More than 50 percent of black people in Toronto have been stopped by cops before in public places, according to a newly released report by the Black Experience Project. That statistic is even higher for black men between the ages of 25 to 44: Nearly 80 percent reported being stopped by cops in public.The Black Experience Project is a research study that launched in 2010 and looks at "contributions, successes, experiences and challenges" of people who identify as black in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). According to the report, over 400,000 people in the GTA identify as black—a number that accounts for about half of Canada's black population total.
Advertisement
One crucial part of the Black Experience Project's research included documenting black Torontonians' relations with police services, both positive and negative. Over 1,500 interviews were conducted for the project overall.Fowzia Duale Virtue, coordinator for the Black Experience Project, told CBC News Toronto that police relationships with black community in Toronto "have been with a lot of tension, a lot of conflict, a lot of mistrust… And certainly the numbers are showing that.""This is something that has been well documented, it has been a reality that the community has known," Virtue said.The Toronto Police Service has a known history of racial profiling, including the biased practice of carding—when cops stop people for essentially no reason to record their personal info.The Black Experience Project points to this issue and a plethora of others disproportionately affecting black people in its section on policing and the judicial system: "Issues of excessive police surveillance and police presence in largely Black neighborhoods, police brutality, carding, stops, search and seizures, numerous police killings of young unarmed Black men, and extra judicial and illegal drug raids.Research for the project was led by The Environics Institute with partners Diversity Institute of Ryerson University, the United Way of Greater Toronto, and the YMCA of Greater Toronto.Another key finding from the project's research was that two-thirds of those surveyed experienced racism and discrimination frequently or occasionally.The full report by the Black Experience Project can be viewed here.Follow Allison Tierney on Twitter .