Windsor Law School LEAP

The University of Windsor’s Faculty of Law is stepping up to the thin blue line with its Law Enforcement Accountability Project (LEAP), a unique student-led institute to provide research on police accountability and racial profiling.

Our mandate is to conduct reviews of police services, human rights agencies and government agencies all across Canada,” says Lily Tekle, LEAP’s student director. “We will provide these organizations with anti-racial-profile training, educate them on police accountability, and ensure there is appropriate oversight of these agencies.”

LEAP was founded by Professor David Tanovich, who has extensive experience in criminal law and racial profiling. He wanted a way to focus on these problems at ground level. “I have been involved in these issues both as a litigator and a researcher, and I wanted to try to address them holistically and systemically,” he says. “I think the timing [for LEAP] was right. It was the 40th anniversary of the law school, and with its commitment to access to justice, it was the opportune time to launch the project. We also received a $50,000 grant from the Law Foundation.”

Police forces traditionally have not been enthusiastic about suggestions from outsiders on their tactics, but Tanovich is optimistic and sees signs of change. “There have always been high-profile cases involving the police and marginalized individuals, but I think now the police are beginning to respond to the issue of racial profiling and recognize there is a need to address it,” he says.

“LEAP provides them with the opportunity to take advantage of research. It’s clear that litigation has little impact and the government is not interested. I’ve been encouraged by the steps police forces have taken, and I think it is just a question of direction.”

LEAP is working on a number of projects, including supporting a new police complaints procedure, reviewing how sexual assault cases are handled, and providing research and policy development on racial profiling. “[Ontario’s new] Independent Review Director will receive all police complaints,” says Tanovich. “He will then investigate [some of] the complaints himself and if he determines there are reasonable grounds for the complaint, he will then send it to the chief of police who will hold a hearing.”

Racial profiling is of particular interest to Tanovich, who teaches the only law course on the topic in Canada. “The police forces across the country are largely white men, and that’s the first problem. And because there is so much mistrust within racialized communities, they have difficulty recruiting individuals from those communities. The problem is systemic. The police think they are helping [by relying on] racial profiling. They see the face or skin colour of a particular crime and they are influenced by that.”

Tanovich believes the whole idea is flawed. “The police need to understand that profiling, in addition to the toll it takes on these communities in terms of psychological harm, physical harm and creating mistrust, is wholly unreliable.

“There is no relationship between race and crime,” he continues. “It’s no more present in the black community than it is in the white community. In the federal prison system, 80% of drug and violent offenders are white. We know that 50% of Canadians use marijuana, but those who are arrested for street-level, small possession [of the drug] are not white. The reason is because the police focus all their attention on particular communities, while these are crimes that are systemic in all communities.”

Tanovich is particularly proud of the Project’s research and policy development. “Pursuant to a settlement agreement between the Ontario Human Rights Commission and a particular police service last year, we were given access to all the police material related to racial profiling. Then, under my leadership with approximately 10 students, we reviewed the material and prepared a draft policy, a directive and some training materials.

“Those are now in the hands of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. I am hopeful that these materials will become the protocol for the Commission, so in subsequent cases, they will say that part of a remedy will be to follow our directive.”

Both Tanovich and Tekle believe an important aspect of LEAP is its effect on the students who are working on the Project. “This is the kind of institutional change that litigators rarely get a chance to sink their teeth into,” says Tanovich. “This is an opportunity to work with the police constructively and say, ‘Here is how you can deal with the situation.’”

Tekle adds: “One of the things that makes us unique is that we are at a law school and we are given the opportunity to get great training and hands-on experience that we won’t get anywhere else. I can see LEAP going very far.”

By Ava Chisling, a longtime writer and editor and a media lawyer in private practice in Montreal: http://www.linkedin.com/in/chisling. This article appears in National Magazine's 2009 Law Student Issue.