Important
- Section 25 of the Criminal Code – The primary statutory authority in Canada authorizing police officers to use force when acting on reasonable grounds, provided the action is required or authorized by law.
- Assessment of Reasonableness – The legal requirement that officer force must be evaluated based strictly on the officer’s perception and information available at the time of the incident, rather than through hindsight.
- Subject Behavior – The primary predictor and core driver dictating how a police officer selects an intervention option during an encounter.
- Procedural Justice – The critical factor and strongest predictor influencing public perceptions of overall police legitimacy.
- Preserving and Protecting Life – The foundational core objective positioned at the center of modern police risk assessment and intervention frameworks.
- Duty of Care – The legal and professional obligation requiring officers to ensure individuals receive appropriate medical attention following any use-of-force event.
- Meaningful Transparency – The necessity of providing complete context and nuance alongside police operational data or video releases to avoid public misperceptions.
Core concepts
- Section 25 Authority: Statutory protection for officers using necessary and proportional force while executing lawful duties.
- Principles of Police Use of Force: The four foundational criteria—necessity, proportionality, lawfulness, and reasonableness—governing officer intervention decisions [12–14, 22, 34, 40].
- Subject Behavior Officer Response (SBOR) Reporting: The RCMP reporting threshold mandated for force applications at or above physical control hard, intermediate weapons, firearm involvement, or soft control resulting in injury.
- Public and Police Safety Framework (PPSF): The updated RCMP decision-making model that integrates risk assessment, preserving life, and the Critical Decision-Making Model.
- Police Legitimacy: The extent to which the public views a police institution as holding the rightful authority to enforce laws and dictate acceptable community behavior [46, 55, 59–61].
- Perception vs. Experience Discrepancy: The phenomenon where racialized or marginalized groups report lower institutional trust in police despite reporting predominantly positive direct personal contacts.
- Public Misperceptions of Police Force: Systemic public overestimations regarding the frequency of physical force, lethal shootings, and officer criminal charges relative to actual statistical rates.
- Perceptual Distortions: Stress-induced cognitive disruptions experienced by officers during critical incidents—including tunnel vision, auditory exclusion, time distortion, and cognitive overload—that alter event recall.
- Contextual Impact of Video Footage: The finding that isolated body-worn or bystander camera clips negatively alter public trust and increase perceptions of excessive force regardless of legal justification.
- Civilian Independent Oversight: External oversight agencies established to investigate police-involved deaths or serious injuries specifically to determine criminal liability rather than internal policy breaches.
Theories and Frameworks
- Incident Management Intervention Model (IMIM): A circular risk-assessment model used to guide police interventions based on tactical considerations, officer perceptions, situational factors, and subject behavior [26–30].
- Critical Decision-Making Model (CDMM): An iterative decision-making loop that assists officers in continuously gathering information, assessing threat, considering authorities, taking action, and reassessing [31, 35–37].
- Three-Factor Model of Police Legitimacy: An early framework defining legitimacy through public obligation to obey, trust and confidence, and normative alignment.
- Four-Factor Model of Police Legitimacy: A model establishing legitimacy through procedural justice, distributive fairness, police effectiveness, and police lawfulness, treating obligation to obey as an outcome [48, 49, 52–54].
- One-Factor Model of Police Legitimacy: A consolidated framework grouping interpersonal treatment, trust, motivation, integrity, and alignment under a single construct while treating effectiveness as a precursor.
- Virtuous Cycle of Police Legitimacy: A conceptual model illustrating how procedurally fair policing builds public trust and cooperation, leading to lower crime and reduced enforcement costs.
- Peel’s Nine Principles of Policing: A foundational 1829 framework asserting that police authority depends on public approval and that the police are the public and the public are the police.
Notable Individuals
- Craig Bennell: Forensic psychology researcher who studies police decision-making, use of force, and evidence-based policing practices.
- Nick Carleton: Criminology researcher whose team compiles statistical data on independent oversight investigations and officer charge rates across Canada.
- Robert Peel: Historical progenitor of democratic policing principles establishing public consent as the basis of police authority.