Recommendation 3
Chiefs should review and update their public order maintenance procedures to ensure compliance
Chiefs should review their respective public order maintenance procedures through the lens of the CSPA to ensure consistency and accuracy with their service delivery practices for maintaining the public peace.
Chiefs should implement a process to continually review their procedures to ensure they maintain focus on the evolving community needs and continued compliance with the CSPA and its regulations, as well as board policy.
|
ii) Debriefing Process
Continuous improvement in police service delivery comes with honest evaluation of what worked well, and what could be improved. When it comes to policing operations, debriefing practices allow for a deconstruction that can highlight strong practices and areas for improvement. Ensuring a debriefing process is captured in the procedural steps following all major incidents in which a POU is deployed is vital. However, our inspection found the Chief’s procedures of five police services did not include a debriefing process.
While the incorporation of a debriefing process following all major incidents within the Chief’s procedures and public order manual was discretionary under the PSA, the requirement for debriefing a public order incident is now mandatory and regulated in Ontario Regulation 392/23 of the CSPA under subsection 8(3). A robust debriefing is required following the deployment of a POU that must include the preparation of a summary of information regarding the incident, analysis of the outcome of the incident including what worked well and recommendations for improvements and matters to be addressed through changes to procedures or training.
The five police services that did not have a debriefing process outlined in their Chief’s procedure were services that did not have their own POU and relied on agreements with another police service or the OPP Commissioner to provide POU services. Regardless of whether the police service has their own POU, the legal requirement for a debriefing process to be part of the service’s procedure does not depend on which service is responsible for the deployment of the POU. Although one service may rely on another for the POU itself, the local service of jurisdiction must still assess its own decision-making to access that POU and then evaluate the delivery of public order maintenance locally. The IoP did find that all 11 police services that maintain their own POU had a debriefing process included in their Chiefs procedure. Interviews with members of police services confirmed that a debriefing was conducted at the conclusion of each POU deployment. Debriefs are also shared at OPOAC meetings where the group shares any tactics observed or used that assisted in resolving the incident. Debriefs are discussed at every quarterly meeting.