Oversight

OVERSIGHT

Special Investigations Unit

The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) is the civilian oversight agency responsible for investigating circumstances involving police that have resulted in a death, serious injury, or allegations of sexual assault of a civilian in Ontario, Canada. In 2022, the SIU invoked their mandate 13 times in Durham, compared to 15 times in 2021. Three of the cases are pending, nine were closed with no further action, and one was terminated and had no report filed with the Attorney General.

Public Complaints

In 2022, the OIPRD received 156 public complaints with respect to the conduct of either DRPS officers or DRPS services, or policies. This represented a 15.3% increase from the 156 complaints received in 2022.

Of the 132 public complaints involving DRPS officers, conduct, services or policies, 75 were addressed by the OIPRD as follows

71 were screened out by the OIPRD and closed based on the criteria outlined in the Oversight Appendix.
Four were withdrawn before screening.

The remaining 57 public complaints were assigned to DRPS PSU for investigation. This is a 24% increase from the 75 that were assigned to PSU in 2021.

54 of those public complaints have been resolved as follows:

5 were resolved by way of Early Resolution,
19 were closed by way of Informal Resolution Agreement (after mediation with PSU investigators),
1 was terminated by OIPRD,
1 was terminated by PSU (unable to investigate),
12 were deemed unsubstantiated, and
16 were withdrawn by the complainants (after mediation with PSU investigators).

The remaining three public complaints are still under investigation.

Use of Force

As of Jan. 1, 2020, the Ontario government implemented a standardized system of “use of force” reporting by all police services. In 2022, 190 out of 177,818 police calls received by DRPS met the threshold for mandatory reporting. This amounts to approximately 0.1% of all calls (not including traffic stops and other undispatched-officer contact with the public). This reflects the professional, strategic and purposeful manner in which our officers engage the members of our community on a daily basis. It is also a testament to our rigorous officer training to use force as a last resort.

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