STAR GETS ACTION

For more than a decade, we’ve reported, backed by police data, that people with black or brown skin have been stopped for random street checks at rates far higher than other citizens, and decried the practice as systemic discrimination,

For decades, there were anecdotal allegations of police misconduct and longstanding perceptions that people in Toronto’s black communities were treated differently. There were also numerous reports that identified the issue of systemic racism in the justice system. But it wasn’t until the Star — through lengthy freedom of information requests — obtained police data showing the depth of the disparities that the issues of racial profiling and carding became front-and-centre issues, first in the city, then across Ontario and beyond.

Race & Crime — 2002

In a groundbreaking series, a team of Star journalists analyzes Toronto police arrest and charge data and finds that black people in certain circumstances are treated more harshly than white people. Blacks facing possession of marijuana charges are held more often for bail than whites facing the same charge. Black drivers are disproportionately charged with certain driving infractions that would not be evident until after a stop was made. A lawyer hired by Toronto police calls the Star’s work “junk science.” The Toronto Police Association unsuccessfully sues the Star for $2.7 billion, alleging the series labelled every member of the service racist.

Race Matters — 2010

After a follow-up FOI request that took seven years and involved two court challenges, the Star obtains and analyzes updated Toronto arrest and charge data, plus a database of police interactions with citizens in which personal details were noted but no arrest or charge resulted. The latter practice becomes known as “carding.” The Star’s analysis finds people with black and brown skin are disproportionately stopped, questioned and documented. The patterns found in the arrest and charge data in 2002 remain unchanged.

Known to Police — 2012

Looking at updated carding data. the Star looks, by skin colour, at the populations of young men in all of the city’s police patrol zones and compares that to the number of young men documented by police in those zones. In many instances, the number of individual young black and, to a lesser extent, brown men documented in patrol zones outnumbers the actual population of young men of those racial backgrounds living in those areas. The disproportionate carding of black- and brown-skinned citizens is unchanged from the 2010 Star analysis. The number of contact card encounters is increasing. In 2012 alone, 400,000 cards are filled out.

Known to Police — 2013

Again looking at updated contact card data, the Star is able for the first time to analyze officer contact cards, by individual officer. Using standard deviation, the Star benchmarks the contact cards of officers who do similar work in the same neighbourhoods and find hundreds of outliers who card people of certain skin colours more often, or less often, than colleagues. One top carding officer has credits for more than 6,600 encounters over five years. He is also an outlier, in that, when compared with his colleagues, he documents black people the most. The Star finds blacks in Toronto are more likely to be subject to carding than blacks are to controversial stop and frisks in New York City.

Known to Police — 2014

By now, carding has come under intense scrutiny and has plummeted. It will soon be suspended altogether, pending provincial review. But the Star analysis of updated carding data finds that, while the volume is way down, black people remain more likely than white people to be carded in each of the city’s police patrol zones. In fact, the likelihood, overall, has increased.

Peel — 2015

As the province steps in to review carding and what other services refer to as “street checks,” the Star obtains Peel police data that shows street checks there disproportionately impact black citizens. Other services also reveal previously internal data that show disparity in street checks, by race, is by no means a phenomenon unique to Toronto or Peel.