Madam Chair, members of the committee, let me first thank you for inviting the RCMP to appear at your committee meeting today.
My name is Inspector Kim Taplin, and I'm the director of the RCMP's national aboriginal policing and crime prevention services. I am joined today by Inspector Peter Payne, and it's Peter's mandate as the officer in charge of the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre to reduce the vulnerability of children to Internet-facilitated sexual exploitation by identifying victimized children, to investigate and assist in the prosecution of sexual offenders, and to strengthen the capacity of municipal, territorial, provincial, federal, and international police agencies through training, research, and investigative support.
Youth is a strategic priority of the RCMP, and we are ever mindful of the rapidly evolving role the Internet and technology play in the daily lives of Canadian youth. Recognizing that education and prevention are key to eliminating exploitation and violence, I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss the range of important cybercrime prevention programs and initiatives that the RCMP supports through the RCMP national youth services Centre for Youth Crime Prevention.
The Centre for Youth Crime Prevention is the RCMP's main online, youth-related hub providing support for persons working with youth, as well as youth themselves, parents, and front-line police officers. The website contains a variety of tools and resources to effectively engage youth on crime and victimization issues, and highlights the four main youth priority issues of the RCMP national youth strategy. These are bullying and cyber-bullying, intimate partner violence, drugs and alcohol abuse, and youth radicalization to violence.
These priority issues were identified after we analyzed annual youth crime statistics, reviewed detachment performance plans and priorities, consulted with our partners, conducted a scan of high-profile media stories involving youth, and, most importantly, consulted with youth themselves.
For each of the priority issues, lesson plans, presentations, fact sheets, self-assessments, videos, and interactive games are developed. They are created using youth-appropriate language and are designed to attract the attention of youth.
The RCMP works closely with its partners to ensure that the information shared is accurate and reflective of the current social environment. Each year, several social media campaigns aimed at youth audiences are delivered. These campaigns are designed to provide education and awareness, and to empower youth to take action in their communities.
With respect to cyber-violence, offences of cyber-violence include a range of sophisticated crimes that exploit technology through computer networks, such as cyber-bullying and online child sexual exploitation. As people increasingly live their lives connected to the web, this greater connectivity has allowed for greater anonymity, increased opportunities to engage in risky online behaviours, and decreased accountability. The Internet, an expanding technological innovation, puts children at greater risk as it often lowers inhibitions online and provides offenders greater access to unsupervised children.
To give you some idea of scale, in 2015, the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre received 14,951 complaints, reports, and requests for assistance—a 146% increase since 2011. As of September of this year, the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre had already received over 19,000 reports.
Compounding the ever-increasing volume of reports, is the challenge to law enforcement of increasing technological sophistication among offenders. Offenders are often one step ahead when it comes to technology, as they use encryption and anonymization techniques, for example. Using these tools, offenders can often evade police more successfully, significantly complicating investigations.
The Centre for Youth Crime Prevention approaches cyber-violence by focusing on providing education and awareness of cyber-bullying, and promoting the development of positive and healthy relationships. As I previously mentioned, the Centre for Youth Crime Prevention leads and supports several social media campaigns annually.
This past February, the RCMP partnered with the Canadian Women's Foundation to support the #HealthyLove campaign. This month-long social media campaign encouraged young people to publicly recognize one of the 14 principles of a healthy relationship. These included, for example: I will share my feelings; I will be truthful; I will be open to compromise. This campaign promotes the idea that healthy relationships should always be free of violence. In addition to #HealthyLove, a public service announcement with NHL hockey player Jordin Tootoo was recently released, encouraging young men and boys to end violence against women.
The RCMP also currently runs a campaign called BullyText. Launched during last year's Bullying Awareness Week, BullyText is a tool to engage youth using text messaging. The tool features a variety of bullying scenarios. The choices youth make while texting on a cellphone determine how the scenarios play out with their friends and others in the game. By simply texting the word “BULLY” to 38383, one can launch the tool. To date, it has been used by teachers, police officers, and others working with youth. If there is time afterward, and you would like, I can you walk you through this game.
One of the main goals of the Centre for Youth Crime Prevention is to reach youth in classrooms, grabbing their attention while they are in a learning environment. Since our school resource officers are often asked to do presentations to classrooms on a variety of youth-related topics, the RCMPTalks initiative was developed. RCMPTalks is a series of 90-minute live and interactive video conferences that offer advice and guidance on important issues, such as bullying, cyber-bullying, and healthy relationships. Each conversation allows students from up to six different classrooms across Canada to participate. Students are encouraged to interact with one another via a secure virtual classroom and on social media. A motivational speaker leads the conversation with his or her personal story, and empowers student to take action and stand up to the issues at hand. To date, we've hosted six RCMPTalks sessions.
One of the main strengths of the Centre for Youth Crime Prevention is a vast network of subject-matter experts and partnership organizations with which it is connected. The RCMP works very closely with a variety of organizations whose mandates focus on youth-related issues, including violence toward women and girls. These valuable connections assist us in delivering evidence-based products and services. Due to the impressive connections we have developed over the years, we are able to maintain the Ask an Expert tool on our website. Ask an Expert provides the opportunity to ask a police officer or a person in a police-related role questions on youth crime and victimization issues anonymously, via email. Though Ask an Expert is not a reporting tool, we do connect youth who have victimization concerns to their local police department or RCMP detachment, and encourage them to speak to agencies like Kids Help Phone or to report child exploitation concerns to Cybertip.ca.
With all the activities that are delivered by the Centre for Youth Crime Prevention, we recognize that it is valuable to hear the youth perspective. Since 2010, the RCMP national youth advisory committee, composed of youth from across Canada between the ages of 13 and 18, has provided us with insight into what youth are thinking and feeling on issues they are facing, including those of cyber-violence and intimate-partner violence. Connected via a private Facebook group, youth are engaged on a bi-weekly basis to provide their thoughts on activities, projects, and ideas of the Centre for Youth Crime Prevention. The responses feed into our national youth strategy, as well as other RCMP policies, programs, and procedures that may impact youth. On a quarterly basis, we publish an internal “Youth Trends Report”. The “Youth Trends Report” is a collection of open-source information of the most up-to-date trends that youth are engaging in. This may include the latest smartphone apps, popular online lingo, or the coolest movies, songs, or videos that are influencing youth.
Thank you once again for inviting me to speak today, and I welcome any questions you may have.