Brandon Rolle speaks about impact of Race and Culture Assessments

布兰登·罗尔（Brandon Rolle）在上个月的新闻发布会上发表讲话的屏幕截图。

上个月，新斯科舍省法律援助律师布兰登·罗尔（Brandon Rolle）在新闻发布会上谈到了他在新斯科舍省最高法院在该省的黑人宣判时在具有里程碑意义的决定中的作用。

罗尔代表非洲新斯科舍省为非洲血统联盟（ANSDPADC）提出的上诉。

The Crown had appealed the sentencing of a 24-year-old Black man, Rakeem Anderson, who had been convicted for possession of a loaded handgun.

The Crown wanted Anderson to serve a two- to three-year prison sentence. Instead, the judge gave him a community-based sentence based on an Impact of Race and Culture Assessment (IRCA) as was requested by the Crown.

罗尔所说的是一个罕见的例子，总共有五名上诉法院法官在3月提起诉讼时主持了该案。8月17日，该判决得到一致维持，并且在新斯科舍省被判刑时，伊卡斯现在是强制性的。

The Examiner recently spoke to Rolle to learn more about the IRCA decision.

“We’ve been ordering Impact of Race and Culture Assessments since 2014, and those have been open to interpretation by whatever judge is considering those reports. So we’ve gotten different outcomes,” Rolle said. “We’ve gotten some judges who just considered the information but didn’t apply it to sentence, and so I think the Crown, in this case, recognized the need for that guidance from our highest court and they came back with a very clear message saying … you, first of all, should be ordering these any time an African Nova Scotian is sentenced.”

罗尔说：“显然，当我们谈论此案时，人们陷入了这样一个事实，即……这是一个带有枪支的年轻黑人，以及该人是否应该入狱。”

“但是对我来说，这比这更广泛。同样，这是不可以的，我们实际上将提出有关我们如何判处非洲新斯科舍省人的全面准则。对我来说，这就是价值所在。”

“首席法官威廉姆斯（Williams）在省级法院一级判处社区判刑，可能会判处监狱，但由于种族和文化评估的影响而产生的证据。”

仅解决方案的一部分

在上个月的新闻发布会上，黑人的罗尔（Rolle）自豪地谈到了能够在上诉法院谈论非洲新星斯科舍省的生活经历，这是多么罕见和殖民主义。他认为法院“扮演领导职务”。

不过，当与考官交谈时，罗尔承认这还不够。

他说：“认为这样的事情将解决该系统，这太简单了，但这肯定是向前迈出的积极一步。”

“对我来说，这只是解决方案的一部分，因为在量刑阶段，显然，我们谈论的是该人已经被定罪的过程中的一个点。在整个过程中，他们可能在遇到警察时，在整个过程中都遇到了系统性种族主义，然后提出了指控，然后是检察官如何处理，然后在整个审判过程中证明。” Rolle说。“在宣判之前，有很多机会接触系统性种族主义。”

“I think there’s a lot of work to do when we think about things like how police interact with our community members, with how Crown attorneys make decisions about whether or not to lay charges or whether to refer something to restorative justice or how we select juries that are gonna be free of racial bias — how do we ensure that?”

“或……关于陪审团的王室酌处权。在某些情况下，例如谋杀案，除非王室同意，否则您将无法独自获得法官。因此，这是什么样的考虑？他们是否在考虑这样一个事实，我们已经承认（整个刑事司法系统）具有系统性的种族主义，当然，这将注入我们的陪审团。”

“因此，这个决定没有解决很多机会。”

我问罗尔，他是否期望对公众评论或对IRCAS的解释，甚至警察和检察官的决定有任何潜在的无知或种族主义反应。

“我认为，当量刑时，您会看到的主要反对意见是‘哦，有人会因为他们的种族或文化而获得折扣，”当然，我们知道不是这样。我们正在尝试解决系统中虐待和过度占代表性的数百年的问题。”

“Really what we’re saying is we’re gonna give you more information about this person. And, you know, it’s not going to equate to a free pass, by any means. But it’s going to help the judge understand who this person is, what their worldview is, how they approach conflict based on how they were raised in the community, things like that,” he said.

“It gets to a deeper level of things like remorse. If somebody who’s sitting down with a probation officer — which is our traditional method of getting this information before the court, something called a pre-sentence report, where someone would sit down with a probation officer for an hour or two — are they really going to be able to connect with this client if they don’t look like this client or understand that client’s worldviews? So, it’s really about getting that information before the court.”

“So, to me, it’s nothing but a positive. I understand the question and the potential for someone to maybe think that they might get a free pass because there’s IRCAs out there, but I think the reality of someone who’s caught up in that lifestyle, or engaged in criminal activity, or find themselves on a pathway to criminality, (they) have deeper rooted issues than thinking that an IRCA might give them a free pass.”

接下来发生什么？

去年七月，该省宣布将花费480万美元启动“非洲新斯科舍省司法研究所”。该研究所将由ANSDPADC领导，Rolle表示，他很乐观，这将努力解决他说的一些差距，尽管有IRCA的决定。

罗尔说，该研究所将“涉及保释支持，法医治疗单位，社区法律辩护基金，学术研究之类的事情”。他说。

“对我来说，这就是您需要在系统内部深深根深蒂固的问题中获得的多方面方法。”

“拥有专门为黑人社区的法律资源谈论黑人问题，并在法庭或人权委员会等环境中为非洲新星斯科省人提供倡导。要制定保释支持计划，以便我们可以更快地从还款到社区，我们没有那么多的人坐在监狱里等待审判。在服刑后从监狱出来后，要获得过渡支持将非常重要。在我们的托管机构内进行编程以拥有这些IRCA。”

他说：“我们正在谈论对结构性问题的结构性反应。”

洛尔对种族正义研究所的潜力感到乐观，但他说他认为这种责任不应该完全放在肩膀上。

“我认为皇家检察官办公室有很大的作用，因此能够思考我们如何解决该机构内部的种族主义将是一个重要因素。然后，当然，在司法之外，我们知道我们需要健康，经济学，教育中的多种解决方案。”他说。

此外，他说，尽管IRCA的决定和种族司法研究所的启动都在种族正义方面还有更多问题。

“我们与警察的关系如何？就法院的结果而言，数据是什么样的？我们知道，黑人在监护权和整个系统中的代表不成比例。这些IRCA将如何影响量刑结果？我们可以开始跟踪该数据吗？”

总而言之，罗尔（Rolle）对种族正义将如何发挥作用，这是他在新斯科舍省在围绕使用IRCAS的上诉法院辩论的直接结果，对种族正义的表现感到乐观。

“It’s going to obviously have an impact here in Nova Scotia, and I think what will be interesting is to see the impact that it might have nationally,” Rolle said.

“We know that federally there’s been funding to roll these IRCAs out in every jurisdiction, so I think we’re just starting to see this take off, even though we’ve been working on it a long time here in Nova Scotia, and I think it’s gonna have a national impact, which Nova Scotia should be sort of proud about in terms of being the ones who introduced this to the country.”