The facilitators distributed copies of the chart, Five Angles on the Crime-Race Maze: What's Wrong With These Numbers? They then walked participants through a discussion of the points rigorously brought out by journalist Gay Abbate in the highlighted boxes and commentary of the chart, as well as in the accompanying article that was published with it in The Globe and Mail, June 11, 1994. 

This is a good illustration of the need for great vigilance when linking data on criminal activity and other factors, such as skin colour: it is a complex "intellectual minefield".

It is also a good example of the positive contribution solid investigative journalists can make to the clarification of issues important for accurate community understanding, and more effective action on the real problems to which we must attend.

Five angles on the crime-race maze

What's Wrong With These Numbers? We tend to invest statistics with tremendous authority. But like any other information, how useful they are depends on how and why they are collected. These numbers were compiled from records collected and distributed every day to the media by the Metropolitan Toronto Police. Globe and Mail reporter Gay Abbate sifted through each day's records for 1992 and 1993 and picked out robberies and attempted robberies and the victims description of each robber. She then sorted the suspected robbers into groups according to the race the police had recorded each. (Toronto police are not allowed to compile such data themselves)  The Globe and Mail attempted this exercise to show the difficulties in collecting statistics by race. While the chart conveys some information, the overwhelming number of caveats show how unreliable such numbers can be.  Many people think any attempt to link crime with the skin colour of a suspect is spurious. Other believe that if the method of collecting them were improved, they could say a great deal about discrimination against a particular group.

"Reported" - Only about one-third of robberies are reported to police.

"Robberies" - Robbery is one hundreds of offences in the Criminal Code. Some studies have shown that crimes such as robbery are linked to socio-economic status.

"Toronto" - These numbers are from Metropolitan Toronto alone, and are not representative of Canada.

"Occurence"- Only about half of reported robberies make it to the occurrence sheets. Which police officers are making this decision? What criteria are they using?

"Suspects" - Only about one third of the suspects are eventually charged. Even fewer are convicted.

"Black" - Who decided what category the suspect fits into? Are dark skinned, non-black suspects included here? Are victims' perceptions reliable?

"Oriental" - A suspect has a black mother and a Chinese father. Which category does he fit into?

"5,587" - Are these 5, 500 individual suspects, or 550 who may have robbed 10 times each?

"10,728" - Because many robberies are committed by more than one person, more than one person, there are many more suspects than incidents. In 1992, 2,700 reported robberies appeared on the sheets. In 1993, the figure was 2,719.