Justice committee  Really, thinking outside the box—

Justice committee  In the way we respond to mental health, for some reason police officers are still the 24-7 go-to for mental health, but we're not mental health professionals. If you apply the same concept to intimate partner familial violence, if we showed up at a doorstep with a community ser

Justice committee  Tools right now are very limited to law enforcement-related abilities, enhanced interviewing skills. We have about six or seven risk assessment tools that our intimate partner violence investigators would utilize. Then we shift and lean on our service partners. To roll into your

Justice committee  Absolutely, that is true. I'll use the word “maturity” again, which we've seen in equipping our officers from a standpoint of understanding what's behind the behaviour, whether it be a perpetrator or what a victim is presenting...has increased. To go to a previous question, we'v

Justice committee  Very simply, clearly we don't need to criminalize everybody, but repeat high offenders who show a propensity for victimization I think need to be treated differently from people who are provided a GPS. There's a slew of other criminals whom I'd happily provide the GPS to, or I'd

Justice committee  The access to firearms—legal or illegal—is just another factor that compounds the risk to an individual. With the legislative ability, especially the new bill, we know there are opportunities now for application to the firearms officer when there's even just a risk or a possibili

Justice committee  Absolutely. Really, it reflects a fundamental shift from our being the emergency responder and dealing with everything in that wheelhouse of enforcement and leaning on our community partners to help invest in other spaces. What we've done is apply an emphasis on social developme

Justice committee  Thank you for the question. Yes, the same split was roughly what we saw last year in our homicides. Domestic or intimate partner, family-related homicides were just shy of 50%.

Justice committee  With certainty, over the progression in maturity that policing and law enforcement have seen.... Without a doubt, survivors' experiences have probably seen a lack of reception from policing, but it's my experience now that it has matured so much in the last decade. Our shift to l

Justice committee  Thank you for the clarification. I'll just be frank and honest. That is actually a concern for us as well. The standard of proof for offences like criminal harassment or threatening is very specific and has a very confined context. I know that for my officers and for our Crown

Justice committee  Absolutely, sir. The very quick answer is that sometimes we don't meet the threshold of criminal harassment or threatening. We just don't meet the definition, but we are clearly aware that the individual has imposed psychological, verbal or non-verbal pressures to restrict mobil

Justice committee  That's an accurate depiction of what's happening in Peel region. As the previous witnesses stated, the isolation that individuals have experienced has stopped their ability to call the police, but it is disproportionate to the actual demand on service providers. We've seen serv

Justice committee  We welcome it as another tool. Any opportunity to mitigate risk in the cycle of intimate-partner violence is a positive one, particularly because many individuals who call us don't think we're going to be able to help. We've stepped into homes where there is an absence of violenc

Justice committee  Thank you for the question. My first thought on the placement of this offence is that I see it as one tier below the violent commission of offences such as assaults. I see it almost in the space of one or two existing criminal offences, such as threatening and criminal harassmen

Justice committee  The main frustration, I think, in our context when we are coming upon survivors is.... It's all part and parcel, like the chicken and the egg. There is a fear of reporting, because there is a lack of confidence that the system will actually provide them the protection they're see