Hate crimes in Thunder Bay under-reported

The director of Thunder Bay's Crime Prevention Council says a recent Statistics Canada report that indicates only one hate crime for the city in 2011 is a misrepresentation.   

Amy Siciliano said more crimes happen, but they aren't reported — and the group is trying to change that.

"Paradoxically ... we'll know we're succeeding when we see an increase of hate crime reporting," she said.

After a few years of seeing the number of reports increase, the numbers are expected to fall, Siciliano said.

Statistics Canada’s report that Thunder Bay police investigated only one case of hate crime in 2011 "isn't a great indication that the problem is going away," she said. "The reporting procedures of police might not be as good as they can be."

For hate crime to make it into the national database, Siciliano says local police officers have to ask the right questions.

Questions like: "What did he say when he threw that egg at you?" or, "Do you think this assault was motivated by hatred."

Making officers aware

These are some of the things Thunder Bay Police Constable Larry Baxter of the Aboriginal Liaison Unit thinks about at the scene of a crime and said he wants others officers to do the same.

This fall he'll lead a training session "so that, next time Statistics Canada comes by, we can give a more accurate picture of what's going on in our community."

The training will include information about hate crime reporting, how officers can identify a hate crime and what reporting a hate crime can accomplish.

"And it's not always that the officers aren't asking the right questions," Baxter said. "They could ask the right questions, but not realize how important it is to report the crime as a hate crime. We have policy on hate crime ... but that doesn't mean that everyone's going to follow it all the time."

In the meantime, Thunder Bay’s Crime Prevention Council says it will work with police to improve police reporting of hate crimes.