Police Must Collect Race-Based Data to Help Combat Racism, says Falconers LLP
The Toronto Star recently featured comments by Falconers LLP associate, Anthony Morgan, in a March 19, 2017, article on the issue of police collecting race-based disaggregated data.
In support of the police collecting and publishing race-based data, Morgan stated that racialized communities are no longer as resistant to police doing this as they may have been in the past:
“It’s not the collection of data; it’s the criminalization of data about us that has been the concern […] we’ve come to a place where we see the power and importance of having more data and we are less fearful of the ways in which that data will be manipulated.”
Morgan’s commentary in the article also speaks to the public policy and police accountability imperatives of collecting and publishing this data. In particular he states that race-based data is a vital part of evidence-based policy making in policing and beyond, including measuring the need for reforms to everything from schools and housing to health and prisons.
“It gives us greater access to the levers of both change and accountability.”
In The News
Should police be required to collect race-based data to fight discrimination Toronto Star, March 19, 2017