Professional Standards Committee

Mandate and Guiding Principles:

The Professional Standards Committee is focused on addressing the needs of the Canadian law enforcement community, in identifying the best practices in professional standards.

The Committee’s guiding principles are to maintain public trust in police services to ensure the support and participation of the community for effective policing in Canada. The Committee:

1. Promotes innovative professional standards strategies as a meaningful way to assist the chiefs of police when faced with the challenge of leading an evolving police organization.
2. Encourages and facilitates the exchange of ideas regarding professional standards best practices, investigative strategies, trends and models within police organizations.
3. Helps to develop training and intervention systems that reduce the occurrences of police misconduct.

Significant Accomplishments 2016/2017:

• commenced exploration of opportunities to create a repository of professional standards dispositions and trends to better inform decision-making and consistency on a national scale.

• Established a sub-committee of RCMP, Calgary and Winnipeg representatives  to work on the model for a national conduct measures guide.  

• Reviewed the Georgian College course for Police Act investigators and prosecutors to determine what is required to make it nationally relevant. recognizing the intricacies of each Provincial statute. Committee is in ongoing discussions to explore the feasibility of such an undertaking.    

Initiatives Planned 2017/2018:

• To undertake discussions within CACP to determine synergies within other CACP committees.
• Continue research on available training for adjudicators, and the development of a resource page that can direct agencies to suitable programs.
• Continue work on a national conduct measures guide to assist police agencies across country. 
• The Prevention Sub-Committee will continue examine both the genesis and mitigation of complaints against police.