2023 UOF Report Infographic
Hamilton Police have released its annual Use of Force (UOF) statistics for 2023. Canada’s Criminal Code grants police officers authority on reasonable grounds to use as much force as necessary to carry out their duties.
In 2023, there were 265 reported UOF incidents. This is a nine per cent decrease in UOF over 2022. The number of UOF incidents that result in a use of force incident is less than one per cent. In 2023,, Hamilton Police had 219,943 public contacts.
“Officers are authorized to employ various force options in response to incidents to protect life, preserve peace, prevent crimes, maintain order, and apprehend suspects. Hamilton Police are trained to use only the minimal force required,” says Chief Frank Bergen.
An officer can become involved in an incident either through a citizen-generated call for service or by self-initiated work such as traffic stops or witnessing criminal activity. Eighty per cent of the use of force incidents were generated from a citizen-initiated call for service. Weapons, executing a warrant, and dealing with a person in crisis generated the top three calls resulting in a use of force report.
In 2023, officers discharged a firearm 11 times, all but one discharge was for euthanizing injured animals.
Uniform patrol is most likely to encounter incidents requiring an application of force, particularly those with less than five years of service.
Hamilton Police saw a 58 per cent increase in the number of times a handgun was pointed over the previous year and a 176 per cent increase in the number of subjects in possession of firearms. Hamilton has seen a marked increase in shootings over the past five years.
In 2020, the Ministry of the Solicitor General required police to track the race of individuals involved in use of force encounters. Last year, Hamilton Police began analyzing racial disproportionalities, a key step in identifying systemic racism. This year, Hamilton calculated disproportionality indexes against the city’s census population and the population of those arrested or apprehended.
This year’s statistics show a small decrease in over-representation of the Black population compared to the Hamilton Census population, but an increase in over-representation of Indigenous and Middle Eastern populations. When compared to the arrested and apprehended population, Middle Eastern and East/Southeast Asian groups are over-represented, though East/Southeast Asian has fewer than 25 use of force reports.
New this year is the calculation of disparity indexes using the White population as a benchmark. The analysis shows over-representation of Black, East/Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern populations compared to the White population.
“We are committed to working with the community to understand these numbers and identify the causes of these imbalances. Our goal is to address systemic issues and improve fairness and equity in policing,” says Bergen.
Hamilton Police recently held the first meeting of its inaugural Community Advisory Panel (CAP) to work alongside police on the development of a Race and Identity-Based Data Strategy (RIBD).
The RIBD strategy is focused on understanding and addressing police impact on racial inequalities, including differences in outcomes like use of force among racial groups, internal policies, and training practices.
The 10 person CAP is made up of individuals passionate about data, social justice and community service. They represent a wide diversity of backgrounds, perspectives and positionalities with experience in human rights, procedural justice, as well as race and identity issues. Learn more about the wealth and breadth of the CAP members experience here.
Use of Force is an annual reporting requirement by the Ministry of the Solicitor General. When force is used, an officer is required to fill out a form based on the incident. Hamilton Police are also releasing row level UOF incident data after requests from the community for more information regarding the interactions.
Click here to view the full report.