Aboriginal distrust in Regina city police high

The findings of a recently-released survey on community-perception of the Regina Police Services do not surprise the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations.

Almost 75 per cent of Aboriginal people living in the province’s capital distrust the city police. Morley Watson, FSIN Vice-Chief, takes those results further.

“I think generally because of the residential school effects across this province, I think that generally (that percentage is representative) right from one end of the province to the other,” he said.

Watson believes that distrust of authority began over a century ago when the Northwest Mounted Police escorted Indian agents and school masters to homes to take children away to residential schools. Some of those children never returned home.

The survey was undertaken by the University of Regina’s Department of Justice Studies over July and August of last year. Because a telephone survey resulted in limited Aboriginal participation, an additional 49 interviews were conducted with First Nations and Métis residents from the Central patrol district.

“Compared to the results from the random telephone survey, the First Nations and MÈtis respondents reported a lower level of trust and confidence in the police, had a greater fear of crime, and reported less satisfaction with the quality of services of the RPS. Aboriginal respondents also reported having less positive perceptions of the RPS Community Service Centres located in the Central patrol district, and almost one-third reported that they would never use those services,” the survey states.

Whereas, 20 per cent of overall respondents had trust issues with the city police, 73.5 per cent of Aboriginal respondents felt that way.

“The results from both the survey and interviews show that there are some significant differences in perceptions of the RPS held by residents of the Central patrol district compared to those living in the North and South patrol districts,” says the survey.

Among those differences in perception is the number of crimes reported as well as why crimes went unreported.  Almost 31 per cent of Aboriginal respondents did not report victimization compared to 6.3 per cent of the city-wide respondents. Nearly 23 per cent of Aboriginal victims of crime say they did not report the crime because they lacked confidence in the police. Twenty per cent of the city-wide respondents gave the same reason. As well, the levels of satisfaction with the First Nations and MÈtis respondents who had contact with the police was much lower than the full city sample, with an average satisfaction of 2.11 compared with 3.88.

However, Watson believes that work undertaken by the RPS in recent years can help relieve some of that mistrust. He points to the fact the there is a First Nations representative on the police commission; that the police chief uses a group of Elders to guide him in First Nations issues; and to the increasing number of Aboriginals on the city police force.

“These three things tell us they’re working very, very hard to make things better,” said Watson. “Hopefully this good work will put some of the trust back in our people.”

But 130 years of history cannot be wiped out in a few years.

“We’ve come a long way. We have a long way to go, but I think we’re pointed in the right direction,” said Watson.
He also noted that other police forces in the province could benefit from following Regina’s example.