BC Policing and Community Safety Plan - Ministry of Justice ...

NEXT STEPS: Working through the RCMP and in concert with the municipal police departments, the Ministryof Justice will support the creation of a RTIC-BC with a target date of completion of May 2014. Matters related tocriminal intelligence enhancement will also be included in the development of standards under Action Item #7.•¡Performance management based on quality police dataACTION ITEM #15: The Ministry of Justice will work with key stakeholders and academia to develop a performancemanagement framework and enhance the quality and availability of police data in order to measurepolicing in a consistent manner across the province and support better performance management practices.CONSULTATION FINDINGS: Roundtable participants asked for more appropriate, comparable measures forpolicing than are currently available and expressed a desire for consistent, clear performance measures for policingacross the province. They identified problems with existing measures (for example, crime statistics do notreflect the administrative workload of a file; case burdens do not reflect demands such as travel time for policein remote areas). Discussions at the roundtables emphasized the need for provincial leadership in evaluatingand measuring police performance. Focus group participants stressed the importance of stakeholder participationin developing the performance measures.CHALLENGE: The Justice and Public Safety Council, appointed by the Minister of Justice, is committed to deliveringthe first annual Justice and Public Safety Plan by March 2014, including associated performance targetsand measures as part of the plan. The development of sector-wide performance measures is an importantand complex task, and the Council is undertaking this work in consultation with performance measurementexperts from across the justice and public safety sector. The Ministry of Justice is also developing and implementingperformance management and evaluation frameworks for use throughout the Ministry.Police performance management requires the collection of data on general aspects of policing as well asresults-oriented data. At present, a data set does not exist that can be used to measure key aspects of policeperformance across the province. For example, PRIME-BC is a records management database used by all policeagencies in British Columbia; however, it was not specifically designed to measure performance. Similarly, otherdatabases such as Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) were not designed to gather data on police performanceand vary significantly in the way that information is captured between police agencies.NEXT STEPS: In 2013, the Ministry of Justice engaged Simon Fraser University’s Institute for Canadian UrbanResearch Studies (ICURS) to conduct a study to identify the quality of available policing data and to developperformance indicators, with a target completion date of May 2014. The ministry will develop a performancemanagement framework for policing in consultation with a committee of police, stakeholders and expertswith a target date of March 2015. The framework will be informed by best practices and experiences in otherjurisdictions.•¡Review Police ActACTION ITEM #16: The Ministry of Justice will conduct a comprehensive review of the Police Act to assess itsrelevancy to support the changing and complex environment of policing in British Columbia.CHALLENGE: Since the Police Act was introduced in 1974, it has undergone numerous changes in responseto emerging needs and issues. Recent developments include amendments in 2009 that improved the policecomplaint process in British Columbia and 2010 changes that allow the director of police services to setbinding standards for policing. While these changes have improved accountability and coordination, furtherchanges to the Act would address current and future challenges.40BRITISH COLUMBIA POLICING AND COMMUNITY SAFETY PLAN