Policing and the Community: The Internal Threat to Success


Doug Thomson, Humber College; Emma Smith, Humber College

A restructuring in the Toronto Police Service’s Neighbourhood Community Officer Program (NCOP) is causing significant internal and external effects across the city. Out of the seventeen Divisions in Toronto, the Community Response Unit (CRU) has been eliminated in all but three. The reduction of the CRU, tasked with general patrol duties and low-level community interactions, has seen an increased shift in responsibilities for the Neighbourhood Community Officers (NCOs). Pulled away from their designated neighbourhoods, the everyday work of NCOs is now limited and damaged. It takes months of community interaction to build trust and positive relations in a neighbourhood, and the shift in the NCO duties has affected these relations. The NCOP has been extremely successful since its inception in 2013, with strong community support and praise from Judge Epstein (2021) in her "Missing and Missed: Report of the Independent Civilian Review into Missing Person Investigations". The NCOP focuses on building lasting support resources and has been developing strong community ties in high-risk communities. A success built on the principles of taking time to listen to community members and take a ground up approach to problem solving. Through a series of focus groups with NCOs in 2023 and 2024, officers opinions were gathered about the elimination effects of the CRU and the future of their NCO role in urban policing. This feedback highlights the importance and gradual impact of policy decisions on the role of front-line officers. The participants report that they are no longer able to perform their duties as NCO’s with a community support focus, instead they are spending their time engaged in higher level general patrolling, policing events and buildings. With reference to previous reports assessing the NCO program (Webber et al., 2017; Thomson et al., 2021), this research calls for greater transparency and awareness of the essential policing strategies needed to support healthy and growing communities.

Non-presenting author: Alessya Miceli, Humber College

This paper will be presented at the following session: