Notes

For decades African Canadians have complained that they are frequently stopped, questioned and searched by the police for “DWBB”, “Driving While Being Black Violations”.1 Similar complaints have been made by aboriginals in the prairie provinces and South Asians in British Columbia. Canadian law enforcement officials have rejected such claims. This controversy reached a boiling point in October 2002 when the Toronto Star published a series of articles on the issue of race and crime. In addition to reviewing previous research, the Star provided its own analysis of police arrest data. The Star analysis reveals that black people in Toronto are highly over-represented in certain offence categories “including drug possession and ‘out-of sight’ traffic violations” such as driving without a licence or driving without insurance. The Star maintains that this pattern of over-representation is consistent with the idea that the Toronto police engage in racial profiling. Its analysis also suggests that blacks are treated more harshly after arrest than their white counterparts. In particular, white offenders are more likely to be released at the scene, while black offenders are more likely to be detained, taken to the station for processing and held in custody for a bail hearing2 .

The Toronto Police vehemently denied all allegations of racial bias in the Star series. The Chief of Police for Toronto declared, “We do not do racial profiling...There is no racism”.3 Likewise, the President of the Police Association stated that, “No racial profiling has ever been conducted by the Toronto Police Service”.4 These sentiments were echoed by several local politicians. For example, the Mayor of Toronto said, “I don’t believe that the Toronto police engage in racial profiling in any way, shape or form. Quite the opposite, they’re very sensitive to our different communities”.5 Unfortunately, the police have yet to produce concrete data that can lend support to their “no racism” argument. Does racial profiling exist in Toronto? It is the purpose of this paper to briefly discuss the results of two recent Toronto surveys that directly address the racial profiling debate.