Fall/Winter 2006 - University of Toronto Press Publishing

GS OE NC IE OR LA OL GI NY
T E R E S T
Racial Profiling in Canada
Challenging the Myth of a ‘Few Bad Apples’
Carol Tator and Frances Henry
In October 2002, the Toronto Star ran a series of
articles alleging that Toronto police target young
black men when making traffic stops, causing a
crisis in the community and amongst politicians,
policing officials, and other public authorities.
Despite thorough statistical evidence, the Toronto
Police Association sued the Star, claiming that no
such evidence existed. That lawsuit was ultimately
rejected and the issue of racial profiling – the policing
technique of including race in the profile of a
person considered likely to commit a particular type
of crime – was thrust into the national spotlight. In
this volume Carol Tator and Frances Henry explore
the meaning of racial profiling in Canada not only
as it is practised by the police, but also as it is manifested
in a broad range of societal institutions.
Tator and Henry approach the crisis over racial
profiling by examining the issue from two different
perspectives. First, they examine the discourses of
policing officials, politicians, government bureaucrats,
judges, media, and other public authorities
to demonstrate how the White elite communicate
and reproduce existing racialized ideologies and
social relations of inequality through their everyday
interactions.
Second, the authors analyze the narratives of the
victims of racial profiling. These stories ‘bear witness’
to the lived experience of ethno-racial minorities.
The sheer number of racial profiling incidents that
Tator and Henry document stands as a testament to
the systematic racism in Canadian law enforcement
today. Each story, connected to hundreds of other
similar stories, exposes a deep schism between the
perceptions of police and other public authorities
who deny the existence of racial profiling, and the
lived experience of racialized minorities.
Carol Tator is a course director in the Department
of Anthropology at York University.
Frances Henry is a professor emerita in the
Department of Anthropology at York University.
Approx. 304 pp / 6 x 9 / July 2006
Cloth ISBN 0-8020-8714-0 / 978-0-8020-8714-0
£48.00 $75.00 E
Paper ISBN 0-8020-8666-7 / 978-0-8020-8666-2
£22.50 $35.00 C
Photo © Jim Rankin/Toronto Star.
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