In this issue:
1. Police Operating Budget 2023
2. The cost of cameras
3. Use of Force policy redraft
Toronto Police Accountability Bulletin No. 142, January 25, 2023
This Bulletin is published by the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition (TPAC), a group of individuals and organizations in Toronto interested in police policies and procedures, and in making police more accountable to the community they are committed to serving. Our website is http://www.tpac.ca .
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In this issue:
1. Police Operating Budget 2023
2. The cost of cameras
3. Use of Force policy redraft
4. Subscribe to the Bulletin
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1. Police Operating Budget 2023
It hardly seems useful in doing a reasoned assessment of the police budget for 2023. Bill 3, The Strong Mayors Act, has given the mayor the control of the city budget, including of the police budget. Mayor John Tory has come out strongly in favour of expanding the police force, and that’s what this budget does. The mayor’s decision on the budget, according to Bill 3, can only be upset by two thirds of the members of Toronto City Council voting to do so. Given that the Police Association will demonize any councillor who speaks against the increase (as it has done in the past), that’s very unlikely. The police budget increase is a fait accompli.
It proposes by a budget increase of 4.3 per cent – some $50 million – which includes expanding the police force by 310 people: 200 officers and 90 special constables by the end of 2023 and a further 20 for the 911 facility. Some 162 officers will be available for primary response (the chief says this will improve response times for Priority 1 calls), with 25 of this number assigned to the downtown for `community support’. A further 22 officers will be assigned to Major Case Management, one function of which is to deal with missing people as recommended in the report by Judge Epstein. The other 16 officers will be assigned to the Neighbourhood Community Offers program in neighbourhoods.
The overriding argument made by the chief is that the number of officers per capita in Toronto is less than other cities. But as many had noted, the number of officers per capita has little to do with community safety or with crime rates. Many cities in Canada with more officers per capita have much higher rates of serious crime than does Toronto. The mayor has made the argument that more police are needed to deal with issues of `community safety’ but surely community safety issues have a lot more to do with homelessness and income inequality than they do with policing.
One would have expected the police overtime budget – called premium pay - would decrease with all those new officers and special constables, but your expectation will be disappointed. Premium pay is budgeted to increase from $46 million last year to $58 million this year, almost a 25 per cent increase.
And the Police Service Board itself wasn’t shy in asking for an extra $200,000, a 10 per cent increase in its budget over last year. It wants to hire three new staff: two `Governance Quality Assurance Analysts’ – basically people who will analyze police data - and an Indigenous Engagement Advisor.
The Board says it needs this new staff to adequately `perform its governance and oversight functions.’ It lists as two of its accomplishments in 2022 conducting the `most extensive chief of police selection processing the city’s history’ – a search that hired someone who was well known to the Board, having worked for the Toronto police for more than 30 years – and the `consultative process on the Use of Force policy‘ – see item 3 below for more on that. The question that should be asked is: what purpose does the Police Service Board serve apart from being a rubber stamp for the Toronto police service? It ignores comments for change made by members of the public. It ignores studies it does about what the public thinks of the police service. (The public doesn’t trust the police.) It refuses to lead debate about how Toronto police might be improved. It doesn’t serve any purpose which justifies spending more than $2 million a year.
2. The cost of cameras
$100 million. That’s the cost of body worn cameras, in-car cameras and conducted energy weapons over five years. $20 million a year for five years.
Does the expenditure reduce crime? No. Does it make the public safer? No. Is it a good way to spend public money? No.
As the staff report before the Board on December 16 made clear, body worn cameras and in-car cameras are mostly to monitor police activities so that officers do not misrepresent their interactions with members of the public – false arrests, assaults, and so forth. It is an extraordinary expense to try to keep some officers honest.
Conducted energy weapons are said to help with de-escalation, so officers can be less violent with members of the public, although this approach is still weapon focused and has resulted in very severe and lethal impacts.
The report states that existing contracts, with a cost of $179 million, are being consolidated so that the cost is $100 million, a saving of $79 million. The consolidation is obviously a good thing but the problem is that the Board has assumed that spending this kind of public money was useful in the first place. The report says money will be saved because of automatic indexing and transcription but no figures are given and the mention of savings seems like a throw-away line to justify expenditures.
Imagine what $20 million a year could do to take people out of tents and shelters and put them in supportive and accessible housing where they will not suffer from the many health problems which affect anyone forced to live on the streets, problems which can lead to violence, criminalization, isolation and marginalization.
TPAC asked the Board to reduce the police service budget for 2023 by $20 million a year for this specific matter, and to request City Council to dedicate those savings to providing permanent housing to the homeless. The Board ignored that suggestion and approved the $100 million.
3. Use of Force policy redraft
In August 2020, the Board asked staff to prepare a redrafted Use of Force policy for the November Board meeting. But it was not until February 2022 – 18 months later – a draft was circulated for comment. Only two comments were received, one from TPAC. Now, two and a half years after the Board’s request, another draft is being circulated for comment by February 24.
This second draft still needs some work. We think the introduction to the policy needs to begin with an acknowledgement that police use of force - often aggressive, sometimes extreme – is firmly embedded in police culture. Police authorities assume that the use of force is a basic part of their job and it is often used on those who are arrested. Some three or four dozen individuals are killed in police interactions every year in Canada, so the issue of police use of violence is significant. While officers often explain they were simply responding to a difficult person, many (including many judges) see this simply as a poor excuse for their actions. This aspect of police culture must be challenged and changed so that police may better serve the community, and it needs to be acknowledged in the introduction to the policy.
Most police requests for service do not involve violence or threats of violence. Toronto police data indicates that only about 3 per cent of police calls for service can be described in this way. For that three per cent of calls, it may be necessary to send out the emergency task force where officers are specially trained in how to use – and not use – violence. For the vast majority of calls there is no need for an office to be armed with a gun, a conducted energy weapon, body armour and a baton. The recent deaths of officers are tragic, but they are very rare, and the fact the officer killed was armed seems to have made no difference. This array of weaponry helps reinforce in the officer’s mind the idea that violence is part of the job. Stripping rank and file officers of this weaponry and armour is necessary. We believe the introduction should include an intention of police management to begin a process to reduce the armament available to rank and file officers responding to such calls.
The first purpose of the policy is to `Eliminate the use of excessive force.’ That’s a good objective. But an additional policy should be included to minimize the use of force, just ordinary everyday force.
Section 37 of the new policy defines `use of force’ that must be reported as including a weapon or an injury requiring medical treatment. It should be amended to state that use of force is any force beyond `physical contact’ (which is defined in Section 46(b) of the new policy.) But any use of force, not just the serious stuff, but anything beyond `physical contact’ should be required to be reported. This was a recommendation made by Stephen Lewis almost thirty years ago, a recommendation that has been reinforced by many commentators in recent years. A later section asks the chief to report on how such uses of force might be reported on, but given the length of time it has taken for this redraft to emerge, it makes no sense to wait for another two or three or more years – maybe the request for the chief to report will simply be forgotten about? – but should be done right now.
The new draft includes a statement that officers have a Duty to Intervene when another officer is using excessive force. This sounds like a good change. But given what is known about police culture, one wonders how often officers will decide that fellow officers are using excessive force, and that they should intervene. We suspect it will be a rare event.
The police draft Use of Force policy may be found at https://www.tpsb.ca/index.php?Itemid=710 . Instructions are given there as to how to file a response, which we encourage.
4. Subscribe to the Bulletin
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