Ethics Committee

Mandate

Promote appropriate ethical behaviour in the Canadian law enforcement community.

Objectives

1. Promote ethical and professional leadership amongst the CACP membership.
2. Provide or identify learning opportunities and training for police organizations that enhances ethical decision-making in member organizations.
3. Provide CACP members with information about learning opportunities available through other organizations.
4. Identify and provide information on best practices in ethical decision-making.
5. Provide a link to other entities that support ethical organizational development.
6. Provide advice on ethical issues to the Board of Directors of the CACP.

Significant Accomplishments 2017-2018

• Released phase 2 of the Professionalism in Policing survey in the 2nd quarter of 2018, designed to examine four integrity/professionalism measures:  perceived integrity of supervisors,  perceived integrity of colleagues, willingness to report, and confidence in colleague’s willingness to report.  This survey has also included a new measurement to understand procedural justice with the public and the perception of community trust.
• Dr. Curt Griffiths from Simon Fraser University attended the April 2018 meeting and spoke about his work with the Edmonton Police Commission and the study of street checks. There was strong belief that all police organizations will face challenges on their street check policy and that it would be beneficial to advance the thinking nationally on this matter.
• Conflict of interest policies were gathered from all participating organizations for examination at the August 2018 meeting, with the intent of identifying common themes in Conflict of Interest Policy.
• Presented on the findings of the professionalism survey and the Gatineau Police experience relating to the implementation of their Ethics Program to the CAPG and the IACP.
• Prepared an article to be published in a national or international police journal on the Gatineau Police Department Ethics Program, the findings of the Professionalism Survey and the role of ethics in technology such as predictive policing/big data.
• Examined opportunities to support research findings from New Patterns of Public Trust, the report written on the 2017 Global Studies Program.
• Worked to develop a common definition of “ethics”.
• Reviewed literature and discussed ethical considerations and decisions in relation to predictive policing and the use of big data.

Initiatives Planned for 2019

• Complete literature review from the Professionalism in Policing Study.
• Collaborate with Global studies 2017 program to identify data that may assist in building a measure of public trust.
• Complete and publish the findings of a second survey on Professionalism in Policing in 2019.
• Identify strategies and practices to identify and mitigate areas of potential bias in the use of big data and predictive policing.