Shampoo, rinse, repeat: that’s Manitoba’s criminal justice system

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/10/2024 (380 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There’s a popular saying that says “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

It means if a different result is desired, the processes that create the result have to be different.

Speaking of same old, this week the Winnipeg Police Service and RCMP announced the creation of a Most Wanted website, highlighting some of the people the Manitoba integrated violent offender apprehension unit would like to find.

The unit was established in 2023 by the previous provincial government and — according to then-justice minister Kelvin Goertzen — “employs sophisticated criminal intelligence techniques to target and closely monitor high-risk individuals with arrest warrants, involvement in gangs, drug trafficking, or illegal firearms smuggling, as well as ties to organized crime.”

The unit literally exists to identify, monitor and arrest Manitoba’s most wanted; more than 80 per cent of them are repeat offenders on bail, probation or parole, and nearly a quarter are labelled as gang members or associates.

To date, it has been busy, arresting upwards of 500 serious or violent offenders — 264 this year so far — alongside 549 warrant checks and the execution of 375 warrant orders.

That’s a lot of paperwork, human power and expense. The unit receives approximately $3 million in annual funding from the Manitoba government.

For the most part — and besides the occasional press release and social media post — it did not previously share its list or define what afforded the people on it their dubious distinction except, perhaps, their penchant for violence.

Not anymore.

“We’re telling these wanted individuals that their days of hiding in the shadows are coming to an end,” RCMP Insp. Shawn Pike said at the unveiling of the website Tuesday. “History shows that when we engage with the public and ask for help, the public will respond, and they come through.”

The website listed eight men Wednesday.

Each features an image of a man labelled with the word “wanted,” along with a link to a poster ready for printing. At the bottom of the photos there is a frightening warning: “Take no action to apprehend.”

More than half appear Indigenous and, of that group, most are in their 20s. Two of the other three are Black and there is a lone Caucasian.

Statistically — and unsurprisingly for any who study the Manitoba criminal justice system — the list almost precisely resembles the racial makeup of the jailed population; Indigenous men in their 20s are the majority of those charged, incarcerated and labelled repeat offenders.

That likely means the unit’s list is the same, with Indigenous peoples making up the majority (but police control that information).

While the team is a Tory creation, the NDP government is pleased with its work.

Manitoba Justice Minister Matt Wiebe applauded the effort at the unveiling and said it targets “people who are terrorizing Manitobans and those who are exploiting our most vulnerable citizens.”

Mayor Scott Gillingham agrees, calling it “proactive,” enabling police to “target serious repeat offenders and make our streets safer.”

Rarely have all in Manitoba agreed on such a singular approach to crime.

And the historical record agrees.

Lists of Manitoba’s “most wanted” have been tried by police here many times.

I’ve written previously in this space about seeing police photos of individuals and their crimes in the Free Press in the 1980s and 1990s and, more recently, with community organizations that work with police, such as Crimestoppers.

The lists are always made up of predominantly Indigenous men, most often in their 20s and defined by their brutal crimes. The public is encouraged to report on their whereabouts and be frightened.

The “lists” fail time and again because they are successful.

Let me explain. Lists of Manitoba’s Most Wanted have helped create generations of police officers and political leaders who build stereotypes and make decisions that result in a cycle of over-policing of Indigenous communities, railroading young Indigenous men into convictions and jail and, then, recidivism.

Those police and politicians continue to do the same thing — uncritically and without any creativity — acting as if labelling, surveillance and continual incarceration are good ideas.

For decades, Manitoba’s Most Wanted has been a self-fulfilling prophecy, labeling a group of similar-looking people as criminals, telling the public to be afraid of them and then catching them and throwing them into jail.

Again and again, creating the current reality.

It’s insanity, really.

niigaan.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca