Thank you.
My name is Isobel Fitzpatrick. I've been a police officer for 25 years. I am presently the coordinator of the abuse issues program for the East Region OPP.
With me is Inspector Leslie Craig from Crime Prevention. Leslie has 28 years of policing, and a wealth of experience in dealing with seniors. She was around when the senior assistance team in the OPP was created, I believe in 2003. Her position now oversees crime prevention, a section in the OPP in which the abuse issues team and the senior assistance team are housed.
My position of abuse issues coordinator is in the eastern region: I work in Smiths Falls. I am the go-to person for our OPP members in terms of abuse and neglect of older persons, child abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault, and investigations involving persons with disabilities or mental health issues. I don't do these investigations. I rely on our front line to do that. I am a go-to person. I'm a trainer for them. I'm a resource person, and I am a person who will get other people to help if I don't know the answer.
I've been with the abuse issues team for 10 years, and in that role I'm very familiar with the issues that relate to the abuse of senior women.
We're pleased to be here to discuss this topic, as it is an issue of great concern to us. We expect, as our other speakers have advised, that the service costs are going to rise. As the number of older persons in our community rises, we're going to get more service calls.
We know that the police play a vital role in protecting seniors from abuse, but we also know that we cannot do this alone. We rely on the wisdom and experience of those who work with seniors full-time to assist us, because only a portion of the service calls we get involve seniors. We rely heavily on community experts who have a wealth of experience that we quite often tap into.
In this brief presentation, I'm going to give you a little insight into the OPP model of investigations in terms of our training, our support, and community collaboration.
The OPP polices over 1 million square kilometres of land and water in Ontario, and much of that area is rural. The people involved may not have Internet and cell phone access is touchy in places, so we face a lot of people who are dealing with isolation in their communities.
We have 226 detachments policing 322 communities and 19 first nations communities. We have approximately 6,300 uniformed members and 1,900 civilian members. Our role is to investigate crimes, much like my partner does, and we use the Criminal Code and various provincial acts to assist us.
In terms of our service calls across the province, I can give you some very general information. Our calls are rising. Certainly the number of calls in 2009, 2010, and 2011 was higher than in previous years. So we're getting more service calls. The caller is quite often someone other than the senior—neighbours, friends, families, medical staff, or concerned citizens who witness something that just isn't right. Most of the calls reported would be in the area of property crime, financial abuse, and thefts—which would be our biggest population of calls reported—and crimes against persons, meaning physical abuse, including domestic violence, would be the next bulk of calls. Emotional abuse and neglect would fall after that. The calls about sexual abuse of seniors are a very small portion of the ones we get. The number of calls on the abuse of seniors is a very small portion of the total calls for service we manage every year.
In terms of offenders, most of the offenders are known to the senior—family, friends, neighbours—although some of the frauds are by complete strangers, where the calls involve telemarketing or Internet offers or door-to-door pressure sales to the senior.
In terms of our crime prevention, we have officers doing public presentations. We have our community services officers, we have some front-line officers, and we have abuse issues investigators and a senior assistance team doing presentations. We provide information to the seniors, or to those who support seniors, to put in place the things they need to know before somebody knocks on their door offering something that they really shouldn't buy.
With respect to our investigative model, it's our front-line uniformed members who do the bulk of the investigations, as well as their supervisors. They have a broad base of knowledge. They are going on many different calls a day, and they are supported by people in their detachment in the crime unit position—detectives and detective sergeants. If a front-line member has a question, they find a detective or an abuse issues person in their detachment.
Our members gather evidence. We try to figure out if a crime has happened. Is there an offence, and is there a reason we should or should not lay charges. Whether charges are laid or not, we always provide referrals to the seniors we deal with. Even if we can't lay charges, we want to do what we can to stop things from happening again. So we put them in touch with different victims service agencies, so they can get that education and support, and those around them can begin to get educated as well.
We have different resources for providing assistance. We have victim services, who will go right to the house and provide in-home support at the time of the crisis. We have other services that help to prepare them for court. We have other referrals that are based on the actual crime, such as sex assault services, domestic violence services, and addiction and mental health services, depending on what the parameters of the case are.
We have strong coordination between regional resources and our provincial resources. So if I don't know the answer to something, I have friends at headquarters in Orillia who probably can answer my question. We work interactively with each other.
We have regional coordination with service providers in terms of community networks. Our local service providers and officers will sit on community network committees, developing relationships and meeting regularly to discuss best practices, changes in legislation, and the challenges they're facing at a local level.
We also have provincial coordination between the OPP and other police services in Ontario in the area of abuse and neglect of older persons, with our provincial coordinating committee, known as LEAPS or Law Enforcement Agencies Protecting Seniors. This committee meets regularly to discuss challenges, and shares best practices across the province. Committee members also liaise regularly by email to support each other when challenging issues are presented.
I feel our biggest challenge is that many people do not wish to involve the police in incidents of abuse in their home, particularly seniors. They will refuse to talk to us or will only tell us a bit of what's happening, which really challenges us in doing our job.
I feel we have appropriate legislation in the Criminal Code. I feel we have appropriate sentencing provisions, but there are times when criminalizing the behaviour isn't really the answer. If it isn't best for the senior to go through the system, then it may not be the best time for that senior to lay charges. If it involves a senior acting out on another senior, is criminalizing that behaviour necessarily the way to go? There are times when we just don't lay charges, because it's not the best thing to do for that senior.
I look forward to answering any questions you may have for about the role of the Ontario Provincial Police in combatting the abuse of senior women in the communities that we police.