Category: Projects

Local safety portrait presented to the Montreal North borough

At the end of 2020, the ICPC, in collaboration with sociologists Mariam Hassaoui (TELUQ) and Victor Armony (UQAM), started developing a local safety portrait of violence committed and suffered by youth in the borough of Montreal North. This portrait should better identify the needs of youth between 12 and 25 years of age in Montreal North and, in 2021, support a call for collaborative projects acting on contributing factors of violence in youth such as:

  • Violence in intimate and sexual relationships;
  • Physical, verbal, and psychological violence;
  • Sense of belonging and trust in authority figures.

These elements have been analysed in four contexts: private, academic, external public, and internal public, and take the gender of the presumed perpetrators and of the victims into account.

The local safety portrait was presented in several instances throughout the month of June:

  1. To the borough’s executive committee;
  2. To the borough’s local government;
  3. To the procedure’s steering committee.

By taking stock of violence committed and suffered by youth, this portrait will lay the foundation for concerted action.

The ICPC takes part in the Support Program for Municipalities

This spring, the ICPC finished its first year of three as part of the Support Program for Municipalities (SPM) 2019-2022, by the Quebec Ministry of Public Security. This program helps provide funding to municipal organisations, including indigenous organisations, in municipalities of fewer than 100 000 people, to allow them to create and implement preventive actions adapted to crime and safety issues that concern them. 

By financing action plans and prevention measures, the SPM can counteract the emergence of new problems or the worsening of old ones, as much among youth as among adults, around issues such as: 

  • Crime and victimization; 
  • Lawlessness and incivility;
  • The perception and the feeling of safety;
  • Assessment of services available to the population. 

In keeping with Quebec Ministry of Public Security’s mandate as part of the SPM in crime prevention, the ICPC has been mandated to accompany ten municipalities in putting together a structured procedure for crime prevention intervention planning, phase 1 of the SPM.  

The ten municipalities in question are: 

  • L’Épiphanie 
  • Notre-Dame-des-Prairies 
  • Joliette 
  • Notre-Dame-de-Ham 
  • Sainte-Brigitte-de-Laval 
  • Sainte-Julie 
  • Saint-Prime 
  • Avignon RCM 
  • Pakua Shipi 
  • Wemotaci Atikamekw Council

The ICPC organizes a focus group of local Saint-Laurent stakeholders

The ICPC met with various community and institutional key actors working in the Saint-Laurent neighbourhood as part of the process leading up to a local safety audit.

This focus group’s goal was to better contextualize local realities, to identify the more at-risk parties, and to shed light on emerging problems that might not have been brought up in literature reviews or statistics. Speaking with local actors provides us with a more accurate view of local crime issues.

The local safety audit will be finished in June 2021.

Upcoming Events – May

The DataJam Against Exploitation, an online event being held May 7-17, 2021, aims to increase public awareness of human trafficking, enhance the technical and physical capacity of participants, and strengthen collaboration across interdisciplinary sectors to prevent this crime in Canada.

This competition, funded by the Government of Canada, is offered in partnership with the ICPC, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Fundación Pasos Libres, and IBM. With the objective of developing innovative technological solutions, participating teams will have access to expert presentations, workshops, and mentoring to learn about the issue.

To this end, there will be sessions open to all, which you can attend without having to take part in the competition. As the event is taking place across Canada, please note that the official languages of communication for these sessions are French and English.

Here is the agenda of the sessions open to the public:

Saturday, May 8, 2021, 10:30-11:15 a.m. (EST) – Session in French and English

OPENING REMARKS AND WELCOMING MESSAGES

Speakers:

  • Mark Schindel, Director of Public Safety, Public Safety Canada
  • Panagiotis Papadimitriou, Team Leader, Technical Cooperation, UNODC
  • Ann Champoux, Director General, ICPC
  • Claude Guay, President and General Manager, IBM Canada
  • Sebastián Arévalo Sánchez, Co-founder, Fundación Pasos Libres

To register

 

Saturday, May 8, 2021, 11:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. (EST) – Session in English

DATAJAM PREVISOUS EXPERIENCES

The objective of this session is to provide participants with specific examples of the dynamics and outcomes of previous DataJam competitions.

Speakers:

  • Keltoum Laghjibi, Global Public Health and Informatics Student, University of Virginia
  • Laura Rodriguez Rodriguez, Student in Computer and Systems Engineering, University of the Andes, and co-founder of Aleph Mind.

To register

 

Saturday, May 8, 2021, 12:00-1:00 p.m. (EST) – Session in English

CONFERENCE: ALBERTA’S RESPONSE TO HUMAN TRAFFICKING

The objective of this session is for participants to understand the importance of partnerships to provide high quality services to victims of human trafficking.

  • Speaker:
  • Jane Fox, Director General, REACH

To register

 

Saturday, May 8, 2021, 12:00-1:00 p.m. (EST) – Session in French

CONFERENCE: VICTIMS OF SEX TRAFFICKING IN THE AMERICAS

This session aims to provide participants with a better understanding of how the issue of human trafficking has been addressed by seven countries in the Americas, including Canada.

Speaker:

  • Fernando A. Chinchilla, Ph.D., Senior Analyst, ICPC

To register

 

Saturday, May 8, 2021, 2:00-3:00 p.m. (EST) – Session in English

CONFERENCE: HUMAN TRAFFICKING RESEARCH IN CANADA

The objective of this session is to increase participants’ awareness of the challenges of data collection on human trafficking.

Speaker:

  • Kathy AuCoin, Chief, Analysis Program, Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety Statistics, Statistics Canada

To register

 

Saturday, May 8, 2021, 2:00-3:00 p.m. (EST) – Session in French

CONFERENCE: HOW TO DEVELOP TOOLS THAT HELP PREVENT TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS: WHAT TO DO AND WHAT NOT TO DO?

The goal of this session is to help participants understand and appreciate the importance of measuring the effects and implications (intended and unintended) of their anti-trafficking solutions.

Speaker:

  • Josée Mensales, Co-founder and coordinator of the Survivors Program, Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM)

To register

 

Saturday, May 8, 2021, 3:00-4:30 p.m. (EST) – Session in French and English

PANEL – TRAFFICKING AND VULNERABLE COMMUNITIES: HUMAN AND TECHNOLOGICAL CHALLENGES

This panel invites participants to better understand why certain communities are more vulnerable to human trafficking and what are the technological and human challenges to curb the phenomenon. Two survivors will also contribute to the discussion.

Speakers:

  • Nathalie Khlat, Co-founder and Director of Projects, Le Phare des AffranchiEs
  • Diane Redsky, Executive Director, Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata

To register

 

Saturday, May 9, 2021, 1:00-2:00 p.m. (EST) – Session in English

CASE STUDY: HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND DATA ANALYSIS

At the end of this session, participants will know how the first ever global data hub to facilitate the sharing of information about human trafficking across industries works.

Speaker:

  • Neil Giles, Director, Traffik Analysis Hub

To register

 

Saturday, May 9, 2021, 1:00-2:00 p.m. (EST) – Session in English

CASE STUDY: PROJECT SHADOW

At the end of this session, participants will have an overview of Project Shadow and some of the most advanced analytic capabilities to combat human trafficking.

Speakers:

  • Joseph Mari, Director, Financial Intelligence Unit and External Partners, Scotiabank
  • Vishal Gossain, Vice President, AML/ATF Analytics

To register

The ICPC launches a competition to combat human trafficking in Canada

The ICPC is pleased to have launched the DataJam Against Exploitation, a technological competition to combat human trafficking in Canada, in partnership with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Fundación Pasos Libres and IBM Corporate Social Responsibility. This competition, funded by the Government of Canada, seeks to increase public awareness of human trafficking, improve participants’ technical and substantive capabilities, and enhance collaboration among interdisciplinary sectors in Canada.

The competition will be held online from May 7th to May 17th, 2021, and includes a three-day training and mentoring program on human trafficking and IBM technologies facilitated by partner organizations and relevant stakeholders engaged in combatting human trafficking.

This DataJam will focus on designing tech-based solutions that will contribute to developing tech-based solutions to specific challenges in combatting human trafficking in Canada. Participants will be required to select one of the following challenges:

  1. Solutions that provide new insights into human trafficking of Indigenous, Northern and remote communities, LGBTQI+ people, or vulnerable youth, to raise awareness, detect, and prosecute crime against these communities.
  2. Solutions to identify, prevent and prosecute youth and child exploitation online, most notably in social media and online gaming platforms.
  3. Solutions exploring the relationship between human trafficking and socioeconomic factors, migration, COVID-19, natural disasters, or major events to identify trafficking patterns, networks and hotspots.

For more information and to register: https://www.ibm.org/data-jam

*Please note that the deadline to register is April 26, 2021. Registration deadline has been extended to May 3, 2021.

Press Release: The ICPC commits to combating human trafficking in Canada

A FIRST NATION-WIDE TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION COMPETITION TO COMBAT HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN CANADA IS LAUNCHED

The ICPC, in partnership with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Fundación Pasos Libres and IBM, are proud to announce the launch of “DataJam Against Exploitation”, the country’s first of its kind online innovation competition aimed at developing technological solutions to identify and combat human trafficking in Canada, particularly among youth as well as Indigenous and LGBTQI+ communities. This competition is funded by the Government of Canada.

Read the press release: Press release (April 2021)

 

Report on hate crimes based on gender identity and sexual orientation announcement

Hate crimes based on gender identity and sexual orientation are on the rise. Attacks such as the one in Orlando on June 12, 2016, against the LGBTQ community, which resulted in the death of 49 people (US), and the one in Toronto on April 23, 2018, against women are both examples of this phenomenon. Hate crimes based on gender identity and sexual orientation do not solely impact the individual victim; their consequences are profound for the entire targeted group or community. Furthermore, hate crimes based on gender identity and sexual orientation represent a direct affront to the democratic principles of tolerance and respect for the identity and opinions of others. As such, this study aims to understand this phenomenon, its manifestations and roots. It also identifies promising practices and strategies used by states and cities to prevent hate crimes. The Study is due to be published in the spring of 2019.

EN_FINAL_Executive_Summary

 

Creation of an international framework for the evaluation of crime observatories

Crime phenomena must be observed and analyzed in detail in order to implement adequate public policies. For security policies and, more specifically, crime prevention strategies to be effective, it is essential that they be based on a variety of data that are fair, of high quality, rich, and up-to-date.

To this end, crime observatories are tools that can be used to observe and analyze crime phenomena in order to inform decision-making when it comes to intervention and prevention. Yet, currently, there is no existing standard allowing to measure the quality of the observatories. Because of this gap, it is difficult to assess whether observatories can produce reliable data and analysis and constitute a relevant resource for public safety and prevention policies.

The purpose of developing an international framework for the evaluation of crime observatories is to create a framework validated by major international organizations and NGOs working in the field of crime phenomena observation and analysis, accepted by the professional community and providing a set of rules and principles essential for the constitution and functioning of observatories. This repository will be both a tool facilitating the creation of observatories, but also a matrix to evaluate the quality, relevance, and reliability of the data and the results produced by a given observatory.

The repository will classify observatories at one of three stages corresponding to their level of development: initial, intermediate or advanced.

This graduated approach has the advantage of giving room for development so the observatories can be enhanced. In other words, the repository will make it possible to evaluate observatories according to their level of development and to provide the necessary recommendations so that they can reach the next level of development, thereby improving the quality of data and analysis.

The project is conducted jointly by the ICPC (Canada), the National Institute of Higher Studies of Security and Justice (INHESJ-ONDRP, France), and the Organization of American States (OAS, USA). These are organizations that have extensive experience and recognized expertise in crime observation.

Local safety audit in the borough Ahuntsic-Cartierville

In June, the ICPC was mandated to carry out a local safety audit in the borough of Ahunstic-Cartierville. The aim of this audit is to provide a global understanding of crime-related issues in order to better understand the risk factors leading to delinquency and insecurity, and to identify existing protective factors to get a better picture of the phenomenon of crime within the community. The audit will help come up with a clear picture of the scale and nature of crime in the borough, stimulate participation from local actors, and draw up recommendations and promising avenues for intervention to pave the way for coordinated action.

Exploratory walks organized in the Milton Park neighbourhood

In May, the ICPC was mandated by the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough to conduct exploratory walks in the Milton Park neighbourhood. This process consisting of collecting data in the field was requested as part of the opening of the Open Doors organization in the neighborhood. These walks will provide accurate information on specific characteristics of both the physical and built environments of the neighbourhood, its social attendance and space occupancy, as well as its observable incivilities. With this information, recommendations will be made allowing the outline of good practices in terms of urban planning, promoting social diversity, and coexistence.