Ethnic Diversity In Canada

The largest areas of culturally diverse societies consist within the 5 major metropolitan cites of Canada which are, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary (Mercer, 1995, 174). Most crimes occur in these large metropolitan cities, where many cultures are mixed within the large communities. As a result of many of the large Canadian cities being home to a majority group of people from a distinct array of ethnic identities, patterns of crime are often quite similar. For example, statistics have shown a large population of at risk black youth in the City of Toronto often indicted for street crimes. Or, the City of Vancouver, where the Asian youth gang phenomenon is at large (Mercer, 1995, 181). It is very important that the police forces in these communities represent or to the least have knowledge and sensitivity of these ethnic groups. Many of these at risk youth are either immigrants or first generation Canadians; therefore the police must be able to service them with the sensitivity of their background. Although, there have been efforts to diversify Canadian police there is still much work to be done. According to Geoffrey Li, the Law Commission of Canada has noticed through census statistics that: “in spite of concerted efforts to increase diversity in police services in Canada, women, members of visible and ethnic minority groups, as well as Aboriginal peoples, remain significantly underrepresented, compared to their representation in the communities being policed"(Li, 2008, 6). The enforcement and motivation for a more diverse police force is extremely important as the face of Canadian society is becoming less predominantly white males and more women, ethnic minorities, and Aboriginal, fueling the
In many situations they are often reached out to for taking control of the issue in order to help resolve civilian’s problems. Not all calls to the police result in the arrest of an individual, the police should only take such measures depending on the severity of the incident and the obstruction of the law. In many communities, there are often reoccurrences of similar types of petty crimes. For example, a young teen, living in a low income district, in a single parent home may be more drawn to stealing from stores as a result of the socio-economic factors influencing his behavior. The way an officer approaches an individual should depend on the situation, the environment, and other influential factors which may play a role in the criminality of that individual. Minority youth face a lot of prejudice from the police resulting in rather negative conclusions towards innocents in many cases (Nordberg et al, 2015, 10). Therefore, to have the training and knowledge of the diverse society the police is serving in is necessary as it may be used as a skill to help people feel comfortable with law enforcers. These skills can be translated into building a relationship with the community which may better the result of communicating enforcement of the law (Nordberg et al, 2015, 2). The Youth in Policing Initiative is a program, which reaches out to diverse young Canadians to gain experience working in police departments and learning how to serve and protect their communities (DaSilva, 2015, 1). The Youth in Policing Initiative program, allows youth to learn how to work with other from diverse backgrounds and experience in policing as they are trained for the job. This program is one of many that are an effort to recruit diverse and ethnically familiar individuals to represent the future of law enforcement in Canada (DaSilva, 2015,