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RCMP spokesman Sgt. Greg Cox said asking a victim or accused person to identify their race “may give rise to human rights and privacy concerns.”

Officers could also be put in the position of contravening the force’s “bias-free policing” policy, he said.

Acting Insp. Cathy Bell, a spokeswoman for the Ontario Provincial Police, said her force strives to be sensitive to all cultures and races and that collecting racial data is not seen as relevant to the force’s programs and operations.

The federal Department of Justice, however, has previously judged that such data collection could be helpful for policy development and statistical purposes.

The reluctance to collect and share the data may have more to do with public relations concerns, Millar said.

“They don’t want to be perceived to be racist, to be blunt,” he said.

The study notes that Canadian research has shown that black people are pulled over more often than other groups and that aboriginals are over-represented in prisons.

One possible explanation is that racial minorities are socially disadvantaged, putting them at greater risk of involvement in crime, the study says. But another possibility is systemic discrimination by police based on race.

In order to get to the bottom of why over-representation exists, there needs to be a systematic collection and reporting of racial data, the study says.

“Police services are mandated to provide equitable services. Without race-based data we cannot tell if this is being done or not,” said co-author Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, a doctoral candidate in criminology at the University of Toronto, in an interview.