The Quebec provincial police will introduce mandatory training next year with the goal of changing officers’ responses to people with mental health problems and reducing the number of interventions that end fatally.
“Society needs a change in the way the police intervene,” said Sgt. Dominique Ethier, who is involved with a partner in creating the new course. “Traditional training consisted of prioritizing protection before negotiating with people and defusing crises. Our approach is first to prevent confrontation and then to ensure safety. “
Ethier said the training, which will be provided to all current officers and new recruits, will help officers manage their own stress and recognize situations that involve people in an unstable state of mind.
“What we want is to make sure we do everything possible to avoid deaths. Because when someone is shot dead, it is a tragedy for the family and for the police. Everybody suffers from it, “he said in an interview.
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The initiative is a response to the deaths that occurred during police interventions involving people going through a mental health crisis. The Quebec coroner’s office says there have been 25 such deaths in the province since 2016.
The idea that the police should be better prepared is not new. In 2014, Coroner Luc Malouin called for improved police training to deal with people struggling with mental health issues after Alain Magloire was shot and killed by Montreal police.
Provincial police say that while crimes reported to the police are declining, their officers across the province were involved in 21,770 mental health-related cases in 2020, a 50 percent increase since Magloire’s death.
“Calls are constantly increasing at police stations for situations involving people with mental health problems,” Ethier said.
“Society has changed. Our understanding of people in crisis has also changed. We need to consider what the studies show and look at the gaps to improve training and interventions. “
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In the new Quebec course, officers will first be required to follow a four-hour online training that addresses the biases surrounding mental health and explores how to build trusting relationships during interventions. This will be followed by two days of face-to-face workshops, during which they will confront real-life scenarios and learn about stress management.
Jean-François Plouffe, who has worked for six years with a Montreal group that defends the rights of people with mental health problems, said it is crucial that police training reflects the current needs of society.
“The first motivation for someone seeking a career as a police officer now shouldn’t necessarily be fighting crime,” said Plouffe of the Action Autonomie group. “It will be a part, but it will look more like psychosocial work. New agent training should reflect that. “
The death last summer of 37-year-old Jean-René Junior Olivier in Repentigny, a city north of Montreal, also prompted calls to improve training. Olivier was shot multiple times by municipal police while standing in front of his family’s home on August 1. Olivier’s family said they had called the police for help because they were concerned about his mental health.
“I specified over the phone that my son had a knife in his hand and that I would like the police to come and pick him up, to take him to a hospital,” Olivier’s mother, Marie-Mireille Bence, said in a recent interview. . “I specified a psychiatric hospital…. But they came and killed my son. “
Bence said he believes that if it had been an officer with training in mental health issues, or if the police had been accompanied by a social worker, things would have been different.
“The way they acted, it’s like they knew what they were going to do. It didn’t take long. A few policemen, in front of a small man with a steak knife in his hand? They didn’t take the time to intervene as they should. “
Ethier, a 21-year veteran with the provincial police, said one of the most crucial aspects of the new training is for officers to intervene with a different notion of time. Reacting quickly gives the impression of a controlled situation, which is often not the case, he said.
“The problem we had was that agents were dealing with situations too quickly,” he continued. “We have changed the way they should use their time. The more we take our time, the more it allows people to calm down. “
Plouffe received the police initiative with some skepticism, saying a more profound change in police culture is needed.
“It is a long way to go, because we have decades of violence, brutality, intransigence and authoritarian police surveillance. Training won’t change that overnight, ”he said. “The traditional role of the police, which is to go after criminals, is still deeply ingrained.” He said he hopes the training will change the mindset so that police will see themselves there to help in crisis situations rather than reprimand and arrest.
Ethier recognized that trust needs to be rebuilt. “If people no longer believe in us, what do we do?” I ask. “That’s where we are.”
© 2021 The Canadian Press
Reference-globalnews.ca