Out of just over 500 people who reported when they were stopped by police since 2021 in Montreal, 30 per cent believe they were pulled over because of their appearance.
This is according to a study led by Montreal’s Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) released Tuesday.
“Essentially it’s the first time that we’re asking citizens to self-report their experiences of police stops,” explained lead researcher, Dr. Carolyn Côté-Lussier.
The institute launched an interactive website in 2021 where people can record their interaction with police, to track police stops in real time and to collect information anonymously.
That information includes the type of stop, the location, or the age, gender or ethnic background of the person who is pulled over. The researchers say they also want to collect information that police miss in their data collection, since Montreal police record just five to 10 per cent of the stops they make.
According to Côté-Lussier, the stops seem to be concentrated in certain areas.
“In terms of boroughs in the city where we see more stops, we see Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, downtown, the Plateau, the South West, Montreal North, Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension,” she told Global News.
She added that there were more racialized people and young adults among respondents, and that 41 per cent of respondents said the stop was justified, whereas 43 per cent believe it was not.
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“This goes back to the idea that there is racial and social profiling in police stop practices,” the lead researcher pointed out. “This is what we saw in the (Montreal police’s) own data, this is what community organizations have been saying since the 1980s.”
“It surprised me how close it is to the (Montreal police) data, and that’s a good thing,” stressed project co-investigator Dr. Myrna Lashley from McGill University. “Because they can’t deny it and we can’t deny it. It is what it is.”
In 2019, Montreal police released the results of an independent study revealing that Black, Indigenous and Arab people were four to five times more likely to be stopped by police.
For the INRS study, Lashley believes people’s perception of why they were stopped affects trust in the police over time.
“If my perception of you is that you’re out to harm me, I’m going to shy away from you,” she argued. “I’m not going to be there to help you when you need help. If I don’t trust you I’m not coming anywhere near you.”
In a statement, Montreal police say they plan to analyze the results of the study.
“These results may eventually be taken into consideration in order to improve efforts to optimize the practice of police stops,” the statement reads.
They also point to a new policy for police stops that has been in place since 2021.
The INRS researchers plan to continue to collect data from the public stops to see if the changes to police stop policy will have an impact.
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