Blacks heavily carded by Peel police
Mississauga mayor wants practice suspended after learning of wildly disproportionate stats
Black people in Brampton and Mississauga are three times more likely to be stopped by Peel police than white people, according to six years of data obtained by the Star.
The race-based data pertains to street checks, known as carding, conducted in the two cities between 2009 and 2014.
Blacks accounted for 21 per cent of street checks conducted in Brampton and Mississauga. According to census da- ta from 2011, 9 per cent of Brampton’s and Mississauga’s combined population was black. Whites made up 41 per cent of the population and accounted for 28 per cent of the street checks.
Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie says she will now call for the suspension of street checks by Peel police, after learning of the race data from the Star. Crombie, who sits on the Peel Police Services Board, in June pushed for a full review of
Black people made up 9% of Brampton’s and Mississauga’s population, but accounted for 21% of police street checks
the force’s street-check practices.
“During the next meeting of the Peel Police Services Board, which will take place Friday Sept. 25, I will call for a suspension of street checks to best ensure we have a thorough review and analysis of the practice, and have a better understanding of its scope and scale,” Crombie told the Star Wednesday.
“With the release of this new data, along with the feedback I heard from (residents) at a recent public consultation, I believe there are serious issues that need to be addressed.”
Crombie said she understands the need for police to have crime-fighting tools, but said citizens cannot have their rights infringed upon.
“I want to reiterate how important it is that we provide our front-line police officers with the tools they need to do their jobs, but at the same time we must protect the rights and freedoms of all residents.”
Lawyer Howard Morton said he’s not surprised by the race data on Peel’s street-check practices.
“If the Star hadn’t looked closely at Toronto, which had a similarly disproportionate number of black people being carded, this would come as a surprise in Peel,” said Morton, a member of the Law Union of Ontario. He and his group have been staunch critics of carding, arguing that the practice violates Charter of Rights protections against unlawful search and seizure, and detention. He will be speaking at a Peel Police Services Board meeting on Friday.
“But what is surprising is that Peel’s (police) board has never dealt with this. That’s the most disturbing thing, that the Peel police service board has done absolutely nothing about this.”
Peel police Chief Jennifer Evans was asked Wednesday why black people are more often stopped in street checks by her force. A spokesperson for the police responded:
“The board report ‘Street Check Process’ will be on the public agenda Friday at the police services board meeting. The report highlights include: A review of the Peel Regional Police street check process with action to be undertaken, as well as data collection; officer training; retention of the street check forms; supervisory oversight of the street check forms; and audit of information contained within the street check form.”
In June, Crombie asked for the review of Peel police’s street-check policy as Evans defended the practice as an important tool to help solve crimes. Evans was asked Wednesday how many crimes her force has solved with the help of street-check data, but no information was provided to the Star.
Data obtained in August after the Star filed a freedom of information request in June showed that Peel police conducted 159,303 street checks over six years, from 2009 to 2014.
The race-based data obtained Tuesday shows that in 2011, blacks were stopped in 5,830 street checks by Peel police out of 26,113 total checks, or 22 per cent of the time.
That year, blacks had three times the chance of being stopped, compared to whites, a number that remains consistent when using the street-check data from 2009 to 2014.