Summary
"This paper examines the collection of race-based criminal justice data in the Canadian context.
Research has consistently illustrated that minorities, and racial minorities in particular, are overrepresented
in official crime and criminal justice statistics in all Western nations (Tonry, 1995).
There are two explanations frequently employed to explain this phenomenon. First, it is argued
that minorities tend to live in social conditions that put them at greater risk for criminal
offending. Second, it is argued that minorities elicit a disproportionate amount of attention from
the police and are discriminated against at the various stages of the criminal justice process
(Roberts, 2001). In countries such as Great Britain and the United States, policy makers and
researchers alike are able to document the extent to which racial disparities exist in their criminal
justice systems by examining official statistics that include information on race. There is
currently very little race-relevant criminal justice data available in Canada. Thus, we know little
about the racial composition of those processed by the Canadian criminal justice system and,
consequently, are ill-informed about how the system deals with these groups on aggregate." -- Page 4.