Police-Encounters-With-People-In-Crisis

platoon or division. For example, one stakeholder expressed concern that officers may
not be given time by unit commanders to complete mandatory online training modules.
Decentralized training is important to reinforce the mental health and de-escalation
education that officers receive at the TPC. For example, an officer may be influenced by
his or her peers and immediate supervisors regarding the judgment used to distinguish
a person in crisis who requires assistance from an individual intending to engage in
violent criminal behaviour.
40. Some submissions urged that police training needs to further emphasize deescalation
while others suggested a research study was needed to evaluate whether deescalation
training improves the outcomes of interactions with people in crisis.
Curriculum design and delivery at the TPC and divisional levels could involve a wider
spectrum of perspectives, from people with mental health issues and their families, to
officers with crisis intervention experience and mental health professionals, including
hospital staff who must stabilize crisis situations without weapons. It was suggested that
de-escalation skills be evaluated not just during training but also as part of annual
performance reviews.
III.
Recommendations
41. Before making recommendations on the issue of training, I wish to mention that I
believe that the overall recruit and in-service training that TPS officers receive is very
good in many respects, and reflects improvements over time. However, my mandate
requires me to consider whether further improvements can be made, and I believe there
remains room for improvement.
42. I recommend that:
Recruit training
RECOMMENDATION 15: The TPS place more emphasis in its recruit training
curricula on such areas as:
(a)
(b)
(c)
Containment: considering and implementing techniques for
containing crisis situations whenever possible in order to slow
down the course of events and permit the involvement of
specialized teams such as ETF or MCIT as appropriate;
Communication and De-escalation: highlighting communication
and de-escalation as the most important and commonly used skills
of the police officer, and the need to adjust communication styles
when a person does not understand or cannot comply with
instructions;
Subject Safety: recognizing the value of the life of a person in crisis
and the importance of protecting the subject’s safety as well as that
of the officer and other members of the public;
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