Carding: Who gets stopped for street checks in Waterloo Region

Waterloo Regional Police data shows that for a 10-year period, the number of black individuals stopped by officers for a street check was disproportionately higher than others when compared to the general population.

The 2011 National Household Survey found Waterloo region had a population of 469,935, and black individuals made up 10,485 of residents, or 2.23 per cent.

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Police data showed that of 63,697 cases of carding or street checks officers stopped African-Canadianindividuals 5,800 times, or 9.1 per cent of all checks.

There was a significant spike in street checks in 2012, 8,832 cases of carding, and 2013, when there were 8,500. The number of African-Canadian residents stopped in those two years were 9.4 percent and 9.1 per cent respectively.

Although the number of checks went down in 2014, the number of black individuals stopped did rise to 10.3 per cent, but it dropped down to 8.6 per cent in 2015.