Police Accountability Forum

A public forum about 8 ideas for change to improve Toronto police

By John Sewell –

We can improve Toronto policing!
A public forum about 8 ideas for change
Tuesday October 18, 7 pm
Innis College, St George and Sussex Streets

Toronto Police Accountability Coalition has called this public forum for Tuesday October 18, 2011, Innis College Town Hall (Sussex and St. George Street), at 7pm. Innis College is one block south of the St. George Subway Station. This venue is wheelchair accessible.

This meeting follows a forum held by TPAC on June 20, where many ideas for change in Toronto police were discussed by the 100+ in attendance. From that session we have chosen eight ideas to discuss in depth.

Join us to pinpoint the changes needed and why they are needed; thinking about the roadblocks to change and how they will be overcome; outlining the support required for change  and how it will be secured; planning the approach to the appropriate decision-makers to agree to the changes; and all other questions about how to put good ideas into reality. You can make a difference, and together we can make change.  Work with others on one of the four topics:

Police Culture
1. Restructuring police and police work to make them more accountable to communities
2. Changing recruitment and training policies to get the police personnel the city needs; rethinking policies to retain the officers the city needs

Bias-free policing
1. Ensuring those stopped by police get a copy of the Form 208 contact card, which is the police record of the stop
2. Changing how police deal with those facing mental health challenges and crises, and the disabled

Youth
1. Creating a more inclusive definition of who police should treat as a `youth’ so young people get real protection from police and appropriate diversionary policies.
2. Reducing the criminalization of youth, including the way they are treated at schools; implanting better practices to divert them from jail, and reforming the records police keep and release

Police Spending
1. Limit police attention on minor issues such as Safe Streets Act tickets, minor drug possession, presence in schools, and instead divert these matters from the courts
2. Change the expensive shift schedule, two-office patrol cars, retention pay and court room bonuses.

Bring your ideas and your intelligence. You need not have attended the June 20 meeting to be welcome on October 18. The meeting will begin with a keynote speech by Scott Wortley of the Centre for Criminology, University of Toronto, and we will then break into four groups, each to meet in their own space, with facilitators provide by TPAC.

If you need further information, email us at info@tpac.ca