Feras Ismail
Community Safety and Wellbeing Services, Peel Regional Police
2023
Inspector Feras Ismail is a 22-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, the Training Bureau, and is now working in Community Safety and Wellbeing Services.
Inspector 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 with Peel Regional Police and the RCMP – Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET).
Inspector 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. Inspector 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.
Inspector Ismail holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from McMaster University and a Master’s Degree in Leadership from the University of Guelph. He is the current co-chair of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police (OACP) Equity, Diversity and Inclusion committee, a member of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) – Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Subcommittee and a member of the National Hate Crimes Task Force. He is also the recipient of the 2020 International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Leadership in Human and Civil Rights Award.
My network of professionals working on countering hate in all its forms grew exponentially after attending Eradicate Hate in 2021. The myriad voices represented at Eradicate Hate, from big tech companies to academic researchers to those with lived experience, reinforced to me the importance of cross-cutting and collaborative approaches to counter hate and its devastating impacts on society. I’ve been fortunate to sustain and build those networks with many of those I met at Eradicate Hate in 2021.