Black people far more likely to be arrested, charged, shot and killed by Toronto police
In-depth study of arrest data from 2013-2017 shows Black people ‘grossly overrepresented’ in cases ‘The time for debate about whether anti-Black bias exists is over,’ interim OHRC boss says of report
Black people are more likely to be arrested, charged, injured and killed by Toronto police than white people and other racialized groups, according to “highly disturbing” research released by the Ontario Human Rights Commission Monday.
The unprecedented data — which includes a never-before-seen analysis of recent Toronto police data on arrests and charges and new revelations about injuries caused by officers — shows Black Torontonians are “grossly overrepresented” in cases of discretionary arrests for low-level offences and police use of force, including fatal shootings.
The findings are both “highly disturbing” and nothing new, confirming what Black communities have said for decades: “That Black people bear a disproportionate burden of law enforcement,” the OHRC stated.
Black communities don’t “need another report restating troubling truths about the harmful and deadly consequences of anti-Black racism in policing,” said Anthony Morgan, a human rights lawyer and director of the City of
Toronto’s Confronting Anti-Black Racism Unit. “As the saying goes, who feels it, knows it.”
But the OHRC reports are nonetheless “exceptionally important,” Morgan said, because they take what Black communities have experienced for too long and translate it for politicians, police and others within the justice system — a system that continues to “produce so much Black pain, physically and figuratively.”
“The time for debate about whether anti-Black bias exists is over,” OHRC Interim Chief Commissioner Ena Chadha said at a news conference Monday. “The time has come to group together and change law enforcement institutions and systems that produce such disparate outcomes.”
The new research includes a comparison to fatal police shootings in the United States, and concludes that Black people in Toronto are “slightly more likely” to be shot and killed by the police than Black Americans, although the report notes that racial disparities in lethal police shootings “vary dramatically across American jurisdictions.”
Chadha said the comparison lays bare the “myth” held by Canadians that Toronto police use of force on Black people is “not as serious as in the United States.”
Monday’s press conference marked the second instalment of the OHRC’s inquiry into racial profiling and racial discrimination of Black people by the Toronto Police Service, launched in 2017. Taken together, the research to-date underscores that Black people in Toronto, particularly males, are “more likely to be proactively arrested, charged and subjected to uses of force in a wide range of police interactions,” the OHRC said.
“This adds an important dimension to the current conversation and reflects the everyday racism Black communities face,” the OHRC said in a statement. “These reports and the findings they contain add considerable weight to the groundswell of calls for systemic reform to policing services.”
In a joint statement, the Toronto police and the civilian police board acknowledged the report’s findings come “at a pivotal time in history, as people around the world are engaged in a critical dialogue about antiBlack racism, policing, accountability and reform.”
“We are committed to learning and continuing to address the harmful impacts of systemic racism, working with impacted communities, to create the fundamental shifts in the aspects of policing that have disproportionate impact, and to enhance the practices that promote equity,” the board and Toronto police service said.
The two reports released by the commission Monday were prepared by a team of researchers led by University of Toronto criminologist Scot Wortley alongside Maria Jung from Ryerson University’s criminology department, Ayobami Laniyonu, an assistant professor at U of T’s centre for criminology and sociolegal studies, and Erick Laming, a doctoral candidate at the centre. The first is an interim report detailing new data about Toronto police arrests and charges, while the second documents Toronto police use of force.
“The overall findings in both reports are highly consistent with the argument that due to various forms of conscious, unconscious and systemic bias, Black people are overrepresented in various types of negative police outcomes,” Wortley told reporters.
This disproportionate impact “warrants significant reform,”
Wortley said, including the development of a system of racebased research data collection.
Spanning 2013 to 2017, the arrest and charge research focused on nine categories of offences that were chosen, in part, because they involve a high degree of discretion on the part of the officer. According to the report, researchers have said racial disparities are more likely to arise when officers have “significant discretion in deciding to lay a charge.”
The offences included obstruction of justice, assaulting police, cannabis possession, trespassing and failure to comply with a condition, undertaking or recognizance.
Although Black people represented 8.8 per cent of Toronto’s population, they made up 32 per cent of the charges in the data set; in every charge category, Black people were “significantly” more likely than white people to be arrested and charged. Overall, the charge rate for Black people was 3.9 times greater than for white people, and 7.1 times greater than other racialized groups. The report also showed:
Black people represented 42.5 per cent of those charged with obstruct justice, meaning they were 4.8 times more likely to face this charge than their share of the general population.
Black people represented 35 per cent of people involved in what the OHRC called “out-ofsight” driving charges, such as driving without insurance, “which are charges that only arise after a stop has already taken place, suggesting other motives for the stop.”
Charges against Black people were more likely to be withdrawn and less likely to result in a conviction, raising “systemic concerns about charging practices.” Only a fifth of all charges in the data resulted in a conviction.
Monday’s OHRC research also included an update to the commission’s report on Toronto police use of force, which in December 2018 found that Black people were “grossly overrepresented,” especially in fatal shootings. That report found that between 2013 and 2017, a Black person was nearly 20 times more likely than a white person to be fatally shot by police in Toronto, representing seven of the 10 fatal shootings by police in that time span.
The updated data included a never-before-seen look at police use of lower levels of force. These were incidents that weren’t serious enough to warrant an investigation by the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) — the watchdog probes police-involved death, serious injury or allegations of sexual assault — but can nonetheless cause “significant adverse physical and emotional impacts,” the report says.
The research found that Black people were involved in nearly four in 10 instances of “lowerlevel use of force,” such as severe bruises or lacerations; the rate for Black people was five times greater than for white people, and 11 times greater than for other racialized people, the report stated.
In a technical briefing before the press conference, Wortley said the research showed Black people were more likely to be subject to low-level use of force in areas of the city with lower levels of crime — which tend to be whiter areas. That speaks to a heightened level of police surveillance, he said.
That is consistent with the “out of place” patterns that have emerged in studies of contact card data in Toronto by the Star, and in stop-and-frisk encounters in the United States —namely, Black people attract more police attention in whiter neighbourhoods.
A higher rate of surveillance is “going to increase your likelihood of coming in contact with the police and being identified if you have broken the law. I do think it is very consistent with the over-surveillance argument,” Wortley said.
Chadha, the interim chief commissioner of the OHRC, called on the Toronto police, city council and the province to immediately act to address systemic and anti-Black racism in policing. The OHRC wants to establish a process, with the Black communities’ involvement, to adopt and implement a “legally binding” remedy with Toronto police, the city and the police services board.
The OHRC is also calling on the province to legislate the requirement for police services to collect comprehensive racebased data.
At Queen’s Park Monday, Solicitor General Sylvia Jones noted that as of Jan. 1 the government has required police services across Ontario to submit race-based data for any kind of intervention that has use of force included.
“So I would say that we’re not reacting to the human rights interim report that came out this morning, we have been very active in doing things already,” Jones said.
The Toronto police and board have also started collecting race-based data “with an immediate focus on data related to use of force … to identify systemic racism, develop mitigation strategies and inform our training,” the joint statement said.
“We are continuing to work on ensuring that equity and anti-racism are built into all of our policies and practices,” said James Ramer, the Toronto police interim chief.
In a statement Monday afternoon, the SIU said it would begin collecting race-based data as of October.
Sharmaine Hall, Executive Director, Human Rights Legal Support Centre, spoke of the lasting and profound damage and impact on the centre’s clients, who describe being stopped by police “with no apparent reason,” such as while driving or walking down the street.
“Those who are victims feel hurt. They feel devastated. They feel angry and humiliated. There is a deep-rooted damage to their sense of dignity and self-respect,” she said.
Racial profiling can affect education, employment opportunities and housing, “not to mention the deep-seated distrust of those who are sworn to protect and serve all communities,” Hall said. “The status quo cannot be maintained.”
“We are continuing to work on ensuring that equity and anti-racism are built into all of our policies and practices.”
JAMES RAMER INTERIM CHIEF, TORONTO POLICE