Brampton Council Takes Action To Stop Racist Graffiti

Published July 13, 2019 at 11:39 pm

The issue of offensive and racist graffiti has been proliferating in places like Brampton for some time, and now the city has decided to take action on the matter.

The issue of offensive and racist graffiti has been proliferating in places like Brampton for some time, and now the city has decided to take action on the matter.

Wards 7 & 8 Councillor Charmaine Williams took to social media to announce that Brampton City Council has unanimously passed a motion to ban racist graffiti on all city property effective immediately.

The motion directs the City of Brampton to do the following:

  • Provide consistent and accurate information when reporting hate motivated crimes like vandalism on city property to the public.

  • Develop a coordinated response protocol, which includes notification to council.

  • Removal of graffiti is to be undertaken within hours of receipt of a report.

  • All incidents of vandalism be reported to police with, when possible, photographic evidence provided.

  • That the city explore different ways of tracking and reporting incidents.

  • An annual report to be provided to council on hate motivated crimes.

Hate crimes have been on the rise in recent years. According to a report from the Peel Police Services Board, out of the 40,382 criminal code offences reported to the police in 2017, 158 of those were designated as hate motivated crimes.

By contrast, just 59 hate motivated offences were reported in 2016, meaning the number of hate crimes had doubled. More specifically, out of the 2017 reported incidents 106, or 67 per cent, of them were graffiti or mischief related offences.

Last year, another Brampton councillor, Gurpreet Dhillon, pointed out offensive graffiti targeting Sikhs was found in the city in reference to the 1984 Air India bombing.

City property can be considered anything administered and owned by the City of Brampton, such as community centres, libraries, parks, City Hall and other municipal government buildings. 

Do you think a more coordinated and assertive effort by the city will decrease the number of racist graffiti and hate motivated acts in Brampton?

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