Chief fears hate crime not reported
Some victims ‘don’t have any confidence in the system,’ Fordy says
Chief Bill Fordy fears a drop in suspected hate crimes investigated by Niagara Regional Police last year could be the result of apathy.
“The majority of the hate being undertaken is not shared with the police, oftentimes because people don’t know what to do or they don’t have any confidence in the system,” he said during a police services board meeting last Thursday.
A report presented during the meeting said officers investigated 30 suspected hate crimes in 2023, leading to three criminal charges — but none as hate crimes. That’s down from 41 suspected incidents in 2022 and seven criminal charges, but remains higher than in previous years.
Police investigated 21 suspected incidents in 2021, 10 in 2020 and 11 in 2019.
While the report suggested the decrease could be due to a “better understanding and acceptance of the increasing diversity in the region,” board vice-chair Nyarayi Kapisavanhu asked if it might instead be a result of “people having given up reporting hate crimes because they don’t think anything is being done.”
Fordy agreed.
“I don’t believe that every incident is being reported to police for a couple of reasons,” he said. “One is they might think we can’t do anything about it or, two, they might think we won’t do anything about it.”
Board member Laura Ip, a regional councillor for St. Catharines, said she’s heard from people frustrated after police determined crimes they reported were not hate-motivated.
“It’s one of those things when you look at it, on the surface it certainly looks like it’s hate-motivated,” she said.
The report said none of the 30 incidents investigated in 2023 met the Criminal Code threshold of a hate crime, and “the motivation for
the accused individual to commit the offence was not or could not be proven to be because of hatred or bias toward the identifiable group.”
Fordy said there’s “certainly room for us to do a better job” of educating residents on what constitutes a hate crime.
“Only through sharing information or getting out into the community, helping provide a better understanding of what hate crime is can we move that forward.”
He said the NRP’s equity, diversity and inclusion unit “is trying to become more engaged in sharing information.”
“When those incidents are reported to us, we’re trying to respond in a way that is responsive and professional,” he said.
The report said the NRP’s #StopHateNiagara awareness campaign was launched on social media while pamphlets are being circulated in the community to encourage residents to report hate crimes.
Fordy said increased awareness might increase the number of reports police receive, “which is what we want to see.”
“We want people to come to us and bring that information forward.”
The report said Black residents were the most frequent targets of racism.
Jewish people as well as members of the LGBTQ community were also primary targets of incidents last year.
Most incidents suspected of being hate crimes — roughly 67 per cent — were related to graffiti or mischief, although harassment, threats, a disturbance, a theft and assaults were reported, including one incident during which a weapon was used.