Review of the RCMP's Public Complaint Records
Executive Summary
The Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP ("the Commission") performs a vital role in Canadian society in that it provides civilian review of the conduct of RCMP members in carrying out their policing duties thereby holding the RCMP accountable to the public.
To assist in maintaining this strong accountability, and pursuant to paragraph 45.47(b) of the RCMP Act, the Commission created the Review of the Record Project, which was designed to examine all complaint dispositions stemming from public complaints against the RCMP.1 The Commission's examination of the complaint dispositions analyzes trends in the types of allegations made by the public against the RCMP, how the complaint was disposed of by the RCMP and if the disposition was in keeping with RCMP policy, and provides the Commission and the RCMP with an empirical foundation to assess how effectively the overall public complaint system for the RCMP is functioning. This project is only in its second year and already there has been a noticeable increase in the number of records provided to the Commission and an improvement with respect to service standards and interaction between the two organizations.2
The project consists of two major components: the Review of the Record, that assesses all completed complaint dispositions and the Outstanding Disposition List, which tracks all open Commission-lodged complaint files.
The Commission's Review of the RCMP's Public Complaints Records-2007, made six (6) recommendations for immediate implementation; RCMP Headquarters, however, did not respond to this report or its recommendations.3 The Commission is concerned about this lack of response from Headquarters, given that there appears to be issues with the RCMP public complaint process to be rectified, and those identified in last year's report have been further exacerbated by inaction. It should be noted that some divisions did respond to the Commission directly and their responses were insightful and valuable.
The RCMP lacks a comprehensive public complaints database which makes tracking public complaints Force-wide very difficult. The administrative issues apparent in the RCMP's public complaint process are further complicated by a lack of current guidelines with respect to informal resolutions, terminations, and Part IV investigations. As well, manuals related to the public complaint process have not been updated to ensure a standardized national approach.
Simply put, the Professional Standards and External Review Directorate is unable, with certainty, to identify when complaints were lodged, how many have been lodged, where they were lodged, the members involved, what the nature of the complaints are and if an investigation or appropriate disposition has been completed on a national level. Further, the Commission has serious concerns with respect to the administration of the RCMP public complaint process within the Territories (Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut).
Despite the Commission concerns with the systemic issues apparent in the public complaint system, the results of the 2008 Review of the Record show improvements in regional and divisional service standards and a positive engagement between the divisions and the Commission.
The data collected for this report is for the calendar year 2008 and is based on all completed complaint records4 received by the Commission before July 1, 2009, with a complaint date between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2008. The Commission received 1,829 completed complaint dispositions relating to complaints lodged within the 2008 timeframe but has been advised by the RCMP that 2,375 complaints5 were lodged in that year; therefore, approximately 23% of 2008 complaints remain outstanding.
Of the 1,829 complaint dispositions, 1,238 were lodged with the Commission (68%) while 584 were lodged with the RCMP (32%). Seven (7) additional complaints were lodged initially with other organizations representing 0.4% of the total complaints.6 With respect to Commission-lodged complaints this represents an 8% increase from 2007; and a 7% decrease for the RCMP.
Figure 1: Percentage of Complaints Lodged with CPC by Division7
Based on the complaint dispositions received, the Pacific Region8 had the most complaints (814) representing 45% of the total, the Northwest Region had 692 (38%), the Central Region had 64 (3%) and the Atlantic Region had 259 (14%).
A total of 4,511 allegations were made against the RCMP and its members. The most common complaint allegations as identified by the RCMP were "Neglect of Duty" (29%), "Improper Attitude" (22%) and "Improper Use of Force" (10%). As with the allegations in 2007, there is a common perceived lack of police professionalism, although allegations of "Improper Use of Force" are down 3% in 2008. A total of 295 members had two or more complaints lodged against them, which represented 13% of the total number of members named in complaints.
In its handling of complaints, the RCMP issued a Final Report (RCMP) in 43% of the cases, issued a Notice of Direction9 (termination) 6% of the time, entered into an informal resolution in 34% of all cases and accepted a complaint withdrawal in 16% of the cases.
During the analysis of the documents, the Commission noticed that 6% of the total informal resolutions dealt with allegations of "Improper Use of Force" and that 13% of all use of force allegations resulted in an informal resolution. Of those allegations, 59% were deemed by the Commission to have been resolved contrary to policy. "J" Division appeared to have the most informal resolutions of "Improper Use of Force" with 33% of these allegations being resolved in this manner.
The Commission also found that 17% of all withdrawn complaints, contained serious allegations including: "Improper Use of Force", "Improper Use of Firearms", and "Statutory Offences". Withdrawn complaints containing serious allegations accounted for nearly 3% of total complaints dispositions for 2008. It is the position of the Commission that serious allegations, especially incidents involving weapons or injury, should typically not be allowed to be withdrawn, as it undermines the integrity of the public complaint process and is unfair to both members and complainants.
In 2008 the RCMP took, on average, 103 days to issue a disposition once a complaint was lodged and an additional 69 days for the Commission to receive a copy of the disposition.10 It took, on average, 200 days for a complainant to lodge a complaint after the incident of concern. This is an improvement from 2007, when it took the RCMP, on average, 114 days to issue a disposition and an additional 86 days for the Commission to receive a copy.
The Commission is pleased to report that in 2008 the RCMP took, on average, 103 days to issue a disposition once a complaint was lodged. This is an eleven (11)-day reduction in processing time from 114 days in 2007. Interestingly, on average, 20011 days elapsed before a complainant lodged a complaint after the incident of concern, on average; this is down from an average of 229 days in 2007.
The second aspect of this project is the production and management of the Outstanding Disposition List, which is designed to act as an accounting mechanism for all Commission-lodged complaints that are at any given time being investigated by the RCMP. Information gathered through the Outstanding Disposition List allows the Commission to track how timely the RCMP is responding to complaints and to identify the length of time complaints are taking to be investigated. Commendably, the RCMP reduced the number of pre-2007 outstanding complaints by an additional 68% from 2007, with only 48 dispositions still outstanding from that timeframe.
The Commission's undertaking of following up with the RCMP with questions raised in the analysis of complaint dispositions has also proved successful, with an RCMP turnaround time from request to response of 33 days. There were 62 follow-up requests made; of those, the Commission's concerns and requests were met in 87% of the cases. It must be noted that under the current legislation the Commission does not have the authority to direct the RCMP to investigate a complaint. Accordingly, while the RCMP may choose to refuse the Commission's request to investigate even when it involves serious allegations such as improper use of force or when injuries have allegedly been sustained,12 this practice is contrary to RCMP policy. Moreover, the Commission does retain the authority pursuant to the RCMP Act to launch a Chair-initiated complaint and/or public interest investigation into such a matter if the RCMP refuses to properly investigate the complaint in the first instance.
The Commission has taken a proactive approach with respect to what information should be contained in the four different types of complaint dispositions. A "Best Practices" section has been added to the Commission's website to assist those who are tasked with the responsibility of writing complaint dispositions. Further, a position paper on the appropriate application of the termination paragraphs has also been prepared.
The Commission has also undertaken new information-tracking practices as a result of difficulties stemming from issues that arise from the quality of complaint dispositions. The Commission has noted that for informal resolutions, it is not uncommon for the member to be informed of the complaint after the complaint had been resolved. Without member participation in the informal resolution process, the Commission is concerned that the principle underlying informal resolutions is undermined. As such, the Commission has begun recording the member informed date, as recorded on Form 4110, with the intention of conducting future analysis. As well, the Commission has also begun to track the dates that dispositions are received by the Divisional Professional Standards Offices as well as the Professional Standards and External Review Directorate at RCMP Headquarters. Although it is hoped that this will aid the Commission in tracking timeliness of service, the information is not readily available for many of the documents received.
The Commission continues to find these projects valuable in that they have increased cooperation between the Commission and the RCMP; have assisted in reducing the large number of outstanding complaint dispositions; and through quantitative and qualitative analyses have identified trends that can be utilized to improve the quality of, and enhance public confidence in, the overall public complaint system.
1 Please see Appendix D for an overview of the RCMP public complaint process.
2 Please see Appendix F for a chart of the yearly comparisons.
3 The RCMP Act does not require a response. Notwithstanding that, some divisions did respond directly to the Commission.
4 A completed public complaint record was defined as the record of all complaints received by the RCMP under Part VII of the RCMP Act and included RCMP Form 4110 capturing informal resolutions and withdrawals, Form 4110 and a Notice of Direction as defined by subsection 45.36(6) of the Act, and Form 4110 and the Final Report as defined by section 45.4 of the Act.
5 This number represents the number of complaints that have been lodged in 2008; it does not represent the number of complaints that have been completed.
6 Four (4) complaints were lodged with the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations and three (3) were lodged with the Alberta Solicitor General.
7 The divisions and associated province or territory is as follows: "A" Division: National Capital Region; "B" Division: Newfoundland and Labrador; "C" Division: Quebec; "D" Division: Manitoba; "E" Division: British Columbia; "F" Division: Saskatchewan; "G" Division: Northwest Territories; "H" Division: Nova Scotia; "J" Division: New Brunswick; "K" Division: Alberta; "L" Division: Prince Edward Island; "M" Division: Yukon; "O" Division: Ontario; "V" Division: Nunavut.
8 For administrative purposes the RCMP is divided into four regions, which are then divided into divisions and further divided into detachments. The Review of the Record Project captures and tracks data Force-wide, regionally, divisionally, and at the detachment level.
9 A Notice of Direction is also referred to as a termination and captures the RCMP termination of an investigation into a complaint.
10 These averages do not mean that it took the RCMP a particular amount of time to provide the complainant with the disposition; the timelines are specific to the RCMP providing the Commission with a copy of the dispositions.
11 While the reasons for this has not been fully examined, some preliminary analysis of the data suggests that complainants wait to lodge complaints because: 1) the complainant may not have immediate access to the public complaint system; 2) the complaint may be historical in that an incident occurred many years (in some cases decades) before a formal complaint is lodged; and 3) alternate ways of resolving the complaint may have been attempted before a formal complaint was lodged.
12 In the Commission's experience, in 2008, this was the exception rather than the rule.