An Idea for Police and Security to Consider For Dealing with Complaints of Inappropriate Body Language!

 By Kendall Worth!

 

 

 Lets call the welfare recipient I met with about this current post, R2D2, a name he chose, because, at one time, Star Wars was his favourite movie. Calling him this obviously fake name, will protect him from anyone wanting to harass him about being a welfare recipient.

R2D2 expressed interest in providing his story because he saw lots of references, in stories on my blog, about people being harassed by police and private security, while they are sitting or standing, minding their own business and not causing trouble. Here is my most recent story about a welfare recipient, fake-named Sak-Rye, where I illustrate this. R2D2 tells me that he can 100% relate to this post. 

During our interview, he talked to me about an idea he has to change the structure of how police and private security do their jobs. The idea would increase understanding and respect that inappropriate body language is a mental health issue and and not a criminal one. Let me remind readers that this article in the now defunct NS Advocate gives a full overview of the behaviour I am discussing, and I encourage new readers, or those who need a reminder, to have a look at it.

Before getting into R2D2’s idea, I present a summary of his situation on income assistance, as I regularly do in my introductions to those I interview. R2D2 gets the Standard Household Rate of $950.00, and pays $600 a month for rent. His doctor will not write the required medical note for the special needs Telephone Allowance so he pays $53 per month for his cell phone leaving $350.00 - $53.00 = $297.00 left for everything else. He lives in a building in an individual landlord’s basement apartment. His reasonable rent at $600 is because he has a landlord that does not want to gouge people and so keeps the rents affordable. His landlord believes that charging rent that goes above and beyond what people can actually afford, would do nothing to help the community. R2D2 also reveals that his landlord does a lot of volunteering including at the food bank etc. $297.00 a month is not a lot of money for all needs except rent and phone, especially when you consider the cost of living and out of control inflation making things worse.

The Incident:

R2D2 told me, during our interview, that, although he has had no major issues with police and private security for reasons of Inappropriate Body Language he has had this issue on very rare occasions over the past several years in his life. R2D2 told me, that, when it does happen, he ends up going to the hospital for anxiety. One day police and security approached him and said that they had received complaints that he was fidgeting, staring at people, giggling, and as the police put it, behaving like he is intoxicated even though he had not been drinking. In fact, R2D2 describes himself as a 95% non drinker of alcohol, used only rarely throughout his life.

The Aftermath:

R2D2 went on to tell me, that, after this incident, his mental health worsened for a whole year, when he isolated himself from society, until he became hospitalized for period of time. He only left his apartment to go visit his food bank (And lucky for him his is one he can go to every week unlike many others where you can only once a month or once every 3 weeks. ) Other than that he went out to attend medical/mental health appointments and that is pretty much it. The professionals like psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and counsellors explained to him that in addition to them not being allowed to be his friend outside of their work,  they also could not, within professional boundaries, contact security or police dept on his behalf, to explain to them that the way he is approached is hurting his mental health.

I suggest that, if officers, recognized this as a mental health issue, then the way that people are approached after complaints would not happen or be very different.

And here is the idea R2D2 wanted to talk to me about!

He started off by telling me where his idea came from and specially pointing out 3 Specific posts I have written, that inspired him to share his idea with me.

In his view, in this post, where I wrote an open letter to Private security companies, this letter raised a lot of good points. Police and private security should not be treating complaints of Inappropriate Body Language as a criminal matter, especially if the person is just minding their own business or not causing trouble. They need to be trained to understand that this behaviour is a mental health issue/matter. R2D2 agreed with me, as I wrote here, that the government does have a part to play in resolving the issue as a whole. He also agreed as I wrote here, that we need a better definition of loitering.

R2D2’s suggestion is why not have a separate unit within the police Department, or some other department, where there are trained Social Workers, who can be called instead of police? If trained social workers got sent to these calls instead of police, then maybe Income Assistance recipients will not feel so criminalized when being approached about these complaints. Maybe the Nova Scotia government can create legislation where there is a number to call for the Social Worker Division of the Department and be required to call that number instead of private security approaching them. I think this is a good idea.

When R2D2 was approached by police he wanted them charged for harassment. Police described his behaviour as “hysterical” and although he spoke to his MLA and his city councillor both said that there was nothing they could do. People are allowed to complain, and the police or private security can approach people to ask them to alter their behaviour when there are complaints.

Basically people have a right to call the police. And police and private security have a duty to follow up on complaints.

So, before I go any further to explain this story, I just want to say that everything I am talking about from top to bottom describes why this suggestion is needed. 

 

 

The full idea:

The whole idea is that there would be a Social Work unit/Division connected to emergency services, specifically to answer mental health calls. This will be whole separate phone number you call, separate from the police phone number. You call that number and trained mental health social workers show up instead of the police. This way, the mental health of the person that otherwise the police would speak to, is not hurt.

Now one more related issue before I finish this BLOG post!

Something else R2D2 was informed about by his local MLA, a few years ago, is that there may be federal legislation that mandates police forces and other law enforcement officials to take behaviour considered “hysterical” seriously. He was also informed that there may be maybe federal legislation that gives people the right to report this behaviour even if the person is just minding their own business and not causing trouble. There have also been times in the past that I was told about this possibly as well.

I myself have actually been told on 2 occasions ago that people are within their right to report this type of behaviour. If their really is any federal legislation, that makes law enforcement not see this whole thing as a mental health issue, then we need to having conversation with our MP’s, not our MLA’s. I will be speaking to my MP, Andy Filmore’s Office, about this as soon as possible.

I will write a BLOG about next steps for addressing this in the near Future!

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  Kendall Worth is an award-winning anti-poverty activist who lives with disabilities and tries to make ends meet on income assistance.