Moving Toward Evidence-Based Policing: Practitioner/Academic Perspectives, Episode 1 - Combatting Hate Crime and Extremism

Dr. Sara K. Thompson is a Professor in the Department of Criminology, Ryerson University, and Associate Director of the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society (TSAS). Her recent and ongoing research focuses on urban violence, push, pull and protective factors associated with radicalization to violence/violent extremism, and the implementation and evaluation of violence prevention programs and policy. Since 2012, she has been involved as principal investigator of several major research projects funded by Public Safety Canada, the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence, and Defence Research & Development Canada, and involving partner agencies that include the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Ontario Provincial Police, and the Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, and Peel Regional Police Services. Thompson currently serves as a Research Advisory Committee member for the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP), and is a member of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police (OACP) Equity, Diversity and Inclusion committee. She has presented on her research at a range of domestic and international academic and practitioner conference and has briefed high level government and police officials on issues related to urban violence, terrorism/violent extremism, and program evaluation.

Detective-Sergeant Feras Ismail is a 20-year member of the Peel Regional Police and has worked in various areas including Uniform Patrol, the Street Crime and Gang Units, the Intelligence Security Section, and is currently working in the Equity & Inclusion Bureau (EIB). D/S Ismail is a nationally recognized counter-terrorism and hate crimes expert and has served in an interview and consultative capacity on a wide-array of terrorism and extremism-related investigations at the municipal, provincial and federal levels. Detective-Sergeant Ismail’s operational experience, coupled with his community engagement and crime prevention work, have enabled him to play a pivotal role in the development of various organizational policies and training programs designed to build internal capacity to prevent and respond to hate motivated crime and violent extremism. D/S Ismail has presented on these and related issues at a range of domestic and international practitioner and academic symposia and has briefed high level government and police officials on hate motivated crime and counter-terrorism/countering violent extremism training, policy and practice. Detective-Sergeant Ismail is currently the co-Chair of a practitioner-academic research working group working to develop a suite of non-enforcement competencies and performance metrics that could be used to capture and assess community-engagement and crime prevention police work. His current duties involve the collection, collation and analyses of data on hate-motivated incidents and crime, and as the D/S in charge of EIB he regularly drafts reports on these data and delivers related presentations for both police and non-police audiences. D/S Ismail holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from McMaster University, a Master’s Degree in Leadership from the University of Guelph, and is the recipient of the 2020 IACP Leadership in Human and Civil Rights Award (individual category).