Justice for Girls Echoes Call for Public Inquiry into Police Misconduct
October 29, 2002
Vancouver BC

Justice for Girls, a Vancouver based advocacy group for teenage girls in poverty applauds PIVOT Legal Society for documenting police harassment and brutality against marginalized people in the Downtown Eastside. Justice for Girls has also observed and documented police harassment and brutality against homeless teenage girls* and thus joins PIVOT in their call for a public inquiry into police misconduct.

Joanna Butowski, Justice for Girls staff in charge of a federally funded project to monitor the criminal justice system and its treatment of teenage girls in poverty, says that the harassment and brutality reported by PIVOT matches the kinds of violations that teenage girls report to Justice for Girls. "For close to 3 years we have collected reports of police harassment and brutality against teenage girls. We are appalled and alarmed by the level of violence that girls describe to us. We are also struck by how much police harassment and violence is directed towards Aboriginal girls."

Butowski says that girls report a wide spectrum of police mistreatment including: illegal searches and destruction of property, sexual harassment, public humiliation such as body searches conducted on the street, assaults after surrender (beatings while in handcuffs, beating in cells), excessive force (kicking, choking, shoving, dragging by hair, assault with the butt end of a hand gun), threat of rape, and actual sexual assault. Beyond emotional damage, many young women sustained physical injuries such as extensive bruising/haematomas, abrasions, soft tissue damage to joint areas such as ankles, knees, fingers, and broken/fractured ribs.

Annabel Webb, Legal Advocate at Justice for Girls, says that even when girls experience severe violence at the hands of the police they typically don't make complaints to the office of the Police Complaints Commissioner. "Not only is the complaint process inaccessible to girls in poverty because of short limitation periods, but girls have no faith in a process in which the police investigate themselves. Another impediment to girls filing complaints is their legitimate fear of police reactions such as further violence on the street and/or retaliatory charging."

Justice for Girls supports PIVOT's call for an Independent Inquiry into police harassment and brutality on the streets of Vancouver. Any such inquiry must specifically consider the voices of homeless teenage girls.