Canadian police agencies suppressing data on race, says criminology study

While only 20 per cent of Canada's police forces have an explicit policy against reporting the race of victims and accused persons, criminologists from the University of Toronto and Nipissing show that the majority of police departments do not report race in practice. The study, by Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto's Centre for Criminology, and Paul Millar, an associate professor at Nipissing University's School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, is entitled Whitewashing Criminal Justice in Canada: Preventing Research through Data Suppression and appears in the current issue of the Canadian Journal of Law and Society . "Information on race is essential for the equitable provision of policing services and for the development of police policy," said Owusu-Bempah. Recent studies show that blacks are over-represented in local police stops in Canada and Aboriginals are over-represented in Canadian prisons. Part of the explanation for over-representation, the authors write, is that these minorities are often situated in positions of social disadvantage, putting them at greater risk of involvement in crime as both victims and perpetrators. But differential treatment by police and others aspects of criminal justice is an important factor as well. "If we are serious about reducing racism and making our law responsive to behaviour instead of personal characteristics, we must systematically collect data on race," said Millar, lead author of the study.