Intersection of Indigenous Peoples and Police: Questions about Contact and Confidence

Abstract

Despite much anecdotal, journalistic, and statistical evidence of their oppression by colonial and neocolonial police practices, little is known about Indigenous peoples’ attitudes towards the police in Canada. The theory that involuntary police–citizen contacts increase citizens’ mistrust, fear, and dissatisfaction and, ultimately, decreases confidence in the police was advanced. Hypotheses arising from this historical-theoretical context were tested with the 2014 panel of Canada’s General Social Survey, including 951 Indigenous (First Nations, Métis, or Inuit) and 21,576 non-Indigenous white participants. Indigenous identity and involuntary contacts were both significantly associated with a lack of confidence in police, p < .001. As hypothesized, the odds associated with involuntary contacts (odds ratio [OR] = 2.66) were stronger than those associated with being Indigenous (OR = 1.81). While the hypothesized ethnicity by contact interaction was not observed, Indigenous participants (5%) were two and a half times as likely as non-Indigenous white participants (2%) to have had relatively frequent (two or more) involuntary contacts with the police during the past year. Therefore, at the population level Indigenous people are at much greater risk of coming into involuntary contact with the police and of consequently lacking confidence in police. Policy implications and future research needs are discussed.