Black community. For example, the Toronto Police Service has recently undertaken a

‘modernization’ plan, with one of the stated goals being improving relations with minority

communities and fostering public cooperation (Toronto Police Service, 2017). However, in

practice, this objective was at odds with the overwhelmingly negative tenor of many young

people's lived experiences with the police. For example, as Yasmin describes:

They [the police] don't like they don't connect. Like the majority of police

officers are white males. I'm like obviously minority people are like, you know,

multicultural, they're different than white males, like they’re the minority. So

obviously, they have nothing in common. They don't like, I guess like the police

don't see like how minority people like struggle and stuff like that. They just

treat them shit, basically.

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These experiences constituted a significant, if not insurmountable barrier for many young people

to engage with police outreach efforts. As evidenced by the following excerpts, many young

people believed any attempts at community outreach would be ineffective without first changing

the daily practices of police in the community:

Ian (16-year old Black man): Stop with everything. Like, come to us like people

and ask us what’s going on, and we might tell you, but when you come on some

dumb shit, then nothing will ever change.

Shawn (19-year old Black man): First thing would be to just stop harassing

people. That’s it really. Like stop treating everyone like they’re your enemy.

Further, many interviewees believed that any future police outreach efforts would be ineffectual

in fostering trust with older youth, and thus any interventions should be focused on younger

residents. For example, when asked what the police could do to improve public confidence and

trust, Dillon, a 17-year old Black man, replied:

There's not much they can do. Honesty. Okay. Like maybe in a few

generations… I don't think there's going to be much they're going to do because

kids in my generation, I know how they are. This is going to go in one ear and

out the next. That's the problem. They don’t care what police have to say, police

are just literally the biggest enemy. So, it's too late to salvage the relationship

right now.

In a later conversation, Teresa would share a similar view:

Honestly, I’m not sure there’s much they can do at this point, especially with the

older youth. They’re not going to fuck with police or be seen like having a

conversation with police.

Interviewer: Why not?

Because that’s the mentality of these youth like “fuck the police” even if they

never even had to deal with police, they don’t like them.

However, despite widespread distrust of the police and a pervasive climate of legal cynicism,

many young people shared approaches to improving police-community relations centred on

establishing dialogue and pro-social relations. In particular, young people shared that, in their

view, police needed to spend more time in community settings, outside of calls for service or

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patrol activities. In doing so, young people argued that this would allow police to be seen as

human beings and not solely law agents. Notably, this view young people with varying degrees

of involvement with crime and differing levels of prior experience with the criminal justice

system expressed this view. For example, Marcus believed that, while there was no opportunity

to improve his relationship with the police, the potential existed to do so for others:

Me personally, I’m not trying to do that, but I think we need to try and humanize

police so we don’t see them as police. You know, like we have to see them as

people. They have to come around as people and not as police. Like you know

they got to come around as part of the community and not just police, you know

what I mean? Because there’s a stigma attached to the police and the community

through generations doesn’t trust you or has been taught from time not to trust

you, you got to come around and create an environment where we can see you

differently.

Similarly, while Richmond was equally skeptical about the prospect of improving his views on

the police, he still held out hope for others:

Treat people with respect… come around like human beings and just chill, spend

some time getting to know people, don’t only show up when it’s time to jump

out. Maybe, you know, try and ask some questions first, figure out why people

are doing shit.

The above findings are consistent with prior studies of trust and confidence in the police among

racialized and marginalized youth (Brunson, 2007; Brunson & Miller, 2006; Gau & Brunson,

2009; Hagan et al., 2005). As a growing body of scholarship demonstrates, a history of

aggressive, order-maintenance policing strategies have had a corrosive impact on young people’s

perceptions of police legitimacy, thus diminishing their willingness to cooperate with the police,

a finding again consistent with existing scholarship (Murphy et al., 2008; Tyler & Fagan, 2008;

Tyler & Wakslak, 2004).

However, as many interviewees identified, there is potential to improve perceptions of

the police and foster legitimacy among youth through informal contacts. Indeed, as prior studies

suggest, procedural justice may be more salient in determining police legitimacy among youth

than adults (Murphy, 2015). Further, informal contacts, including police involvement in

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community-based programs, may improve cooperation and support for the police among young

people (Hinds, 2009). However, as my findings demonstrate, the perceived character police-

citizen contacts, including treatment deemed harassing or otherwise negative, represents a

fundamental barrier to improved police-youth relations. In this regard, the experiences and

perceptions shared by young people in my study highlight the inherent contradiction between the

public dictates of police leaders, who claim to be committed to reforming the police, and the

daily reality of police practices experienced by many young people. In short, if there is to be any

hope of successfully implementing the community-oriented policing strategies that police leaders

in Toronto have posited, they must first address concerns over routine police practices

substantively and transparently.

1.17 Discussion and Conclusion

An extensive body of scholarship has evidenced racialized disparities faced by Black people in

both the frequency of police-citizen contacts and the tenor of those encounters. Further, the

ecological dimension of police-citizen contacts is well-documented, with Black people living in

racially and spatially segregated communities being disproportionately subject to aggressive,

order-maintenance policing strategies. However, relatively few qualitative studies employ a

comparative approach in examining the experiences of both Black and white youths, and fewer

still within the Canadian context. The findings of this study contribute to the body of scholarship

on these issues by drawing on the lived experiences of young people who have been the focus of

high-profile public and academic discourses related to policing and urban crime but whose own

voices have remained relatively marginalized.

As discussed, young Black men have come to be the focus of aggressive policing

practices, a fact made evident in the experiences of many study participants. Black youths,

including both those in conflict with the law and those with no prior involvement with

criminalized behaviours, consistently described negative experiences. Conversely, while few

white interviewees described being subject to similar policing practices as Black people, some of

these experiences involved aggravating factors known to draw police suspicion. Specifically,

these factors included being in the company of Black friends and being a white resident in a

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neighbourhood with a larger Black population. Further, consistent with the ecological dimension

of police suspicion, Black youth risked being targeted by police, both within and outside their

communities, a concern not expressed by white youths. In short, the presence of mitigating

factors that should insulate individuals from police suspicion, including prior criminal histories

and either residing in or being found in a ‘high-crime’ area did not protect Black people from

police suspicion. These findings are consistent with prior scholarship examining race, social

ecology, and police suspicion. As Wortley and Owusu-Bempah (2011) note, “race matters” when

determining police suspicion, with Blackness constituting the “master status” in police officer’s

discretionary decision-making process (p. 402). Here it is important to note that experiences with

the police have far-reaching impacts on those targeted and in the broader community.

Experiences with the police can be direct and vicarious in nature, with individual

experiences then socially transmitted throughout the community. Further, as Skogan (2006)

describes, positive and negative experiences with the police are not experienced equally, with

interactions deemed negative being four to fourteen times more impactful than positive

experiences. Concerning the findings of this study, this asymmetry is of particular concern as

negative experiences with the police were seemingly ubiquitous among Black youth, while

positive experiences were comparatively uncommon. Further, those who had positive

experiences also had negative experiences, thus potentially diminishing the value of those

positive experiences in shaping perceptions of the police. Study findings also demonstrate the

salience social transmission of experiences between youthful peers and intergenerationally

between family members and older peers. This finding was consistent with prior scholarship on

the factors shaping attitudes towards legitimacy and the transmission of conduct norms (Brunson

& Weitzer, 2011; Wolfe et al., 2017).

Taken together, accumulated negative experiences with the police deemed procedurally

unjust can compromise police legitimacy and contribute to a broader climate of legal cynicism.

Additionally, the impacts of experiences with the police are cumulative, thus framing how

individuals will interpret future experiences (Brunson, 2007; Geller & Fagan, 2019). As

discussed, when legal cynicism emerges in a community, residents are less likely to comply with

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the law or report crimes to the police (Desmond et al., 2016; Kirk & Matsuda, 2011). Further, in

response, some residents may turn to extra-legal forms of dispute resolution to fill the gap left by

legal authorities, including forms of private violence consistent with the Code of the Street

(Anderson, 1999; Gau & Brunson, 2015). Taken together, a preference for extra-legal forms of

dispute resolution may contribute to the intensification of community-level violence while

increasing the potential for crimes to go undetected, thus contributing to the cycle of crime and

violence that has already come to beset racialized and marginalized communities.

The findings of this study support several possible policy implications, which should be

of interest to both police actors and those involved in the formation of public policy. While it is

beyond the scope of this paper to address these recommendations in full, the following section

considers some selected interventions. Foremost, my study findings support the importance of

procedurally just treatment as a key factor in shaping perceptions of police legitimacy (Sunshine

& Tyler, 2003; Tyler, 2016; Tyler & Fagan, 2008). The Toronto Police Service has recently

committed itself to a so-called ‘modernization’ initiative that includes a stated focus on fostering

trust and accountability. Here, my findings further evidence a clear disconnect between the

official objectives of the service and the daily practices of some of its members.

However, while the police face substantial and arguably justified expectations regarding

crime prevention and responding to various forms of criminal offending, they cannot be truly

effective in this regard without the cooperation of the communities they serve. Indeed, as

discussed, acknowledging this fact is at the heart of the community policing ethos. Further, the

police mandate has expanded significantly to include a host of social welfare and social service

responsibilities, administrative duties, and involvement with other largely non-criminal events,

many of which fall outside their expertise and training (Scott, 2005). Similarly, the causes of

crime are complex and multifaceted, often requiring the input of various community stakeholders

to effectively respond to and address those causes and prevent crimes from occurring (Foster,

2002). In short, the burden of community safety and crime prevention cannot rest solely with the

police. However, should the police wish to shift some responsibility for public safety to

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community actors, they must work with those groups to help them develop the capacity to

identify and respond to problems.

These efforts, to be effective, must also engage with other social service agencies with

the ability to address the issue. As Scott (2005) describes, “[m]uch of police business consists of

handling problems and cases that fall through the cracks in the ‘social net’ or constitute an

overflow stemming from the limited resources of other agencies” (p. 395). However, as

discussed, while Toronto has faced escalating levels of youth-involved gun and gang violence,

much of the funding to address these issues has favoured police-led approaches. By comparison,

significantly less funding has gone towards systematic, long-term support for community-based

agencies engaged with violence prevention and intervention efforts (Haag & Wortley, 2018;

Pagliaro, 2020).

For community agencies to be effective and supportive partners in combating crime and

violence, they must be funded appropriately, including substantial and sustainable funding

commensurate to the complex and growing needs of marginalized youths and their communities.

In this regard, recent movements in the U.S. and Canada for defunding and ‘destaking’ the police

contend that decades of cuts to community services, social welfare agencies, and mental health

services amidst ever-growing police budgets have contributed to the present situation. In

response, these movements have called for the reallocation of police resources towards other

approaches to public safety, such as the creation and funding of alternative first responders and

programs intended to address the social and structural antecedents of crime.

Moving forward, effectively engaging community actors as co-producers of public safety

and contributors to crime prevention must begin with the process of repairing fractured relations

between the police and historically minoritized communities. Such an endeavour must ultimately

involve both parties. To this end, it is evident from the findings of this study that current

experiences with the police are being framed by the enduring legacy of historical practices, thus

contributing to a climate of mutual hostility that will continue to undermine efforts at

relationship building. In this regard, suspect demeanour interacts with both race and

neighbourhood context to shape the outcomes of police-citizen interactions. However, the

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influence of suspect demeanour should in no way discount the considerable asymmetry in these

encounters, as police ultimately have significantly more agency than community members, and

in particular young people, in both initiating and guiding police-citizen contacts. Indeed,

powerful implicit cognitive biases associating both specific neighbourhoods and Black residents

as a whole with dangerousness serve to shape and guide the behaviours and tactics of the police

(James, 2018; Smith & Alpert, 2007; Stewart et al., 2009). In turn, many residents have come to

expect that they will receive adverse treatment or an unfair outcome should they interact with the

police, which has been described ‘anticipatory injustice’ (Woolard et al., 2008).

Unequivocally, the police must take the first steps to overcome this deep-seated

cynicism. In the absence of systemic transformation of police practices, no amount of well-

intentioned efforts at building police-community partnerships will be able to overcome the prior

and ongoing impacts of procedurally unjust street-level policing. Despite this, as many study

participants shared, police have opportunities to begin restoring trust and, in particular, with

younger residents. However, many of this study’s findings support the position that this will be

an extremely challenging proposition to achieve. Some older residents are already difficult, if not

impossible, to reach.

For police managers, the process of restoring trust, rebuilding relationships, and fostering

legitimacy must begin with a commitment to procedurally just policing, not only in policy but

also in practice. As discussed, police officers are empowered with a significant amount of

discretion which, if used in a manner deemed unfair, can negatively impact public perceptions of

the police (Sunshine & Tyler, 2003). The perceived abuse of this discretion is evident in the

experiences of Black youths, who routinely described experiencing involuntary police contacts

that were not based on any reasonable suspicion but rather on their race. In short, young people

described police using race as a proxy for risk, which is at the core of racial profiling as a

practice (Tanovich, 2002). Further, if officers attempted to justify their actions, these rationales

were often discredited as insufficient or otherwise insincere. Thus, while officers might have

been truthful, the pre-existing trust deficit between the police and Black youth would essentially

moot any explanations. These concerns should be central to police reform attempts as the police

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are ultimately dependent on the support of the public to both detect and solve crimes (Skolnick

& Bayley, 1988).

In closing, the police must focus on developing a climate of accountability, both

internally and in the public's eyes. As Weitzer and Tuch (2005) find, those who perceived that

police misconduct is a pervasive issue in the city or neighbourhood are more likely to hold

negative views of the police. Conversely, research suggests that attitudes towards police

accountability may be a key predictor of satisfaction in the police (Angelis & Wolf, 2016).

However, while western nations have seen several advancements meant to improve police

oversight and accountability, including citizen-review boards, new training regimes, and public

consultations, the effectiveness of these measures remains unclear (Angelis & Wolf, 2016).

Within the Canadian context, efforts to improve accountability continued to be hampered by a

lack of systematically collected and publicly available data on race and criminal justice.

However, while police leaders in Canada have historically resisted providing race-based

data, some recent policy advancements suggest that this embargo may be lifting (Millar &

Owusu-Bempah, 2011; Owusu-Bempah & Millar, 2010; Wortley, 1999b). In 2020, the Toronto

Police Service, Canada’s largest municipal police service, started implementing a ‘race-based

data collection strategy’, which police leaders have described as a means of promoting racial

equity and transparency (Pelley, 2019). However, the policy, which is the first of its kind in

Canadian history, has yet to be fully implemented (Rankin & Gillis, 2019). Peel Regional Police,

Canada’s second-largest municipal police service, have made a similar commitment, including

forming a data-governance team and developing a ‘multi-year roadmap’ for collecting race-

based data (Miller, 2020). While these policies await full implementation, their impacts are still

unknown. As such, it is difficult to assess their efficacy, but the policies themselves may

represent a valuable step forward. Similarly, to date, there is no publicly available independent

evaluation data pertaining to the Toronto Police’s ambitious ‘modernization’ strategy.

The present study draws on in-depth, qualitative data to better understand young people's

lived experiences with the police and their impacts on themselves and their communities. While

the sampling strategy does not allow these findings to be generalized, as discussed, this was not

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the study's goal. Instead, the focus was on providing in-depth meaning and analysis by sharing

young people's voices. To this end, the data represents experiences from young people across

various neighbourhood settings, with differing levels of experience with, criminalization,

policing, and the criminal justice system. In this regard, the considerable consistency of many

accounts shared by Black youth speaks to the pervasive and ongoing impacts of procedurally

unjust police practices. Here I argue that there is a vital need for Canadian scholarship that

considers these practices' individual and community-level impacts, including their immediate

harms and the harms to future generations. Finally, in comparing the experiences of Black and

white youths, my findings demonstrate the centrality of race as a predictor of police suspicion.

This finding holds additional significance in the context of Canada’s official commitment to

multiculturalism and repeated denials by police actors and other public officials that racial

profiling is not an issue in Canadian society.

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Chapter 5 Discussion and Conclusion

For many, a coalition of international uprisings and protest movements that came together in

solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and anguish over the ongoing crisis of police

violence against Black and Indigenous peoples defined the summer of 2020. In the United States,

the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, by Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis

police officer, represented a rallying point as groups called for transformative action on systemic

racism and police violence. In Canada, the falling death in the presence of the police of Regis

Korchinski-Paquet, a 29-year-old Afro-Indigenous woman, and the death of Chantel Moore, a

26-year-old Indigenous woman killed by police during a ‘wellness check’ would inspire protests

and calls for action on anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism (Maynard, 2020; Mercer, 2021).

However, while the events of 2020 served to refocus public attention on these issues, it is vital to

note that these tragedies are not isolated incidents but are the most recent manifestation of long-

standing racialized disparities in police practices (Maynard, 2020). Further, while police

practices and the broader intersections of race, socio-economic inequality, and crime have long

been studied in the United States, they remain comparatively understudied in Canada. In

particular, there remains a lack of Canadian scholarship that employs a qualitative approach in

examining the daily realities of police practices and the lived experiences and perceptions of

racialized and marginalized young people with policing and community safety. My findings

represent an important contribution to Canadian scholarship on these issues.

As discussed, Black youths from various communities across Toronto and the GTA

consistently described having experiences with direct and vicarious police contacts.

Overwhelmingly, young people linked direct experiences with the police to involuntary police

contacts, including being subject to seemingly arbitrary field interrogations rather than calls for

service. Further, both involuntary and voluntary contacts were often described as being

procedurally unjust, thus contributing to widely held negative perceptions of the police. For

many Black youths who resided in low-income communities, the police are viewed as both

unwilling and unable to ensure their safety and that of their communities. These findings, while

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upsetting, were not unexpected. Indeed, police in Toronto and the GTA and the Black

communities they serve have had historically fractious relations, including decades of

controversies over police brutality, killings, and racial profiling (Gillis, 2020). Amidst highly

public efforts by both the police and various levels of government to improve police-community

relations, it is evident that there is a disconnect between these stated policy objectives and the

realities of daily life for many young people, who continue to be both over-policed yet under-

protected.

In short, while Canada and the United States vary in several key aspects, it would appear

that the effects of advanced marginality, aggressive policing, growing economic polarization,

and structural racism have contributed to comparable impacts and commensurate adaptations

among Black youths in both countries. With these issues in mind, this chapter will integrate my

findings into the broader theoretical frameworks that guided my thesis and the historical and

policy events contributing to the present-day policing climate. In doing so, the remainder of this

chapter is structured as follows; first, I summarize the main findings of each of my data chapters;

following which, I review some important limitations in the study design; before concluding with

a discussion of future research needs and the relevance to future policy directives.

1.18 Summary of Main Findings

My study findings suggest that the aggressive, order-maintenance police response to ongoing

crime and violence issues, which are concentrated increasingly in Toronto’s lower-income

communities, has further exasperated the negative relationship between the police and Black

youths in Toronto. In response, many young people engage in a wide range of informal strategies

to ensure their safety. In Chapter 2, I examine the salience and impacts of several on-going,

intergenerational conflicts between so-called rival neighbourhoods or ‘opp blocks’. These

rivalries, while resembling more traditional conflicts between street gangs, were described by

youths as extending to young people in the wider community, regardless of prior involvement

with street crime. However, unlike territorial rivalries linked to more instrumental concerns over

the control of public space, these rivalries are driven both by a sense of place and neighbourhood

pride and a profound lack of faith in the police's efficacy. In defence of their neighbourhood,

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young people described employing various self-help behaviours, including surveillance regimes

and instrumental violence meant to protect their neighbourhood from both real and imagined

threats posed by unknown persons in the community. As young people described, these regimes

resembled the police's aggressive policing practices, including controversial stop-and-account

tactics. My findings serve to challenge dominant scholarly and policy discourses that position

youth gangs as the primary drivers of neighbourhood-level violence in low-income communities

while also highlighting the salience of concerns over personal safety among non-gang involved

youth. My findings also depart from the normative gang literature by highlighting the relevance

of territoriality and neighbourhood identity as a source of pride for non-gang involved youth.

Notably, as young people from marginalized backgrounds face growing levels of racialized

concentrated poverty, spatial segregation, and declining social welfare policies, the centrality of

the local as both as a source of identity and as a place where young people can exert a modicum

of control over their safety stands to be of increased relevance (Wacquant, 2008).

In Chapter 3, I explore the contours of so-called ‘anti-snitching’ codes. Police in Toronto

have publicly blamed these codes for their inability to solve various serious crimes, including

homicides involving Black youth. My findings challenge the essentializing nature of these

official discourses by illustrating how negative experiences with the police have contributed to a

climate of widespread legal cynicism among Black youths, including an unwillingness to report

crimes to police or comply with police investigations. While knowledge of subcultural codes

against snitching was common among young people, definitions of which behaviours constituted

snitching and who was considered a snitch varied based on situational and biographical factors.

For many young people, norms against compliance with the police were also strongly linked to a

perception that the police could not, or would not, keep them safe from reprisals. However, while

the threat of violent reprisals factored prominently in many young people’s conceptions of

snitching, they were also worried about the social consequences of being labelled a “snitch” and

subsequently being ‘cast out’ from social life in their community. In short, this chapter highlights

the inherent contradiction between the daily realities of young people’s negative experiences

with the police and the police service’s expectation that, despite poor treatment, they cooperate

with investigations that could compromise their safety. This contradiction, in turn, contributes to

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the ongoing cycle of crime and violence that has increasingly come to characterize daily life for

many young people. My findings contribute to the relatively limited body of qualitative

scholarship, examining normative anti-snitching codes. Further, to date, this paper represents one

of the most in-depth examinations of this issue in the Canadian context.

Finally, in Chapter 4, I compare Black, and white youths' lived experiences with policing

and community safety. While perceptions of the police varied among study participants, Black

youth continually expressed more negative views of the police than their white counterparts. My

findings highlight the importance of both direct and vicarious experiences with the police as

contributing to perceptions of police legitimacy, a finding that is highly consistent with prior

scholarship on these issues (Brunson & Weitzer, 2011; Rosenbaum et al., 2005; Weitzer &

Brunson, 2009; Wortley & Owusu-Bempah, 2009, 2011). The negative police experiences

shared by Black youth included being subject to or witnessing harassment, street interrogations,

assaults, and unwarranted arrests. Importantly, these experiences were consistent among Black

youth, regardless of prior criminality or involvement with other activities that would reasonably

justify police attention. In essence, race remained a consistent predictor of police suspicion,

rendering Black youths as ‘symbolic assailants’ (Skolnick, 1966) in the eyes of law enforcement.

By comparison, direct and vicarious negative experiences with the police were relatively

uncommon among white youths and particularly among those from more affluent backgrounds.

Importantly, white youths who reported experiencing frequent police contacts also shared being

more heavily involved in street-crime and often being stopped in the company of Black peers, a

finding again consistent with American research (Weitzer & Brunson, 2009; Weitzer, 2000).

Notably, while the scope and tenor of police practices faced by young people resembled those

found in American scholarship, many young people believed that these issues were somehow

worse yet in the United States. Beliefs of this nature were common, even among young people

with no prior direct or vicarious contacts with American law enforcement. In this regard, many

referred to the importance of mainstream and social media sources, including content derived in

American, in shaping conceptions of urban policing. Here I argue that this represents a key point

of difference from American studies of these issues, whereby highly publicized cases of

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misconduct by American law enforcement agencies have served to further long-standing myths

of ‘Canadian exceptionalism’ over the United States (Adjetey, 2015; Mullings et al., 2016).

In closing, I discuss recommended strategies provided by my youth respondents for

improving police-community relations. There was a shared belief that the opportunity to repair

the relationship with the police has passed for many older youth residents. However, many

would also point to the potential to reach younger residents, whose views on the police were still

subject to change. Strategies for improving relations included the need for the police to be

present in the community, outside of calls for service and a focus on establishing an effective

dialogue with residents to identify and solve shared problems. These findings are consistent with

existing scholarship on urban policing (Gau & Brunson, 2009, 2010; Murphy, 2015; Sunshine &

Tyler, 2003) in supporting the need for policing practices consistent with the tenets of procedural

justice, and thus should be of interest to both police managers and those in public policy.

1.19 Limitations

As with any similarly situated study, my project faces some important limitations, which I must

address. First, as a qualitative study, the question of the generalizability of my findings must be

considered. In this regard, it has been suggested the criterion of generalizability has been

primarily constructed using a positivist framework and is thus is better suited to evaluating

quantitative research (Carminati, 2018). As a qualitative study, the goal of my work is to provide

an in-depth and contextual examination of the lived experiences of a specific group of people at a

particular moment in time. That is not to say that I am not concerned with my findings'

applicability to other contexts. However, quantitative research seeks to develop generalizability

through random sampling of a study population whose demographic characteristics resemble

those of the population. By comparison, qualitative research design focuses on developing a

more in-depth knowledge of a specific group to contribute to theory development. In doing so,

scholars can broadly apply the resultant theories to aid in analyzing related situations, groups,

and events (Maxwell & Chmiel, 2014). As such, while I do not make any claims to the

representativeness of my findings, either to Tornto or the GTA as a whole, or to other urban

contexts, I argue that the depth of rich data contained within the analysis -- and the clear

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theoretical linkages to the broader body of scholarship on these issues -- speaks to the salience of

my central claims. Finally, while my findings are reflective of the lived experiences of young

people in Canada, the close parallels found with similarly situated studies of the lives of young

people in the United States, including the applicability of theories developed within that context,

points to the need for additional, comparative studies on these issues.

A second limitation evident in the study relates to the recruitment and sampling of study

participants. The sampling procedure did not allow for the development of a representative

sample, nor was this the goal of the project. Furthermore, I acknowledge that, while my study

was focused on the experiences of young people with policing, it is likely that I was unable to

recruit young people who were the most seriously involved with street crime and thus most

likely to have repeated prior contacts with the police. Indeed, from my extensive prior

experiences with community-based research in lower-income communities across Toronto and

the GTA, I know that these youths are the most difficult to reach. They are the least likely to

frequent the community organizations and settings where I conducted recruitment or respond to

flyers and other recruitment aids used to facilitate outreach30. Additionally, the nature of my

study necessitated the use of research protocols intended to protect the anonymity and

confidentiality of study participants. However, in practice, these protocols may have inhibited

my ability to pursue discussions of certain subjects, including specifics related to young people’s

ongoing involvement with criminalized activities that may have brought them into conflict with

the law. It is my opinion that some young people appreciated the opportunity to discuss their

experiences and perspectives with an interested outsider and that this contributed to more

fulsome and fruitful discussions. Conversely, it is also possible that the stated ethics protocols

inhibited them from being more open when discussing certain topics. Ultimately, it is impossible

for me to know if and when this factored into my discussions. However, it is my genuine belief

30 It should be noted that I was able to interview several young people who were more heavily involved with street

crime. This was often made possible through snowball or chain sampling, where a peer would arrange for the initial

contact and vouch for my credibility and intentions.

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that I developed trust and rapport with most participants. Here, I point to the quality of the data

collected and the tenor of informal discussions I had with many study participants following their

interviews in supporting this claim.

1.20 Discussion

If the past tells us anything, public interest in concentrated, racialized poverty, the impacts of

aggressive policing, community-level violence, and the accompanying policy responses follow

predictable cycles related to critical events. However, the nature of police practices in young

people's daily lives has important, long-term implications, both for the trajectory of crime and

violence in the city and the police's ability to detect and solve crimes. As discussed, negative

experiences with the police deemed to be procedurally unjust can contribute to a loss of police

legitimacy. When the police are considered illegitimate, persons are less likely to report crimes

to the police and cooperate with police investigations (Sunshine & Tyler, 2003; Tyler & Fagan,

2008; Tyler & Wakslak, 2004). Further, perceptions of the police can be driven by direct and

vicarious experiences, with encounters either witnessed or shared by friends, relatives, and the

media all influencing attitudes (Rosenbaum et al., 2005; Schuck et al., 2008; Weitzer & Tuch,

2005). In short, without the public's willing cooperation, the police will be significantly

hampered in their efforts to respond to crime. However, in the same neighbourhoods where the

police are most in need of this cooperation, their actions have jeopardized the public’s support.

Furthermore, encounters with the police can significantly impact several aspects of a young

person’s development, with consequences that ripple throughout the life-course.

The police represent the primary entry point for young people to the criminal justice

system, and officers have significant discretion in determining whether someone is formally

processed. Further, the police also represent one of the primary means by which youths are

criminalized (Rios, 2007), which has important implications as Black youths are

disproportionately represented in police-citizen contacts. The process by which police contacts

contribute to deviance can be analyzed through labelling theory. Labelling theory contends that

once an individual becomes labelled as a deviant, this can contribute to various forms of

stigmatization and other negative reactions that contribute to further deviance later in the life

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course (Lemert, 1967). While crime and deviance can emanate from other factors, including

prior social, structural, and psychological conditions, it is the process of labelling that serves to

reinforce deviant behaviour later in life. In particular, labelling may contribute to a process of

social exclusion (Link, 1982), thus leading to blocked opportunities that further disadvantage

young people and contribute to their continued marginalization. For example, prior research

suggests that police contacts and juvenile arrests contribute to reduced academic performance,

higher high-school dropout rates, and lower overall levels of educational attainment (Gottlieb &

Wilson, 2019; Hirschfield, 2009; Kirk & Sampson, 2013). Similarly, labelling resulting from

police interventions earlier in life has consequences that follow into adolescence and adulthood,

including higher rates of unemployment, a greater likelihood of receiving welfare, and an

increased likelihood of drug use (Davies & Tanner, 2003; Lopes et al., 2012; Pager, 2003; Pager

et al., 2009).

Police contacts can also have profoundly negative long-term impacts on the mental

health, well-being, and social integration of young people. In examining the impacts of racial

profiling, the Ontario Human Rights Commission (2003) found that experiences with racial

profiling at the hands of the police had contributed to feelings of alienation, reduced citizenship,

mental health issues, and an unwillingness to frequent public spaces. Further, once a person

becomes labelled as deviant, they internalize that label, which contributes to the formation of

beliefs about how they will be seen and treated by others (Link et al., 1989). For young people,

social withdrawal can also result in the loss of contact with prosocial peers and alignment with

deviant peers, thus contributing to the further internalization of the deviant label and subsequent

involvement with delinquency (Wiley et al., 2013).

Involvement with deviant peers can contribute to further deviance as peer groups play an

important role in reinforcing and modelling delinquent behaviours (Ardelt & Day, 2002;

Erickson et al., 2000; Simons et al., 1991). Further, involvement with deviant peers may also

serve as a marker of deviance to outside observers, including parents and school authorities

(Rocheleau & Chavez, 2015). The police also play a powerful role in labelling gangs and gang

members (Chesney-Lind et al., 1994; Meehan, 2000; Zatz, 1987). As such, groups of young

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people whose members have already been labelled as deviant also risk being labelled as gang

members, thus potentially risking their being subject to even more aggressive forms of policing

(Gau & Brunson, 2015).

Aggressive policing tactics and police brutality are increasingly being viewed as a social

determinant of health and thus linked to a range of potential health outcomes (Alang et al., 2017;

Khenti, 2014). To this end, research shows that experiences with the police can contribute to a

range of adverse physical and mental health outcomes for Black people. For example, a growing

body of scholarship suggests that, among Black people, police brutality and excessive use-of-

force contributes to increased fatal injuries, adverse psychological impacts, stress related to racist

public reactions to widely-publicized occurrences, increased arrests, and financial strains related

to legal costs, medical bills, and funeral expenses (Alang et al., 2017).

Furthermore, scholarship has linked involuntary police contacts and the experience of

living under the threat of police surveillance and harassment to a range negative mental health

outcomes. Young Black men who experienced more frequent, intrusive, and aggressive police

contacts experience higher levels of anxiety and trauma resulting from their experiences with

intrusive stops also being predictive of symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (Geller et

al., 2014). Similarly, for young Black men who live under a state of police surveillance, both

experiencing and witnessing procedurally unjust police encounters and police violence have been

found to contribute to feelings of worthlessness, nervousness, and other, more severe forms of

psychological distress (Sewell et al., 2016).

The over-policing and profiling of Black communities and Black youth is manifested in

the disproportionate representation of Black people in Canada’s correctional systems. According

to census data, in 2006, Black people represented only 2.5% of Canada’s national population, yet

they represented 8.4% of the Federal correctional population. Similarly, in Ontario, Black people

represented 3.9% of the provincial population but 17.7% of those admitted to provincial

correctional institutions (Owusu-Bempah & Wortley, 2014). The effects of mass incarceration

are well-documented and include harms to the individual, their families, and their wider social

networks. As recent research demonstrates, incarceration places significant financial strains on

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families. There are immediate costs associated with incarceration for the families of those

incarcerated, including both a loss of income and the financial costs associated with maintaining

a relationship with an incarcerated loved one (Comfort et al., 2016; Grinstead et al., 2001;

Schwartz-Soicher et al., 2011). In the long-term, formerly incarcerated persons face significant

stigma and discrimination when attempting to re-enter the labour market (Holzer et al., 2006;

Pager, 2003; Pager et al., 2009) and significantly reduced earnings over the life course (Apel &

Sweeten, 2010; Western, 2002; Western et al., 2001).

Children of incarcerated parents also face increased risk a host of adverse life outcomes,

including lower levels of educational attainment, social exclusion, greater reliance on social

assistance, behavioural problems, and the loss of parental relationships and emotional support

(Foster & Hagan, 2007; Geller et al., 2009, 2011; Hagan & Dinovitzer, 1999; Haskins, 2014). In

addition, research suggests that formerly incarcerated parents also contribute less financial

support to their children, thus furthering the economic disadvantage and instability they face

(Geller et al., 2011). In the long-term, it has also been suggested that the incarceration of a

family member may negatively impact the perceptions of other family members concerning

government legitimacy and fairness and result in reduced levels of civic participation and

political engagement, thus further perpetuating overall structures of inequality and

marginalization (Lee et al., 2014). With this in mind, it is vital to consider the wide-reaching

impacts of racially biased policing and their relation to other forms of disadvantage faced by

Black people in the GTA.

The negative impacts of police practices extend to the families and communities of those

targeted. As Khenti (2014) describes, the persistent over-policing of racialized neighbourhoods

that already face concentrated disadvantage serves only to exasperate these issues and further

their harms. In their report on the effects of racial profiling, the Ontario Human Rights

Commission described members of racialized communities as “living within a perpetual state of

crisis due to the effects of racism” (p. 35). In turn, this state of crisis has contributed to the

formation of several coping strategies meant to address the effects of discrimination. For many,

racism had contributed to a feeling of ‘powerlessness’ in the face of profiling, either experienced

166

directly or vicariously, which has the potential to inhibit their willingness to “seek out and gain

positions of power or authority in society” (p. 35). Among others, profiling had resulted in the

routinization of practices of self-surveillance and behavioural changes meant to deflect police

attention and minimize the frequency and intensity of police contacts, a finding which many

participants in this study echoed. The same Ontario Human Rights Commission report also

discussed how parents described socializing their children to conduct norms and beliefs intended

to normalize profiling in their daily lives, including strategies meant to mitigate the harms of

these behaviours. Here too, Black participants in my study described the intergenerational

transmission of similar norms. In turn, fear and distrust of the police were common among Black

youth, even those with no direct experiences with the police contacts.

1.21 Conclusion

It has been 15 years since the ‘Year of the Gun’. The impacts of the policies enacted in its wake

continue to be felt today, including the proliferation of aggressive, order-maintenance policing

strategies that disproportionately target and criminalize Black youth. The past fifteen years have

also seen the continued intensification of income inequality, concentrated racialized poverty, and

the retrenchment of the social welfare state (Hulchanski, 2007; 2010; Mehra, 2012).

Unfortunately, the findings of this dissertation come amidst rising levels of gun violence in

Toronto (Toronto Police Service, 2020) and growing concerns over the concentration of this

violence among Black youths who reside in spatially segregated lower-income communities.

Observers have argued that the character of this violence has changed, including the involvement

of younger participants and a growing number of violent incidents in public places (City of

Toronto, 2018; Ross et al., 2016). Notably, both Police Chief Mark Saunders and Toronto Mayor

John Tory have attributed growing gun violence to gang activity (Pagliaro, 2019; The Canadian

Press, 2018). Notably, these shifts have prompted comparisons to the ‘Year of the Gun’

(DiManno, 2018) and contributed to calls for a return to more punitive measures meant to

address violence, including the increased use of aggressive, order-maintenance policing

strategies (Pagliaro & Gillis, 2018), electronic surveillance (CBC News, 2019), and specialized

prosecutorial teams (Powers, 2018). Against this backdrop, it is impossible to understate the

167

importance of better understanding the nature and extent of young people’s experiences with the

police and the causes and consequences of neighbourhood violence.

While there is an extensive body of scholarship exploring the impacts of racially biased

policing in the United States, comparatively few studies have examined these issues within the

Canadian context, with even fewer employing a qualitative perspective. This relative lack of

available scholarship has factored prominently in efforts to discount or dismiss claims of racist

practices, thus contributing to the continued propagation of the national myth of Canada as a

multicultural nation, characterized by an overarching commitment to tolerance, egalitarian

principles, and equal opportunity (Henry & Tator, 2006; James, 1995). Further, our close

proximity to the United States, where racial profiling is a very public and much more widely

acknowledged issue (Smith, 2006), contributes to the perception that these issues are somehow

less severe or less prevalent in Canada (Mullings et al., 2016). Indeed, as Adjetey (2015)

describes, while comparisons between Canada and the United States are commonplace:

It is a different narrative, however, and perhaps polemical, to suggest that the

ways in which racism plays out in the two countries, even historically, is much

more similar than perceived, and that it is misguided to think of racial

oppression in Canada as a mild or innocuous phenomenon.

To this end, I argue that, while crucial differences remain between the United States and Canada,

including population demographics, levels of concentrated poverty, and rates of criminal

offending, it is clear that their approaches to policing Black people and Black communities share

important parallels. For example, a recent comparison of ‘carding’ by the Toronto Police

Service, and the use of similar ‘stop and frisk’ tactics by the New York City Police Department,

found that Black people were more likely to be stopped and searched in Toronto than Black

people in New York City (African Canadian Legal Clinic, 2013; Rankin & Winsa, 2013).

Further, studies of Toronto and New York suggest that racialized disparities in these practices

have a distinct ecological dimension. In both contexts, police stop rates were higher in more

racially heterogeneous, lower-income communities, with higher police surveillance levels.

However, racial disparities in police stops were more pronounced in more affluent and

predominantly white lower-crime communities (Gelman et al., 2007; Meng, 2017). These

168

findings suggest that, for Black residents, being found in a neighbourhood where they are

considered ‘out of place’ is a contributing factor in attracting police attention. My dissertation

findings serve as further evidence of the comparable impacts these tactics have had on Black

residents in Toronto.

Among the Black youth I spoke with, the disproportionate and overwhelmingly negative

impacts of aggressive policing practices were evident, both personally and on their families and

communities. For example, in both the United States and Canada, Black racial identity remains a

central factor in determining police suspicion. As Brunson and Miller (2006) describe in their

analysis of the experiences of young Black men in the United States:

Regardless of their involvement in delinquency, young men felt themselves

to be tainted by a kind of unilateral suspicion, which they tied most explicitly to

their race, but also to their presence in public neighborhood spaces, their

peer associations, their manner of dress and their previous contacts with

the police (p. 613).

Young Black men and women in my study shared a similar perspective. However, these beliefs

reflect more than police-citizen encounters. They are also reflective of long-standing, powerful

public discourses associating race and crime in Canada, including within the media, our court

systems, and public policy (Henry & Tator, 2006; Maynard, 2017; Mosher, 1998). These

discourses are central to the racial typification of crime and serve to legitimate the continued use

of ‘tough on crime’ approaches, including increased policing, more punitive laws, and longer jail

and prison terms (Barkan & Cohn, 2005; Chiricos et al., 2001; Chiricos & Eschholz, 2002;

Devers et al., 2012). In his examination of the Canadian war on drugs, Khenti (2014) effectively

describes the impacts of the racial typification of crime on Black Canadians:

The burden that follows from violations of the right to equal treatment

before the law are extensive, resulting in damaged individual and family

lives and devastated Black communities forced to cope with increasing

violence over generations of incarceration (p. 193).

In this regard, the current climate of rising gun violence and the resultant calls for increased

funding to the police will inevitably lead to the increased monitoring of Black people and Black

169

communities, increased police-citizen contacts, increased risk of psychological and physical

harms, and ultimately the continuation of the cycle of oppressive practices that have served to

criminalize Black peoples and further their marginalization.

In their examination of the impacts of racial profiling, the Ontario Human Rights

Commission (2003) noted that these practices had the effect of ‘compromising our future’. I

mention this here as I believe it speaks to a central theme in the data, namely the pervasive and

wide-reaching impacts of racial profiling on the lives of young people, their families, and their

communities. In this regard, my study findings support the growing body of scholarship

evidencing the lived experiences of Black persons in Canada with racism, structural inequality,

and the increasing concentration of neighbourhood-level violence. However, while there is a

growing public acknowledgment of these issues and their salience, this has not been reflected in

the dominant policy responses to these issues nor in the daily lives of many young from

racialized and marginalized backgrounds. Moreover, as Toronto continues to grapple with the

forces of advanced marginality (Wacquant, 1996, 2008), there is little reason to believe that the

trajectories of urban violence and relations between the police and members of the Black

community will improve. Indeed, increased official recognition of the realities of systemic anti-

Black racism in our public institutions, including the police, threatens Canada’s carefully

cultivated reputation as a multicultural nation committed to tolerance, equity, and human rights.

Looking forward, there is a pressing need to understand better young people's lived

experiences in Canada from diverse backgrounds with the police, including both the individual

and community level impacts of both direct and vicarious police-citizen contacts. As I describe,

many young people have developed various cultural adaptations meant to ensure their safety

from violence in their communities, emanating from criminally involved young people and the

police alike. More research is needed to explore these adaptations, including their nature and

origins and how they are socially transmitted and maintained. Additionally, despite rising

violence, the voices of the young people in Canada who are the focus of these concerns still

remain largely absent from public discourses. As such, future scholarship should seek to include

the use of qualitative approaches. Doing so will allow for a better understanding of how young

170

people come to make sense of these issues and how they should best be addressed, thus allowing

for better-informed policy responses. Finally, as this project's findings demonstrate, there are

considerable parallels in experiences with the police had by Black youth in Canada and the

United States. To this end, many of the dominant theoretical frameworks developed in the United

States to analyze these issues also have currency when analyzing issues within Canada. While

the study of race and crime in Canada has developed significantly, it remains in its relative

infancy compared to the United States. To this end, additional comparative scholarship exploring

the lived experiences of young people in both countries is urgently necessary. Comparisons of

this nature will allow for a better understanding of the nature of young people’s experiences with

the police and the degree to which dominant criminological and sociological perspectives on

these issues, which are almost exclusively rooted in the study of the United States, are applicable

to Canada. This knowledge is central to crafting future research agendas and shaping evidence-

based policy meant to improve young people's life outcomes and address issues of systemic

inequality.

171

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Appendices

Appendix A: Schedule of Questions

Thanks for taking the time to speak with me today. I want to get started by learning more about you. 1.) What is your gender? 2.) How old are you? 3.) Was your dad born in Canada? If not, where was he born? 3.) How about your mom, was she born in Canada? If not, where was she born? 4.) Were you born in Canada? 4a.) If not, where were you born? 4b.) How old were you when you moved to Canada? 5.) In our society, people are often described as belonging to a certain racial group. For example, someone might say that they are Black or White Other people might say that they are a combination of different racial groups. What is your racial background? What group or groups would you say that you belong to? **Interviewer: Record Perception of Respondent’s Racial Group:__________________________** 6.) In our society, people often identify themselves as belonging to certain ethnic groups. For example, someone might see themselves as being Jamaican, while others may see themselves as Somalian, Nigerian or German or Italian or something else. If someone asked you what ethnic group or groups you identify with, what would you say? 7.) Do you have religious or spiritual beliefs?

7a.) Can I ask what those beliefs are? What religion or religious group do you belong to? 7b.) How often do you attend religious or spiritual services? 7c.) And how important is religion to you? How important are your religion beliefs?

8.) What have you been doing for most of the last year? For example, have you been working or going to school or doing something else?

8a.) [If respondent indicates they are working]: What type of job do you have? How long have you been working there? Are you full-time or part-time? 8b.) [If respondent indicates they are in school]: What grade or year are you in? How much education would you like to get? What are your educational goals? 8c.) [If respondent indicates something else]: Okay, can ask what you have been doing? Are you looking for work? Are you planning to go back to school? Why or why not?

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9.) Which area or neighbourhood of Toronto do you live in? What is the closest major intersection to where you live? How long have you lived in this area? How many times have you moved in the past five years? 10.) What kind of place do you live in? (i.e. apartment, house, group home, shelter, on the streets, different places). Do you or your family own the place you live or are you renting? 11.) Do you currently live in public housing? Have you ever lived in public housing? Have you ever lived in the projects? When? 12.) Who do you live with? (i.e. alone, with a partner or spouse, with friends etc.) 13.) I want to ask you some questions about your community or neighbourhood. Think about the neighbourhood that you’ve lived in the most time in your life or neighbourhood you feel comfortable talking about.

13a.) How would you describe the people who live in your neighbourhood? Would you describe them as mainly poor, mainly middle-class or mainly wealthy? 13b.) How would you describe the racial or ethnic makeup of the people in your neighbourhood? For example, is your neighbourhood mainly white or mainly people from other racial backgrounds? 13c.) In your opinion, are there a lot of immigrants in your community? Why do you feel this way? 13d.) I want to ask you a few questions about crime in your neighbourhood. Over the past five years, do you think crime has increased, decreased or stayed about the same in your neighbourhood? Why do you think this? 13e.) Compared to other areas of Toronto, would you say your community has more crime, less crime or about the same amount of crime? Why do you feel this way?? 13f.) In your opinion, is there a problem with guns or gangs in your community? Why do you feel this way? 13g.) What type of reputation do you think your community has in other areas of Toronto? Do you think your neighbourhood has a good or bad reputation? Do you think your neighbourhood deserves that reputation?

**INTERVIEWER: I want to now talk about the police and some other groups or organizations that

perform similar duties to the police. I want to remind you to avoid providing any specifics like names, dates, addresses or anything that could be used to identify someone.**

I want to first ask about the public police that we might see on a regular basis, such as the

Toronto Police Service. 14.) Have you ever called the police for help? Can you tell me what happened? How long did the police take to arrive? Do you feel like they treated you fairly? Were you satisfied with how the police handled the situation? 15.) Have any of your friends or family ever told you about a situation where they called the police for help? What did they tell you? How did this make you feel?

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16.) Have you ever been stopped and questioned by the police? (If “Yes” go to 12a if “No” go to 13); 17.) How many times have you been stopped and questioned by the police in your lifetime? How many times have you been stopped and questioned by the police in the past two years? 18.) How many times have the police asked to see your ID? Has this happened in the past two years? How many times? 19.) How many times have the police asked you where you live? Have they asked you this in the past two years? How many times? 20.) How many times have the police asked you what you are doing or where you are going? In the past two years? 21.) How many times have the police patted you down or frisked you? How often have the police searched you or your possessions? Have the police stopped and searched you in the past two years? How many times? 22.) Have any of your family members or friends complained or talked about being unfairly stopped and questioned by the police? How many of your friends and family members have talked about this – would you say only a few, some of them or many of them? 23.) Have any of your friends or family complained about being unfairly searched by the police? How many of them? 24.) I now want to ask you a few questions about the last time you were stopped by the police. When did that happen? How long ago?

24a.) What happened the last time you were stopped by the police? Can you tell me what you were doing? Were you walking or were you in a car or on a bike or something else? INTERVIEWER: IF THE RESPONDENT INDICATES THAT THEY WERE STOPPED IN A VEHICLE ASK: Were you the driver of the vehicle or were you a passenger?

24b.) How did the police approach you? What did they do to make you stop? 24c.) How many police officers were there when you got stopped the last time? Was it just one officer or were there more? Were they male or female? Did they look older or younger? What was their race or ethnic background? For example, were the officers that stopped you White or Black or something else? 24d.) Did the police explain why they stopped you? Did they give you a reason? What was the reason? During your last stop, did the police ever tell you that they were investigating a crime? Did you believe the police? Do you believe that they stopped you for the reason they provided? Why do you think the police stopped you? 24e.) How did the police talk to you? Were they friendly or not? Did they treat you with respect? How did the way the police treated you make you feel? 24f.) What questions did the police ask you? For example, did they ask you for ID? Did they ask you where you lived? Did they ask you what you were doing or where you were going?

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24g.) Did the police question the other people you were with? What questions did they ask the people you were with? Were the questions the same or different? 24h.) The last time you were stopped did the police pat you down or frisk you? Did they ask you to empty your pockets or to look inside your bag or purse or anything like that? Did the police search you in anyway the last time you were stopped? Did they search the other people you were with? **IF RESPONDENT INDICATED THEY WERE IN A CAR**

24i.) You indicated that you were in a car or vehicle the last time you were stopped by the police? Did they ask to search your car or look in the trunk? Did they search the vehicle in any way?

24j.) The last time you were stopped did the police threaten you in any way? How did they threaten you? Like did they threaten to arrest you or threaten you in some other way? 24k.) The last time you were stopped, did the police tell you that you did not have to talk to them if you didn’t want you? Did they tell you that you could walk away and not answer their questions if you did not want to? 24l.) The last time you were stopped did you notice if the police officers were taking notes or writing things down as they talked to you? 24m.) After your last stop, did the police give you a paper or a receipt about the stop? Can you remember what that paper or receipt said? 24n.) How did the stop end? Did the police give you a ticket or a warning or anything? Did they give a ticket or a warning to any of the other people you were with? Were you arrested or charged with something? Were any of the people you were with arrested? What was the arrest for? What were the charges? What did the police say when the stop was over? How did they end their interaction with you? 24o.) Do you think the police treated you fairly the last time you were stopped? Why do you feel this way? 24p.) How did you feel the last time you were stopped by the police? Were you upset or angry or frustrated in any way? How did you feel?

**INTERVIEWER**: So, you’ve just told us about the last time you were stopped. Can I ask you about the stop before that? Can you tell me what happened?

25.) Have you had a good or positive experience with the police? Can you tell me what happened during that experience? What happened? Is there another good or positive experience that you have had with the police? Can you tell me about that experience as well? 26.) Have you ever had a negative or bad experience with the police? Can you tell me about that experience? What happened? Is there other bad or negative experience you have had with the police? Can you tell me about that experience as well?

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27.) Have any of your friends or family told you about good experiences they have had with the police? What kind of good experiences have they had? 28.) Have any of your family or friends told you about bad experiences they have had with the police? What kind of bad experiences have they had? 29.) Have you ever seen the police use force or violence against someone when they didn’t have to? What happened? How did seeing this make you feel? 30.) Have any of your friends or family member told you about cases where the police used force against them? What did they tell you? How did it make you feel? 31.) Have the police ever been violent towards you when they didn’t have to? Can you tell me what happened? How did this make you feel? 32.) Have you ever been arrested and charged with a crime by the police? How many times have you been arrested? In your opinion, have you ever been wrongly or unfairly arrested by the police? Why do you feel that the arrest was unfair? 33.) Have any of your friends or family members been arrested by the police? How many? Have any of your friends or family members been unfairly or wrongly arrested by the police? How many? Why do you think they were wrongly or unfairly arrested? 34.) In general, how do you feel about the police? For example, do you trust them or distrust them? Do you have confidence in them? Do they make you feel safe? Do they do a good job of keeping your community safe? Can you tell me why you feel this way? 35.) Do you think that the experiences that you have had with the police have impacted how you feel about them? Why do you feel this way? 36.) Do you think the experiences your friends and family have had with the police have influenced how you feel about the police? 37.) I now want to ask you a few questions about your experiences with other groups that do work that is sometimes similar to the police — I’m talking about things like mall security, transit police or border patrol. What kinds of interactions have you had with groups like this? Can you tell me what happened? 39.) Have you heard about experiences with these groups from friends, family or others? What kind of experiences have you heard about? 40.) Can you tell me about the presence of police in your community or neighbourhood? What kind of activities do the engage in? What impact has this had on the people in the community? Why do you feel this way? 41.) Have you ever been the victim of serious crime? Can you tell me what happened? 41a.) When this happened, did you call the police? Why or why not?

41b.) How long did the police take to arrive after you called them, did you have to wait a long time?

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41c.) When the police arrived, how did they treat you? Can you tell me what happened? Were you happy with how the police handled your case? Why do you feel that way? Why were you satisfied or dissatisfied?

42.) Have you ever witnessed a serious crime? Did you call the police? Why or why not? Can you tell me what happened? 43.) I want you to imagine that you were at a convenience store. As you are leaving store you turn around and see two men robbing the store at gun point. The men get away and don’t see you. Do you think you would call the police and tell the police what you saw? Do you think you would help the police so they could arrest the robbers? Why or why not? 44.) The police have complained that it is difficult to get people from certain communities or neighbourhoods to cooperate with their investigations. They have said that people sometimes don’t report crimes or that they won’t help them with information about serious crimes, even if they know something. 44a.) Do you think this is true? Why do you feel this way?

44b.) Why do you think that people from certain communities or neighbourhoods won’t cooperate with the police? 44c.) The police have said that people won’t cooperate because of ‘anti-snitching codes’ – is there such a thing in your community? 44d.) The police sometimes complain that it is difficult to get people in the community to cooperate with their investigations. Why do you think people in certain communities sometimes won’t talk to the police? Is this true in your community? 44e.) The police say that people sometimes won’t report crimes or they won’t tell the police about the violent things they have seen because this would be considered “snitching”. Do you think this is true? Is there such thing in your community as “no snitching”?

45.) Many people have said that rivalries or conflicts between people and neighbourhoods are a growing issue, with the people involved being called ‘opps’ or ‘opposition’, have you heard about this? What have you heard? (If “Yes” go to 45a if “No” go to 46).

45a.) What makes someone an ‘opp’? Is an ‘opp’ the same thing as a snitch? If not, how are ‘opps’ and snitches different? Does an ‘opp’ have to be involved in crime or gangs? 45b.) What kind of problems do ‘opps’ cause? If an ‘opp’ is seen in the neighbourhood, would you or someone in your neighbourhood do anything? (i.e. ‘pressing up’ or challenging this person).

46.) Many people have said that trust and respect between the police and minority communities in Toronto is quite low. Do you think this is true or not? Why do you feel this way? 47.) What do you think the police need to do to improve public confidence or trust? What needs to be done to improve the relationship between the police and young people?

**I now want to ask you some questions about living in Canada and your experiences** 48.) How do your experiences with the police, or experiences you may have heard of, make you feel about living in Canada and about Canadian society?

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49.) Thinking about Canadian society more generally, if someone asked you if you feel as though you’re Canadian, what would you say? Why do you feel this way? 50.) Do you feel like Canadian society threats everyone equally? Why do you feel this way? 51.) Is racism a problem in Canadian society or not? Why do you feel this way? 52.) Have you experienced discrimination in any aspects of your life (i.e. getting a job, accessing services, getting a good education, etc.)? What kind of discrimination was it? Can you tell me what happened? How did this make you feel? 53.) Has someone ever called you names or insulted you based on your race, background, appearance or religion? Can you tell me what happened? How did this make you feel? 54.) Has someone ever attacked you or tried to hurt you based on your race, background, appearance or religion? Can you tell me what happened? How did this make you feel 54a.) [If yes] Did you call the police after? Why or why not?

54b.) [If yes] When the police arrived, how did they treat you? Can you tell me what happened? Were you happy with how the police handled your case? Why do you feel that way? Why were you satisfied or dissatisfied?

I would like to now talk about some issues that have gathered a lot of attention recently 55.) In your opinion, how big of a problem are gangs and guns in your community? Why do you feel this way? 56.) There has been a lot of concern, in the media, in government and in the general public, over the issue of gang activity in Toronto. The focus of this concern has been largely young men from black or Afro-Caribbean backgrounds. Do you feel like this concern is justified?

56a.) Why do you think this issue has become so prominent and controversial? 57.) Why do you think a young person might become involved with gangs? 58.) There have been many programs and policies designed to deal with gangs and gang activity, but also to stop youth from joining gangs. Are you aware of any of these programs or have you had any experiences with them? What do you think are the best ways to address the gang issue? 59.) I’ve asked all the questions I had for you today. Is there anything else you would like to add about the issues we’ve been discussing or something that we haven't discussed that you’d like to raise?

Thank you for your time, I really appreciate it.

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Appendix B: Project Consent Form

Hello, my name is ___________________ and I am a researcher from the University of Toronto.

I want to get started by thanking you for taking the time to talk with me today. I am currently

conducting a study about young people and their experiences with the police and other law

enforcement agencies. The study is called The Impact of Policing on Toronto Youth Study. The

study is being run out of the Centre for Criminology at the University of Toronto, where I am a

graduate student. The faculty supervisor is Prof. Scot Wortley. If you agree to take part in the

study you will be paid $20.00 cash to thank you for your time.

I need to remind you of few things, before we get started. Participation in the study is completely

voluntary. You don’t have to be interviewed and you are free to drop out of the study and

withdraw the information you’ve given so far at any time with no consequences. You can also

refuse to answer any questions you don’t want to answer. You can also stop the interview at any

time to ask me questions about the study. This interview could take between 60 and 80 minutes,

depending on how much you have to say.

The information from our interview will be kept strictly confidential. I have taken all possible

precautions to ensure this. During our talk, I will be asking you about specific events that may

have happened to you or that you may have heard of. I would like to discuss these events with

you, but I would like you to avoid providing me with any specific information that could be used

to identify you or another person who was involved. This includes names, addresses, dates of

birth, intersections, phone numbers or email addresses. I still want to know about these events,

but please refrain from providing any data that be used to identify the event, or those involved.

With this in mind, I encourage you to be as honest and straightforward as possible. There are no

right or wrong answers to any of these questions. I am only seeking to know more about your

opinions and experiences and I will not judge you for anything that you say.

Your name will not appear on the consent form, I will sign and date the form after reviewing it

with you. No one associated with the project, including the faculty supervisor, will know your

name -- in fact, I don’t even need to know your name. Your name or any information that could

be used to identify you will never appear in the report that comes from this project, or any

subsequent article or publication that uses the data.

I think it’s important that you know that this is an independent study being run from the

University of Toronto. I have no connection to the police, courts, teachers, schools, your family

or your peers, and neither does my supervisor. No other party will be voluntarily given access to

this data. In the unlikely event that another party, such as the police, attempts to access this data,

for example, through a court order, I will enlist institutional and legal counsel and the request

would be resisted through all available means. However, it’s important to keep in mind that no

identifying information will be contained within the project data, making it virtually impossible

to discern who was involved in the study and how they answered specific questions.

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However – I must inform you that there is an exception to this privacy in that I have a duty report

to the proper authorities if you express a serious intent to harm yourself or others.

If you decide you would like to withdraw your participation from the study, you can do so up to

14-days days after our interview. There is no penalty to you for doing so and I wont ask why,

you are free to keep the honourarium. However, after 14-days, your interview will be entered

into the project database and since we do not collect any identifying information, it will be

difficult, if not impossible, to determine exactly which data is yours. I will do my best to

accommodate requests made after the 14-day period, but I cannot guarantee you will be fully

able to withdraw. I will give you my contact information after our interview, in case you need to

reach me. If you don’t withdraw from the study, the data from our interview will be stored for an

indefinite period of time so it can be reviewed and analyzed for future research projects. The data

will continue to be stored in a secure manner, as described, and access to the data will be limited

myself and to other academic researchers who I may collaborate with in the future. The data may

also be made available in a confidential manner to the research ethics program at the University

of Toronto, to ensure that procedures to protect you are being followed. Keep in mind that the

data will contain no identifying information that could be used to link you to specific responses.

I would like to tape-record our interview, with your permission. Tape recording will be helpful,

as it will allow us to have a more natural discussion. It will also help me record exactly what you

said so I can ensure that your opinions are expressed clearly. As discussed, I don’t want you to

say your name on the tape and I want to remind you that you shouldn’t provide the names of

others, or any other specifics. If you agree to be tape-recorded, the content of the recording will

be transcribed to a text file within 14-days of our discussion. I will then permanently delete the

audio recording. The text file will then be stored on an encrypted computer drive in a locked

office at the University of Toronto. I am the only person who will have access to this data. If you

don’t want to be tape-recorded, that’s fine as well. I would still like to interview you I will just

need to write down your answers as we talk.

The interview will include questions related to your background and where you grew up, your

religious or spiritual beliefs, what you’ve been doing for most of the last year, experiences that

you or someone you know might have had with the police, your experiences living in Canada

and some issues that become publicly important, including young people becoming involved

with gangs or becoming radicalized. Some people might find some of these questions upsetting.

You don’t have to answer any questions you don’t want to and you are free to stop the interview

at anytime, without penalty. If you are feeling upset after the interview, I can provide you with

the contact information of people you can talk to who can help.

Finally, if you have questions about your rights as a research participant, please contact the

Office of Research Ethics (ethics.review@utoronto.ca, 416-946-3273). My faculty supervisor,

Prof. Scot Wortley can be reached at 416-978-7124 x 222 / scot.wortley@utoronto.ca. This

information will also be given to you on a handout at the end of our talk.

Do you have any questions about the interview or anything else I have mentioned?

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Before we get started, I’m going to review a consent form. I mentioned this earlier, this is the

document required by the University of Toronto that clearly outlines your rights as a participant

and confirms that you agree to take part in the study. I’m going to go over the points with you

and then I will ask you whether you have any questions. If you’re ready to proceed, I will ask if

you consent to take part in the study and whether it’s okay to tape-record our discussion. You

don’t sign the consent form. I will sign and date the form. Keep in mind that, even after you

consent to the interview, you are free to stop at anytime and to have your data withdrawn from

the study, without penalty. I won’t be upset if you decide to withdraw and I appreciate you

coming to speak with me today.

Consent Form for Project Respondents

Julius Haag has explained the purpose of The Impact of Policing on Toronto Youth Study to me.

In consenting to participate to this study, I understand that:

1. My participation is completely voluntary. I can refuse to take part in the study at any time

without penalty.

2. I do not have answer any questions that I do not want to answer.

3. I can drop out of the study at anytime and ask that my data be discarded, without penalty.

Within 14-days of the interview I can contact the interviewer and ask that my data be

deleted, without penalty.

4. My identity will be kept completely confidential. The researcher will not record my name

or any other identifying information on any project documents. My name or any other

identifying information will never appear in any reports or papers that result from this

study.

5. The researcher has a duty to report any expression of self-harm or intention to harm

others to the relevant authorities.

6. During the interview, I will be asked questions related to The interview will to my

background and where I grew up, my religious or spiritual beliefs, what I’ve been doing

for most of the last year, experiences that I or someone I may know might have had with

the police, my experiences living in Canada and opinions related to young people

becoming involved with gangs or becoming radicalized.

7. I will not provide specific details related to events I may describe, including addresses or

intersections, dates or names of those involved.

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8. I can stop the interview at any time to ask questions, without penalty.

9. The interview could take 60-80 minutes to complete, depending on how much I have to

say.

10. I will be paid to $20.00 at the end of the interview.

** Do you have any questions related to the interview or the project? **

Do you agree to take part in The Impact of Policing on Toronto Youth Study?

I agree to take part in the study.

I do not agree to take part in the study.

Do you agree to have your interview tape-recorded? I will inform you before we begin recording.

I agree to have my interview tape-recorded.

I do not agree to have my interview tape-recorded. The interviewer will have to write

down my answers.

I, Julius Haag, have read this consent form to the respondent. I have given the respondent

opportunities to ask questions and they have indicated that they have no questions, at this time.

The respondent has verbally agreed to take part in the study by being interviewed.

Dated (MM/DD/YYYY) _____________________________

Signed (_________________): __________________________________

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Appendix C: Services Handout

The Impact of Policing on Toronto Youth Study Interview Handout

Health & Mental Health Services:

*If you have a serious health emergency please call 911 immediately, the following health

services are for health problems that are not immediately life threatening.

Toronto Distress Center

- The Toronto distress center provides 24-hour live phone support, 365 days a year

that helps those experiencing emotional distress, those in need of crisis

intervention, and those that are thinking about suicide. Their distress line number

is: 1-416-408-4357

- The distress center also has a Survivor Support Program that provides

individualized support for survivors of suicide and homicide. To inquire about this

program or to seek assistance with emotional distress due to being a survivor their

phone number is: 1-416-595-1716.

ConnexOntario

- ConnexOntario provides free and confidential health services information for

people experience problems with alcohol and drugs as well as mental illness.

Their phone lines are open 24/7 with live operators and it is confidential and free.

Their phone numbers are as follows:

▪ Mental Health Helpline: 1-866-531-2600

▪ Drug & Alcohol Helpline 1-800-565-8603

- The mental health helpline also has the option to chat online with a representative

24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can access this chat line by going to the

following address: http://livechat.connexontario.ca/ECCChat/MHHchat.html

Kid’s Help Line (for ages 20 & under)

- Kids helpline provides free, anonymous and confidential phone counselling for

youth aged 20 and under. They can help with bullying, dating, emotional health,

family, freindships, LGBTQ, money problems, problems with the law, physical

health, violence and abuse, and much more. To reach them you can call: 1-800-

668-6868.

- You can also contact the kids help line online through e-mail at the following

website: http://www.kidshelpphone.ca/Teens/AskUsOnline.aspx and can live chat

with someone online on Thursdays to Sunday between 6pm and 12am at this

website: http://www.kidshelpphone.ca/Teens/AskUsOnline/Chat-counselling.aspx

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Telehealth Ontario

- Telehealth Ontario is a free, confidential service that lets you get health advice or

information from a registered nurse 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can call

about injury or illness, chronic conditions, food and healthy living, teen health and

issues, depression, suicide or other mental health concerns, medications and drug

information, and other health related issues. You can reach them at: 1-866-797-

0000

Your Life Counts

- Your Life Counts is a non-profit organization that works with youth, families,

veterans, and emergency services to help with those struggling with suicidal thoughts

due to trauma, addictions, and overwhelming life situations. They provide a service

that allows you to communicate online versus the phone, you can access this service

by going to the following website: http://www.yourlifecounts.org/need-help