Deny, Deny, Deny.

May 17, 2014

Deny, Deny, Deny.

This post has not been approved by Media Co-op editors!

On May 16, 2014 there was RCMP press conference featuring OIC Kevin Brosseau claiming Racism in the RCMP is a myth. The Police Insider article on the press conference was entitled 'RCMP Delivers Death Blow To Racist Ideology'. The title is far from true.

  The intent of the press conference was to give reasons for ignoring the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples James Anaya's call for an inquiry,  and also ignoring the findings of the same report it draws from, which clearly show that Aboriginal women more likely to suffer violent death

RCMP OIC KEVIN BROSSEAU (PHOTO JGJ)The RCMP held a national news conference today to provide statistical information gathered in an unprecedented in-depth examination of issues regarding Canadian Missing & Murdered Aboriginal Women.

 

The data presented is verified, the interpretation ignores some crucial background facts. From the article:

The Numbers;

1980 – 2012

  • 1,181 – Number of Missing & Murdered Aboriginal women
  • 1,017 – Number of Murdered Aboriginal women
  • 164 – Number of Missing Aboriginal women
  • 120 - Number of unsolved Aboriginal women homicides
  • 105 – Number of missing Aboriginal women (unknown or foul play suspected)

*Data from all Police jurisdictions in Canada

  • Eighty-eight (88%) percent of all Aboriginal female homicides are solved
  • Eighty-nine (89%) percent of all Non-Aboriginal female homicides are solved

But also...

  • The solvency rate for Aboriginal female victims of homicide plummets to sixty (60%) percent when the victim is involved in the sex trade

The article explains that this is due to factors resulting from the secrecy of the sex trade, including:

"Extremely large suspect pool, Inability to establish a victim time line, Inability to establish motive, Lack of witnesses and Outdoor crime scenes. 

(Police Insider article, “Elusive Killers – Sex Trade Worker Slayings Not so Easy to Solve,”  explores these significant issues, many of which are unique to these killings. "

They make a good point, but if you read carefully you can see what they're getting at, and it's not a proactive solution like they claim. 

"Risk factors previously disclosed by the Project Devote team remain consistent but were enhanced by the National review;

  • High risk lifestyle
  • Substance abuse / addiction
  • Involvement in the sex trade
  • Unemployment
  • Involvement in criminal activity
  • Youth
  • Transient lifestyle
  • Hitchhiking
  • Mental Health issue

   He then goes on to talk about 'prevention efforts' to lower those risk factors. Since  the illegality of drugs, sex trade work, hitch hiking etc., are the reason for the secrecy that makes them risk factors, you would think he would follow up by advocating an end to the laws that create that secrecy.

But that is not the response he is advocating.

Combined with other lobbying efforts by RCMP to keep those medieval, destructive laws in place, what he is proposing aggressively criminalizing sex trade workers even more, cracking down on hitch hiking, making more drug arrests, forcibly hospitalizing more people against their will in Psych wards, treating transience in itself as a crime, etc, in other words, criminalizing more poor people and blaming the victim, doing the same things that created the problem and make it worse because arresting sex trade workers, etc., is easier than finding murderers and allows them to make more arrests so they look busier. 

  Also, he dodges the fact that the risk factors are higher for First Nations people because of systemic social breakdown deliberately created by RCMP and other government institutions over the past 100 years, and the higher criminalization and incarceration rate of First Nations, First Nations are more likely to do jail time and get a permanent criminal record than non-FN in Canada.

This means First Nations are more likely to end up in the sex and drugs trades in the long term because other opportunities for independant business are blocked to them. 

Brosseau concludes, conveniently, that  "A National Enquiry would be a colossal waste of time, money and resources."

And also that "The Police do not own the problem".

So we are back to police refusing to own the problem. 

Which is the problem in itself.