Toronto Police Research Articles

“Racialized persons have a completely different experience”: the experiences of older adults with the Toronto Police Service

PurposeThis paper aims to provide an in-depth examination of culturally and linguistically diverse older adults’ perceptions of and experiences with the Toronto Police Service to inform the development of a training curriculum for police officers working with older persons.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative descriptive study using virtual focus groups with 26 older adults from Toronto was conducted.FindingsThree main themes emerged: understanding intersectionality; the impact of police officer attitudes and biases; and the need for age-friendly policing. Although many older adults rely on police services to keep them safe, there is dissatisfaction with some aspects of how police interact with older adults, particularly from minority groups.Originality/valueParticipants were older adults from culturally, ethnically and linguistically diverse backgrounds who are not usually included in studies on improving police services.

Spatial patterns of Mental Health Act apprehensions in Toronto, Canada, 2014-2022.

This research examines the temporal rates and spatial patterns of police-involved Mental Health Act (MHA) apprehensions in Toronto, Canada, from 2014 to 2022. Building from the work of Toronto Police Services (TPS), the goal of this research is to deepen our understanding of MHA apprehensions and provide insights which may be used to guide local mental health reform efforts. Using data collected by TPS, an exploratory, descriptive analysis of spatial patterns of MHA apprehension events between 2014 and 2022 at the neighbourhood level was conducted. To identify high-rate clusters, we used a discrete Poisson model in SaTScan, with a circular moving window. Primary and secondary clusters with a relative risk of 1.5 or greater are reported. From 2014 to 2022, 93,932 MHA apprehensions occurred in Toronto. Apprehension rates were found to vary substantially between neighbourhoods, with approximately 91% of Toronto's 140 neighbourhoods experiencing a net positive increase in rates during the study period after adjusting for population growth. Repeated spatial cluster analysis for each year revealed a range of 4 to 7 clusters annually, with the downtown core consistently emerging as an area of elevated risk (RR range 1.58-1.99). Rising MHA apprehensions within Toronto highlight the pressing need to confront the city's intensifying mental health needs. These findings offer valuable insights into the patterns and nature of police-involved MHA apprehensions, outline reproducible analysis methods that can be used by others, and support targeted evaluation, expansion, and implementation of downstream initiatives to improve mental health responses.

The Application of Expressive Writing as an Intervention for Test Anxiety Illustrated with the Toronto Police Exams

The Application of Expressive Writing as an Intervention for Test Anxiety Illustrated with the Toronto Police Exams

The Pioneer of Investigative Genetic Genealogy in CanadaAn Interview with Steve Smith, Head of Cold Case Unit, Toronto Police Service

The Pioneer of Investigative Genetic Genealogy in CanadaAn Interview with Steve Smith, Head of Cold Case Unit, Toronto Police Service

Forensic Hypoglycaemia & Neuroglycopenia — A Clinical Legal Social Endocrinology Challenge for 2024, Forensic Law in Hypoglycaemia 4

Forensic Hypoglycaemia & Neuroglycopenia — A Clinical Legal Social Endocrinology Challenge for 2024, Forensic Law in Hypoglycaemia 4

Barred and Banished: Encampment Evictions, Public Space, and Permanent Displaceability in Toronto

AbstractDespite Toronto's motto of diversity and inclusion, the municipality has recently mobilised exclusionary spatio‐legal tools against unhoused populations using claims to law and order. This article examines one such case of legal action, its precedents, and its constitutive effects on urban citizenship and governance. In 2021, amidst a homelessness crisis aggravated by COVID‐19, Toronto police executed violent raids against encampment residents in three public parks. In response to the public relations backlash, the municipality changed course, issuing suspension notices to encampment leaders that barred them from public spaces and services. The suspension notice, while unenforceable, allows municipal administrators to exclude those whose conduct allegedly disturbs the quiet enjoyment of property from public space. Building on critical planning and socio‐legal debates on propertied urban citizenship, we use legal research and semi‐structured interviews to identify how these arbitrary yet legal tools exacerbate permanent displaceability, banishment, and colonial modes of governance.

Comparison of the number of pedestrian and cyclist injuries captured in police data compared with health service utilisation data in Toronto, Canada 2016–2021

IntroductionPedestrian and cyclist injuries represent a preventable burden to Canadians. Police-reported collision data include information on where such collisions occur but under-report the number of collisions. The primary objective of...

Comments on the Toronto Police Services Board Proposed Policy on AI Technologies

Comments on the Toronto Police Services Board Proposed Policy on AI Technologies

Did the cannabis recreational use law affect traffic crash outcomes in Toronto? Building evidence for the adequate number of authorised cannabis stores' thresholds.

In the past decade, a group of studies has begun to explore the association between cannabis recreational use policies and traffic crashes. After these policies are set in place, several factors may affect cannabis consumption, including the number of cannabis stores (NCS) per capita. This study examines the association between the enactment of Canada's Cannabis Act (CCA) (18 October 2018) and the NCS (allowed to function from 1 April 2019) with traffic injuries in Toronto. We explored the association of the CCA and the NCS with traffic crashes. We applied two methods: hybrid difference-in-difference (DID) and hybrid-fuzzy DID. We used generalised linear models using CCA and the NCS per capita as the main variables of interest. We adjusted for precipitation, temperature and snow. Information is gathered from Toronto Police Service, Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, and Environment Canada. The period of analysis was from 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2019. Regardless of the outcome, neither the CCA nor the NCS is associated with concomitant changes in the outcomes. In hybrid DID models, the CCA is associated with non-significant decreases of 9% (incidence rate ratio 0.91, 95% confidence interval 0.74,1.11) in traffic crashes and in the hybrid-fuzzy DID models, the NCS are associated with nonsignificant decreases of 3% (95% confidence interval - 9%, 4%) in the same outcome. This study observes that more research is needed to better understand the short-term effects (April to December 2019) of NCS in Toronto on road safety outcomes.

Response to Toronto Police Service's consultation on the draft governance for the acquisition and use of AI technology

Response to Toronto Police Service's consultation on the draft governance for the acquisition and use of AI technology

Detained on Sight: The Socioeconomic Aspect of Social Context in R v Le

Reasonable-person psychological detention is an area of criminal law that has been subject to a number of jurisprudential innovations in the 21st century. This work responds to a current gap in the literature regarding the importance of socioeconomic factors to the crystallization of detention in accordance with s. 9 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The thesis of this paper is that socioeconomic factors are foundational to understanding the social context in which police interactions sometimes crystallize into detention. The socioeconomic aspect of social context reveals the way police interact with individuals in a certain space. Racial aspects of social context are postulated to be tied to socioeconomic aspects insofar as the racialization of individuals tends to occur in certain spaces – namely, high-crime, low-income neighbourhoods. The methodology of this work includes an analysis of trends in detention case law beginning with the 2009 decision of R v Grant and ending with the 2020 decisions of R v Thompson and R c Dorfeuille. Secondly, this work investigates the Honourable Michael H. Tulloch’s Report of the Independent Street Checks Review. Thirdly, this work investigates a series of studies conducted by Yunliang Meng, a geography scholar who analyzed the Toronto Police Service’s racialization of individuals as a function of space. In conclusion, this paper recommends modifications to police practices that require officers to make explicit statements at the outset of interactions with individuals which determine whether or not the individual is detained.

“Missing and Missed”: Failures of the Bruce McArthur Investigation and the Ongoing Victimization of Toronto’s Rainbow Streets

This article analyzes “Missing and Missed: Report of The Independent Civilian Review into Missing Person Investigations,” a review of Toronto Police’s conduct during “missing persons” investigations. Analyzing the Bruce McArthur investigation and police’s failed efforts to solve some of his victims’ “missing persons” cases, questions if overt bias or intentional discrimination influenced police procedure are answered. Critical of blanket statements that pardon police wrongdoing, this article explores the report’s recommendations and concludes with a suggestion of a crime prevention model to be considered by Toronto Police who are expected to release a plan of implementation in or before April 2022.

Mental health crisis and spatial accessibility to mental health services in the city of Toronto: A geographic study

Abstract: Mental illness includes a wide range of disorders that affect mood, thinking, behaviour and overall wellbeing. One in five Canadians has mental health care needs, many of which are unmet. Within the City of Toronto, the provision of specialized mental health care is delivered by over 100 public and private community service organisations and over 700 physicians with a psychiatric specialization - each providing community-based general or specialised care to residents in need. Research has shown that travel distance is an enabling factor of health service utilisation, thus equitable spatial access to services remains a key priority. Using spatial quantitative methods, this study examines potential spatial accessibility to both general and specialized mental health services within the City of Toronto, and levels of statistical association between access to care and prevalence of mental health crisis events. The main datasets analyzed including geo-referenced Census data and occurrence data on mental health crisis (represented by apprehensions under the Mental Health Act undertaken by the Toronto Police Service). The enhanced two-step floating catchment area (E2SFCA) method is used to model spatial accessibility to mental health services based four modes of transportation: driving, walking, cycling and public transit. Areas that are underserved by mental health specialists and mental health community services are identified and shown to have different socioeconomic characteristics. The study reveals spatially explicit patterns of access to various mental health services in Toronto, providing detailed data to inform the planning of and policy on mental health care delivery concerning severe mental health crisis.

Building trust in modern day policing: A neighbourhood community officer evaluation

Over the past several years the Toronto Police Service has engaged in forming partnerships with communities that have been plagued with high crime rates and have traditionally not trusted the police through the implementation of The Neighbourhood Community Officer Program. The program places Neighbourhood Community Officers in the community for three to five years with a strict mandate to build trust through professionalism, cooperation, and partnerships with community members. Prior research on the program displayed that it was achieving most of its mandate. To determine whether it was still enjoying success, a thematic analysis was conducted on interviews with social agencies that worked with Neighbourhood Community Officers and social agencies that did not.

Comments on the Toronto Police Services Board Proposed Policy on AI Technologies - Montréal Society and Artificial Intelligence Collective (MoSAIC)

Comments on the Toronto Police Services Board Proposed Policy on AI Technologies - Montréal Society and Artificial Intelligence Collective (MoSAIC)

Submission to the Toronto Police Services Board’s Use of New Artificial Intelligence Technologies Policy - LEAF and The Citizen Lab

Submission to the Toronto Police Services Board’s Use of New Artificial Intelligence Technologies Policy - LEAF and The Citizen Lab

I Have A Remember When

This article begins with a reflection on a queer reading at Knife Fork Book in Toronto where an inter-generational moment, for me, went blank. It then recounts a few personal notes concerning the history of the gay bars of the 1970s. I also reflect on what the winning of gay rights has led us to, as observed by an older gay once designated an outlaw. Where is the locale of memory when architectural erasure has demolished the sites of our history and struggle? Can a recounting of gay historical events of the 1970s and early 1980s provide a sense of both the oppression and the vice arrests by the Metropolitan Toronto police force? These events ignited and gathered a gay rebellion to form a community with rights and a standing in law.

A Program of Their Own: The Design and Evolution of an Undergraduate Degree Program for Police Officers in Ontario

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Toronto Police Service was exploring how to increase access to higher education to its officers. The service saw higher education as salient to its organizational imperatives of professionalization, increased public legitimacy and credibility, and enhanced academic recognition of police professional learning. To realize this mission, the Toronto Police Service entered into a higher education partnership with the University of Guelph and Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning under its then-new joint venture, the University of Guelph-Humber. The University of Guelph-Humber designed an accredited higher education pathway for Toronto Police personnel that also gave academic credit for past professional learning and increased educational access by offering blended course delivery. Based on semi-structured interviews with key educational administrators at the University of Guelph-Humber, Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, and the Toronto Police Service, this article narrates the origins of this higher education pathway—a Bachelor of Applied Arts in Justice Studies. In addition, it describes how this pathway evolved to include non-uniform Toronto police personnel, other police services, and expanded further to include learners from the larger justice and public safety fields. The exploration is situated in a larger discussion about the relationship between higher education, professionalization and legitimacy, and the potential of partnerships between higher educational institutions and professions in Canada.

Voice and Listening in Social Media Facilitated Activist Collectives

This paper examines the articulation of Canadian civic culture from below. Focusing on digitally mediated grassroots mobilizations, it asks how citizens construct and discursively deploy voice and listening as civic values. The paper draws from three empirical cases: the 2014 mobilization of parents during the teachers’ strike in British Columbia; the 2015 citizen mobilizations in support of Syrian refugees; and the 2016 sit‐in protest outside the Toronto Police headquarters. Citizens participating in these initiatives were keen to “speak up,” establishing voice as a civic value. Yet, this is not accompanied by equal attention to the role of listening. This invites simplistic takes to citizen participation, leaving it vulnerable to populist hijackings.

Body-worn cameras' effects on police officers and citizen behavior: A systematic review.

Body-worn cameras' effects on police officers and citizen behavior: A systematic review.