People from visible minority groups experienced police street checks at nearly twice the rate of those who were not visible minorities in the last two years, according to a report from the Waterloo Regional Police Service.

The report, which went before the police services board at their July meeting, covers interactions between January 1, 2017 and December 31, 2018.

And although people who were not perceived as visible minorities received the highest overall number of street checks — a total of 56 checks in 2017 and 2018 combined — that adds up to a rate of 13.1 per 100,000 people.

In contrast, people who were perceived as visible minorities received 24 street checks in 2017 and 2018, which adds up to a rate of 24 per 100,000.

For the purposes of this report, "non-visible minorities" includes white and Indigenous groups, as per the 2016 census.

'Consistent with previous trends'

"Visible minority members were nearly two times more likely than a non-visible minority member to have a regulated interaction completed," the report read, using the police terminology for street checks.

"This is consistent with the previously reported trends for 2017 and 2018 where members of the visible minority were more likely to have experienced a regulated interaction."

People who were identified as black had the highest rate of all: 85.9 per 100,000.

"There continues to be an overrepresentation, but ... we're dealing with a data set that is very small," WRPS Chief Bryan Larkin said of the report.

Larkin added the police service is following government regulations to report on street checks to ensure that officers are following procedure.

He also said leaders in the force have received implicit bias training, which is now being rolled out to all service members.

This report is a revised edition, as a previous 2018 report found that some interactions were submitted without a required template, and were not captured.