The receipts were as new to the Toronto officers handing them out as they were to the 19-year-olds who were ticketed and carded for drinking in a park near Sheppard Ave. and Yonge St. Tuesday night.

But a couple of the teenagers got it.

“One thing you know is, you know who took your information,” said a kid named Chris, as Sgt. Marcia Campbell finished recording his personal information — including his name, address, height, weight, eye, hair and skin colour — on a small white card before giving him a separate receipt.

“Especially like G20,” said his friend. “You’d know who was stopping you.”

That accountability — that officers would stop and think twice about why they were carding someone — was part of the intent behind the new receipts, which began July 1 after being mandated by the police services board.

The move came after a Star investigation of carding data showed officers were stopping and carding black and brown individuals at disproportionately high rates.

The analysis also showed that between 2008 and mid-2011, the number of young black and brown males aged 15 to 24 documented in each of the city’s 72 patrol zones was greater than the actual number of young men of colour living there.

The numbers suggest each one of them may have been documented by police, a notion dismissed by Chief Bill Blair, who says the majority are carded in areas where they don’t reside.

But on this night, the teens were local and police caught them drinking on the edges of a drainage gully full of broken bottles. The area is favoured because it is separated from the park by dense brush, not far from where kids play.

Police patrol Willowdale Park because of alcohol, but also drug use. Heroin “is big,” said Constable Jason Fenton, part of the 32 Division patrol.

By the end of the encounter, six of the eight teens took the receipts, which included the officer’s name, badge number and reason why they were carded. Six also left with $125 tickets for drinking.

The interaction was polite, amicable even. At the end, a teen shook Fenton’s hand and thanked him.

But the scenario doesn’t always play out that way.

Many youth have told the Star they are stopped by police when they are doing nothing but walking down the street or waiting for a bus. The result is that their personal information is recorded in a massive database used by police for investigations.

Others report being patted down, searches that go even further to include socks, shoes, the rim of a hat and even the mouth.

Most don’t know they are free to walk away unless they are being held briefly for questioning during an investigation.

Two of the teens carded in Willowdale Park were already questioned and documented last summer in Mel Lastman Square, where police told them they were investigating a robbery.

Rights organizations such as the Ontario Law Union, Black is Not a Crime, the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association have criticized police and called for improvements, as well as an end, to carding.

And in some measure, the force has responded.

The new document cards — called a Community Inquiry Report or a Form 306 — don’t include one of the most contentious questions that drew criticism at police board meetings: Whether an individual’s parents are married or divorced.

The category, there because police are required to notify both parents, was taken out after the recent outcry.

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“It was removed because we have received some feedback that that type of question can be offensive,” said Toronto police spokeswoman Meaghan Gray. “And we feel it doesn’t provide any investigative value.”

Officers are also told to put more emphasis on quality rather than quantity, said Gray, adding “numbers do matter to the extent that it’s a way for us to show how an officer has spent time during a shift.”

Perhaps more importantly, the force is reviewing performance reviews based on an officer’s volume of cards.

“Do I think that was done before? Absolutely,” said Gray. “And I think that’s part of what we’re trying to do. To emphasize to officers you shouldn’t be judged on your level of community interaction by the number . . . you fill out.

“That’s not an appropriate way to evaluate the level and quality of the interaction an officer has had with a member of their community.”

But the force has ignored a request by groups, including the African Canadian Legal Clinic, to issue a carbon copy of exactly what officers record instead of a truncated receipt.

While the cards have no carbon copies, the receipt books do. An individual gets the copy and the officer keeps the original.

It’s early days, but Gray said the response to the receipts has been positive. There have been no real areas of concern raised by officers or members of the community.

But whether the receipts will survive is a question that should soon be answered.

The Toronto force is doing a much wider review of its interactions with the public, including carding, and a report will go to Blair on Aug. 1.

That report could recommend keeping the receipts, changing them or doing away with them altogether.

“What’s collected on the receipt, how the receipt is distributed, how it’s kept, that could all change,” said Gray. “I wouldn’t want to suggest that this is the final way of doing business.”