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.

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.