https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1677-1147
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ABSTRACT
The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) of Ontario is a civilian police oversight agency responsible for investigating serious incidents involving police officers and civilians, with the power to charge police officers with criminal offences. Created in 1990, the SIU is considered a pioneer in civilian-led oversight, however, little is known about how the SIU conducts investigations, the complainants in these investigations, and the routine work of this oversight agency. This article examines a variety of indicators to document the work and activity of the SIU, illustrating important aspects of the agency’s performance in the process. Important trends regarding the nature of police misconduct, violence, and use of lethal force are analysed. Our study uncovers previously unknown trends regarding complainants in SIU investigations, including the prevalence of certain characteristics like known mental health disabilities and the relationship between the substantiation of complaints by the SIU and the criminal activity of the complainant. This study empirically documents the nature of police cooperation with oversight. By analysing different indicators of agency performance and work, this study makes an important contribution to the study of police oversight in general, and the findings hold value for understanding police use of force, the nature of police criminality and misconduct, and the functioning of civilian police oversight in practice.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Marisa Parsons, Kelly Hatt, Brendan Dell, and Nancy Hills for their research assistance. Jonathan Rose provided helpful comments on a previous version of this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Lewis, Clare. 1989. Report on the Race Relations and Policing Task Force. Government of Ontario.
2 Special Investigations Unit Act, 2019, S.O. 2019, c. 1, Sched. 5
3 Lewis, Stephen. 1992. Report of the Advisor on Race Relations to the Premier of Ontario, Bob Rae; Gittens, Margaret, David Cole, Toni Williams, Sri-Guggan Sri-Skanda-Rajah, Moy Tam, Ed Ratushny. 1995. Report of the Commission on Systemic Racism in the Ontario Criminal Justice System; Adams, George. W. 1998. Consultation
Report of the Honourable George W. Adams, Q.C. to the Attorney General and Solicitor General Concerning Police Cooperation with the Special Investigations Unit; Adams, George. W. 2003. Review Report on the Special
Investigations Unit Reforms Prepared for the Attorney General of Ontario by the Honourable George W. Adams;
Marin, André. 2008. Oversight unseen: Investigation into the Special Investigations Unit’s
operational effectiveness and credibility. Ombudsman Ontario; LeSage, Patrick. 2011. Report Regarding SIU Issues;
Marin, André. 2011. Oversight undermined: Investigation into the Ministry of the Attorney General’s
implementation of recommendations concerning reform of the SIU. Ombudsman Ontario; Tulloch, Michael. 2017. Report of the Independent Police Oversight Review.
4 January 1, 2000 to June 6, 2006 (Wortley Citation2006, p. 34).
5 Some incidents do not receive a full investigation because they are outside of the agency’s jurisdiction or because the complainant’s injuries do not meet the SIU’s definition of serious injury (SIU Citation2023).
6 Section 34 of the Special Investigations Unit Act, 2019 outlines which information is restricted from public versions of the Director’s Report. Other information can be removed pursuant to Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, 1990 and the Personal Health Information Act, 2004.
7 In our dataset of unsubstantiated cases decided between 2017-2020, there are no sexual assault cases with published Director’s Reports
8 For example, Wortley’s analysis of SIU investigations for the Ipperwash Inquiry was unable to track descriptive information about the officers, complainants, and the investigations involved given the nature of the data provided (Citation2006, p. 55).
9 Releasing the name of the investigated officer (subject officer) is prohibited by the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
10 This data was accessed through the SIU’s publicly available “Status of Cases” database.
11 When including data from historic cases, the average length of time from incident occurrence to SIU report is 328.12 days, median 303, SD = 509.926.
12 This study underrepresents the number of women complainants because of the lack of Director’s Reports for unsubstantiated sexual assault cases. Previous work found that it is mostly women who are the complainants of police-involved sexual assault (McNabb and Puddister Citation2024).
13 The SIU has jurisdiction over off-duty officers if the officer invoked police powers, identified themselves as a police officer or when the incident involves police property/equipment, s.15(2)(b) Special Investigations Unit Act, 2019.
14 Adams, George. W. 1998. Consultation Report of the Honourable George W. Adams, Q.C. to the Attorney General and Solicitor General Concerning Police Cooperation with the Special Investigations Unit; Adams, George. W. 2003. Review Report on the Special Investigations Unit Reforms Prepared for the Attorney General of Ontario by the Honourable George W. Adams.
15 If there was availability of published Director’s Reports for sexual assault allegations, it is possible that this trend would be weakened, with a higher rate of complainants reporting these offences directly to the agency.
16 The relationship between type of occurrence and officer cooperation was found to be statistically significant, p = <.001.
17 Required by O. Reg. 268/10, section 32.
18 PONI is the product of the Independent Commission on Policing in Northern Ireland (the Patten Commission) following the Good Friday Agreement peace process, see McCulloch and Maguire Citation2022 and Kempa Citation2007.
19 The relationship between the type of occurrence and the disposition (terminated, substantiated, or unsubstantiated) was found to be statistically significant, p = <.001. Additionally, the number of substantiated and unsubstantiated cases differs in this table compared to the data presented in the rest of the paper because it relies on the SIU Status of Cases database, and because the database relies on the reporting date of incident, compared to the investigation completion date.
20 The categories of mental health disability--general and mental health disability--suicidal are mutually exclusive.