Police aiming for ‘long-lasting change’
Controversial TAVIS unit cut, number of police officers to fall
A police task force released its long-awaited final report Thursday, describing it as an “action plan” to bring about “comprehensive and long-lasting change,” while reducing costs and rebuilding dwindling public trust in the Toronto Police Service and its 8,000 members.
Unveiled at a packed police board meeting at police headquarters, the report outlined new goals and provided updates on a series of interim recommendations released last summer by the so-called Transformational Task Force, comprised of police and civilians and co-chaired by Toronto police chief Mark Saunders and board chair Andy Pringle.
Action already taken by Toronto police and its board includes the complete shuttering, as of this month, of the controversial Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS) unit, a significant victory for communities who felt targeted and harassed by the tactics of TAVIS officers.
Much of the focus of Thursday’s finalized report was purportedly on “culture change” within the force, and it called for a more “comprehensive people-management and (human resources) strategy for the service,” although the task force has not yet spelled out what that would entail.
The task force highlighted that problems can arise from a rigid, top-down, or militaristic culture often endemic to policing.
“In modern organizational thinking, these characteristics are often viewed as cultural barriers to flexibility, empowerment and innovation,” reads the report.
Toronto police culture should instead have “less focus on hierarchy and seniority and more on identifying, developing and rewarding people based on performance and merit.”
The task force recommends that police perform a culture assessment within the next six months and develop what they call a “change-management strategy.”
The final report still leaves a lot of unanswered questions on exactly how and when the recommendations will be implemented. The report was presented to the board Thursday, but deferred for full discussion until the February meeting.
“Over the next six months, the Service will be developing more detailed implementation plans and will be reporting quarterly on those,” the executive summary states.
Released in June, the task force’s interim report recommended a three-year freeze on hiring and promotions, the realignment of divisional boundaries and the amalgamation of some stations.
The report claimed to have found $100 million in reductions and savings to the service’s ballooning $1-billion operating budget, primarily by shrinking the size of the force. The number of uniformed officers would be reduced to 4,750 from 5,200 in three years. Civilian employees would be reduced to 1,850 from 2,220.
Emphasis has been placed on taking a “step-back in time” in encouraging a return to an older policing tradition that sees police officers out of their cars and walking the streets.
The task force believes this can be achieved by equipping officers with more mobile technology and through a focus on “priority response” to incidents that require a police presence. It will also be achieved by the outsourcing of tasks to civilians to free up officers for police work, says Mayor John Tory.
“Our police officers should be in neighbourhoods, preventing crime, fighting crime, keeping communities safe, as opposed to sometimes (doing) the myriad other things that we have been asking them to do over time,” Tory said.
“I want the police where they are needed most, when they are needed most, and that does require a rethinking.”
Some recommendations are being met with strong resistance from Toronto Police Association president Mike McCormack, who in a deputation to the board Thursday accused the task force of keeping a cloak of secrecy over the final recommendations.
(Tory told reporters he and other board members did not see the final report until Wednesday night).
While the task force will now commence what Tory called an “unprecedented” process of consulting with each member of the police service, that is coming a little late in the process, McCormack said.
“We haven’t been involved in any consultation up to this point, and now they want us to legitimize a report that as far as we’re concerned is about cost-cutting,” McCormack told the Star.
The association has launched a social-media campaign called “Stop the Toronto Police cuts” and it focuses on the fact that Toronto has 100,000 new residents annually, while police ranks will decline under the task force’s recommendations.
Speaking to reporters Thursday, Saunders countered these claims, saying that Toronto saw a spike in violent crime in 2004-2009 inclusive, a period when roughly 400 more officers walked the streets than do today.
“The reason that we’re reducing the numbers right now is because we know that putting more resources into the old model is not going to be effective for today’s pressures,” Saunders said.
“We have to look at the new roles, the new responsibilities, the new pressures of today’s society, so that we can give the best product to our communities,” Saunders said.
New in Thursday’s report was the recommendation for a 30-per-cent reduction in the number of eligible paid-duty assignments performed by police officers.
“The service will apply a new public-safety risk filter to requests from private entities to have police officers provide security,” the executive summary says.
“Only assignments where a police officer is necessary for public safety or required for legislative reasons will be accepted and staffed.”
The report says, while the task force’s work comes to an end, the “next steps” fall to the board. It recommends that the civilian board appoint an independent adviser “with strong experience in complex change management” to advise it on implementation and other things.
Thursday’s report comes after months of town halls and consultations on the interim version.