Conflicting tallies of hate crimes in Hamilton point to inconsistent criteria: police, advocates

Hamilton recorded fewer cases of police-reported hate crimes last year, but how many there were depends on who you ask.

Last week, Statistics Canada reported the city had 58 cases of police-reported hate crimes in 2020, a rate of 10 cases per 100,000 population.

That was down from 90 cases in 2019, or 15.7 per 100,000.

In April, the Hamilton Police Service also noted fewer instances of hate in 2020 than the previous year.

But its numbers differed wildly from the Statistics Canada report.

Out of 80 hate/bias incidents" in 2020, only eight met the criteria for a hate/bias crime," police reported. A year earlier, police reported, eight out of 92 incidents met the criteria to be considered a crime.

The figures are confusing, which is why local police and community leaders agree what constitutes a hate crime needs to be more uniformly defined.

Moreover, police and experts agree prejudice is still very much a problem in Hamilton.

Despite the statistical dip last year, the city has experienced very serious hate crimes recently," pointed out Tina Fetner, chair of McMaster's sociology department.

For instance, in broad daylight, two Muslim women were threatened and chased by a man in a car in an Ancaster shopping plaza parking lot in July.

And so it is by no means a reason to feel that our job fighting hate is done," Fetner said.

Back to the numbers - and more specifically, the reason the 2020 figures differ so much depending on who is presenting them. It's partly due to how hate crimes are defined, and partly due to omission.

According to this year's Hamilton police report, there were eight hate/bias crimes in 2020, which were offences under the criminal code, and 72 incidents" involving overtones of hate or bias but not proven to be solely or in part motivated by it.

Hamilton's hate-crime unit makes this distinction in its report to the police board, but the service must follow Statistics Canada's instructions when it comes to the national study, acting deputy chief Paul Hamilton says.

They're lumping the two together, and we have no control over that, but that's why we are trying to be transparent when we do our board report and break down the incidents so it's more reflective of what's happening."

So why did Statistics Canada's report tally 58 total cases and not 80 as noted in police's report in April?

In March, after Det. Fabiano Mendes took over as lead of the hate-crime unit, he discovered some reports weren't being workflowed to the proper unit," Hamilton noted.

But those corrections were detected too late for Statistics Canada's final report, he said.

When asked about the discrepancy, the federal agency said it does not comment on the contents or methodologies used in external reports and studies."

But for Statistics Canada's purposes, all incidents need to meet the Criminal Code threshold and be reported to and substantiated by police.

Some police services may have a wider criteria for including some hate incidents or hate crimes that are currently still being confirmed," a spokesperson wrote via email.

Note that we review the data sent to us, compile tables for verification and get a sign-off from the police services."

Only so much stock should be placed in hate-crime statistics as a measure of public attitudes or tolerance, Fetner wrote in an email.

What counts as a hate crime varies greatly across and within police departments, and they rely on people to call the police when hate occurs, which also varies."

Instead of paying close attention to year-by-year changes in hate crimes, we should take this point of information in along with measures of extremist activity, both online and in person, to understand societal levels of intolerance and hate, and to safeguard vulnerable members of our community."

In recent years, Hamilton's high rankings among other cities in the Statistics Canada reports have earned it national notoriety oft-cited by anti-hate advocates.

Whether they're classified as crimes or incidents, they're all significant events" for victims, said Hamilton, noting police's pending community-based review of cases to offer better service and transparency.

These are despicable acts being committed by people and we want the community to be part of our process on how we do report them, how we investigate them and how we treat victims."

Given the conflicting information, there should be another avenue for people to report hate crimes independent of police, says Kojo Damptey, executive director of the Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion (HCCI).

So that you're also hearing from people that are impacted by hate and not necessarily waiting on the police to describe whether a threshold has been met or whether a threshold is deemed a crime or an incident."

Such a potential community-based tool was the focus of a study McMaster researchers conducted for HCCI.

Preliminary findings in the report released Tuesday found most of the 16 participants in focus groups felt uncomfortable" reporting hate crimes and hate-based incidents to police due to concerns about police violence, intimidation and inaction."

On the other hand, these participants stated that an independent hate-crime reporting platform may serve as an effective alternative to reporting to the police, since it would allow them to report incidents at their own pace and without fear of compromising their identity," the authors noted.

Teviah Moro is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator. Reach him via email: tmoro@thespec.com