Canadians Arrest More Black and Indigenous People for Drugs than Whites
Indigenous people in Canada are eight times more likely to be arrested than white people, and members of Black and Indigenous communities are also more likely to experience poverty and other forms of marginalization that put them in more frequent contact with the police, according to a first-of-its kind study.
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A first-of-its kind examination of national non-cannabis drug possession arrest data in Canada, broken down by race, reveals that despite declining rates of drug possession charges and arrests, Black and Indigenous people are still much more likely to be arrested for drug possession, reports Vice. Indigenous people are eight times more likely to be arrested than white people, and members of Black and Indigenous communities who are overrepresented in this data are also more likely to experience poverty and other forms of marginalization that put them in more frequent contact with the police.
This new data was obtained from police services in five major cities: Toronto, Ottawa, Saskatoon, Regina, and Vancouver. Regina and Saskatoon have the starkest racial disparities when it comes to Indigenous people arrested for drug possession: in Regina, they represent 52 percent of the drug possession arrests from 2015 to May 2021, despite only comprising around 9 percent of the city’s population, while Saskatoon reports Indigenous people comprised 53 percent of the possession arrests during those years, despite making up around 11 percent of the population. In Ottawa and Toronto, Black people are three and four times more likely, respectively, to be arrested for drug possession compared to their representation in the general population.
