Hamilton police to create community advisory panel in 2024 for new race-based data strategy

Several years after Hamilton Police Service (HPS) began tracking data on race, the police service says it will be inviting racialized groups to be involved in a new strategy for the data collection as a way to rebuild trust and improve the process.

Per a provincial mandate, HPS has been tracking the race and identity of people involved in use-of-force incidents since 2020 to expose any racial biases or stereotyping within police services.

Some advocates have said tracking the data is key to addressing community mistrust of police and discrimination by officers.

But, as the police services board heard in December, the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police said there has been a gap "between data collection requirements" and a strategy police services need in order to make "sustainable progress" against eliminating systemic racism in Ontario.

As a result, the association provided police services with a framework in October to create their own strategy tailored to their community.

During a December police board meeting, Hamilton police Chief Frank Bergen said the service's strategy will include an internal project team and a community advisory panel.

The panel will "provide lived experience, insight, and civilian perspective" and be composed of leaders "representing diverse racialized groups," according to an information report presented to the board. The panel will work with the project team to create and implement "a roadmap of activities and outcomes," the report said. 

The report says HPS plans to open applications for the panel in late January, close submissions at the end of February and select members in the middle of March.

Insp. Jim Callendar and Chloe Nyitray, HPS's manager of analytics, presented before the police board, saying the goal of the strategy is to better serve the community, and reduce disparities and disproportionalities between racial groups.

Nyitray said most of the work in the first quarter of the year will focus on governance and terms of reference for the two teams. HPS is still working on the process that would determine who is selected, according to Bergen.

Racial disparities seen in 2023 use of force data

Data released in 2023 showed Black people in Hamilton faced a "gross over-representation" among people police officers used force on, prompting advocates to call for immediate action — especially after HPS said the over-representation wasn't necessarily discrimination.

In addition to the "gross over-representation" of Black people in HPS's use of force, East and Southeast Asian people faced "gross over-representation" when it came to the use of force during arrests and apprehensions, while Black and Middle Eastern people were also "over-represented" in the same category.

While community groups have said discrimination is the driving force behind the disparities, HPS has said it doesn't know what factors were at play and the data alone may not be conclusive evidence of systemic racism.

If there is a disparity, it's a flag for the police service to investigate further with more context, Nyitray said during the Dec. 14 board meeting.

HPS previously noted some of the limitations in the tracking.

Some of those included how officers aren't supposed to ask for someone's race and can only record their perceived race and how they can only record data for a maximum of three people per incident.

New strategy will help meet community needs: Bergen

Dr. Anjali Menezes, who sits on the police board and previously told CBC Hamilton she had "mixed experiences" with officers, asked questions about the data and how it is collected.

She found common ground with Bergen in voicing concerns about the limitations after reading through the province's technical report.

"What struck me in this report was the … lack of data they needed in order to make a thorough assessment of the impact of racial identity and the experiences different communities have with the police," Menezes said.

Bergen told her HPS and other police services have raised concerns with the province, but has to follow the province's guidelines. The police board also sent a letter to the province with concerns.

"I applaud you for picking up the same things that have been discussed not only in this roundtable but within our own organization as well," Bergen said to Menezes, adding HPS is working with the province to figure out what the next iteration of race-based data will be.

He told her the service already releases line-by-line use of force data each year and is working to keep rebuilding trust with equity-seeking communities.

"This step into the journey of race-and-identity-based data is absolutely going to feed into what you're asking and give us the opportunity to appropriately meet the demands of our Hamilton community."