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The Toronto Police Services Board is reportedly considering publicly releasing race-based crime statistics, reversing a 30-year-old ban on the practice.

According to a CBC News report last week, this policy reversal could start as early as next year, with police tracking and reporting the races of individuals in some encounters with the police.

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While I have long supported the public release of all race-based crime data, how we’ve come to this point is a study in irony.

The Toronto police board banned the compiling of race-based crime statistics following a 1989 uproar when then North York police superintendent Julian Fantino, later to become Toronto’s police chief and a federal Conservative cabinet minister, presented statistics before the city’s race relations committee suggesting blacks living in Jane-Finch were disproportionately involved in crime.

Fantino said he did it to counter allegations the police were unfairly targeting blacks in that community.