Canadian Press
When Alain Babineau was a police academy cadet nearly 30 years ago, the education his cohort received on diversity and racism amounted to a few basic lectures with little in terms of practical application, the former RCMP and Ontario Provincial Police officer said.
Babineau, who now works as an adviser for the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations, said while diversity is typically part of the curriculum for professional and academic policing programs, it’s hard to know whether what’s taught now is more robust or still just “lectures here and there delivered by white people.”
“If racial profiling, for instance, is part of something that you want your cadets to be aware of and sensitized to, then … you would need to have Black actors, you would need to develop your scenarios based on realities, based on real events, and to see how your cadets react, and so that requires quite a bit of work,” he said.
As calls to reform or defund police services grow across Canada, some post-secondary institutions with law enforcement programs say they are re-examining their curricula to reflect those concerns...