Oversight

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 2025, the SIU invoked their mandate four (4) times in Durham, compared to fourteen (14) times in 2024. Three (3) were closed with no further action and one (1) is still pending.

The public complaints system is overseen by the Law Enforcement Complaints Agency (LECA), formerly known as the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) prior to April 1st, 2024. LECA received 247 public complaints with respect to the conduct of DRPS officers in 2025. This represented an 47.9% increase from the 167 complaints received in 2024. It should be noted that policy/service complaints now fall exclusively under the jurisdiction of the Inspectorate of Policing as of April 1st, 2024. Of the 247 public complaints involving DRPS officers, conduct, services or policies, 161 were addressed by LECA as follows:

• 156 were screened out by the LECA and closed based on the criteria outlined in the Oversight Appendix
• Two were assigned by the LECA to another Service for Investigation (OPP) where one was unsubstantiated, and one is still pending
• Two were assigned by the LECA to the DRPS to investigate external Services officers (Belleville Police & Kawartha Lakes Police) which were both unsubstantiated
• One case was retained by the LECA for investigation which is still pending

The remaining 86 public complaints were assigned to DRPS’ Professional Standards Unit (PSU) for investigation. This is a 38.70% increase from the 62 that were assigned to PSU in 2024.