Police diversity fails to keep pace with Canadian populations
2016/07/15 Leave a comment
Surprised they were able to get this much data.
When I asked for the date from the major police forces – Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal – the quality of data was mixed (Alberta does not collect employment equity information):
Only one major city in Canada — Halifax — staffs a police force that is as racially diverse as its community, CBC News has found.
All other major law enforcement agencies across the country fail to reflect their communities’ diversity among their ranks, leaving large swaths of visible minorities and Indigenous populations without representation.
- While 57 per cent of Peel region, outside Toronto, is diverse, its police force has only 19 per cent non-white officers.
- 54 per cent of Vancouverites are from minority groups, whereas 22 per cent of its police force match that profile.
- For York region, also neighbouring Toronto, that ratio is 44 per cent for the population, but 17 per cent for the police force.
- In Edmonton, 35 per cent of its citizens are visible minorities or Indigenous, yet those groups are represented in less than 10 per cent of its police force.
- In Nunavut, 12 per cent of the police force is Aboriginal, but the territory is almost 90 per cent Indigenous.
These findings come as minority groups across North America are shining the spotlight on allegations of abuse of authority and discrimination among polices forces.
In May, CBC News surveyed all major police forces in Canada in order to establish a national snapshot of the racial diversity of key law enforcement agencies.
These figures were then compared to the demographic makeup of the public for each community using the results of the 2011 National Household Survey to calculate the disparity between the racial profiles of police and general populations.
…The Toronto Police Service says one of the key impediments to achieving better representation is that the rate of officer turnover has been outpaced by the rapidly changing community.”In 2000 we were at about nine per cent visible minority. We’re now at about 24 per cent,” says Mark Pugash, director of corporate communications for the force.
“People who join tend to stay for 30 years, or in other cases 35 years or longer. So there’s not a great turnover. We’ve also had hiring freezes for a number of years in recent times.”
Pugash says that when Toronto police hire, they have focused on recruiting Somali Canadians, and have also been successful in debunking certain myths about policing through a program that teams up youths with officers.
Source: Police diversity fails to keep pace with Canadian populations – Manitoba – CBC News
About Andrew
Multicultural Meanderings 