Abstract
Canadian police report substantially more mental health challenges than the general population, partially due to negative media coverage. Negative media coverage often focuses on critiquing police causing duty-related bodily harm (DRBH) without sufficient context. Direct comparisons of police to other professionals are difficult; however, analogous comparisons can be made to previously published data on Avoidable Harm during Hospitalization (AHH). The current study quantitatively analyzed publicly available Canadian data on DRBH involving use of force exceeding legally approved standard operating procedures or involving code of conduct violations (FELSOP) relative to total police occurrences. From 2014 to 2023, DRBH involving FELSOP proportions were 1.89 per 100 000 police occurrences and 5566.67 AHH instances per 100 000 hospitalizations. Criticisms of Canadian police interactions with the public appear inconsistent with the available data. DRBH reported without context and coupled with anti-police rhetoric likely causes harms to individual police, and undermines efforts at recruitment, retention, community engagement, and Indigenous reconciliation. Healthcare worker intentions are justifiably considered beneficent, and harms are considered unintentional by default; the same should be made true for police officers, absent a conviction. Concerted efforts are needed to reframe the Canadian police discourse, possibly informed by the supports already rightfully provided to healthcare workers.
Introduction
Canadian municipal, provincial, and federal police report substantially more mental and physical health challenges than the Canadian general population (Carleton et al. 2018a, 2018b, 2018c; Sommer et al. 2020; Carleton et al. 2024, 2025; Nisbet et al. 2024). Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) research indicates cadets have excellent mental health before deployment and personality profiles consistent with best practice recommendations (Detrick and Chibnall 2013), evidencing higher scores than the general population on community-minded facets (e.g., conscientiousness, altruism; Andrews et al. 2023), implicating potentially psychologically traumatic events (PPTEs) and other occupational stressors as harming police (Carleton et al. 2020). The same community-minded police must make rapid, complex decisions regarding public safety and use of force (Cyr 2016; Carleton et al. 2019; International Association of Chiefs of Police 2019; Smith-MacDonald et al. 2021; Rodrigues et al. 2023), involving moral, ethical, legal, and procedural considerations (Smith-MacDonald et al. 2021; Rodrigues et al. 2022), and potentiating moral injuries (Osifeso et al. 2023). Police decisions to use force are often scrutinized through lengthy internal and governmental processes (The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act 1985; Public Safety Canada 2021), public inquiries (Ricciardelli et al. 2022b; MacDonald et al. 2023), independent civilian oversight agencies (IPCOA; The Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner 2022), and the media (Annable and Kubinec 2018; Marcoux and Nicholson 2018), exacerbating mental health risks (McCreary and Thompson 2006; Carleton et al. 2020; Ricciardelli et al. 2022b). Also, police may be intentionally harmed by members of the public while on duty (Rabe-Hemp and Schuck 2007; Statistics Canada 2009; Covington et al. 2014; Ral et al. 2023).
Criticisms of Canadian police interactions with the public have escalated since early 2010s (Statistics Canada 2015, 2023b), with increasing negative media attention (Potenteau 2020; The Canadian Press 2022), including exclusion from articles praising other frontline workers (Dyck 2020; Elliot 2021; CityNews 2022), and calls for pervasive reforms (Courts and Ballingall 2013; Glass 2024). Police leaders report being open to constructive conversations (LaFlamme 2020; Viau 2022), but media depictions of Canadian policing (Potenteau 2020) can negatively impact the well-being of police and their families (Carleton et al. 2020; Gagnon et al. 2020). Challenges with recruitment and retention of Canadian police are also escalating (Gagnon et al. 2020; Tunney 2023; Schroeder 2024), with concerned groups implicating occupational stressors, health concerns, unrealistic expectations, and negative media coverage (Bennell et al. 2021; Sauvé 2023). Misinformed public perceptions appear pervasive, such as evidence that Canadian university students estimate police use firearms for ∼2% of public encounters (Bennell et al. 2022), despite actual use being ∼0.01% (Hall and Votova 2013).
Canadian police organizations have legally approved procedures outlining acceptable and expected use of force for responding to levels of threat to the public or the officer themselves, such as when a suspect intends to cause grievous bodily harm or death to any person (Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police et al. 2000; Royal Canadian Mounted Police 2017); therefore, police use of force is not inherently wrong, is sometimes necessary to protect citizens, and is prescribed by provincial legislation to prevent further risk of harm to the public. Provincial Police Acts and the RCMP Act explicitly define use of force exceeding legally approved standard operating procedures or involving code of conduct violations (FELSOP) as deviations from standard operating procedures or involving code of conduct violations that cause or risk serious duty-related bodily harm (DRBH; i.e., injury that creates a substantial risk of death, causes serious disfigurement, or causes substantial loss or impairment of mobility of the body as a whole or of the function of any limb or organ; The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act 1985; Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police et al. 2000; Royal Canadian Mounted Police 2017; National Police Federation 2021). DRBH includes intentional harms to police by members of the public (van Reemst and Fischer 2019; Shjarback and Maguire 2021). Available data can describe DRBH during Canadian police interactions (see Methods), but peer-reviewed research describing serious DRBH involving FELSOP remains scant (Bennell et al. 2021). There have been several calls to resource and maintain mutually agreed upon, accepted, and nuanced Canadian databases describing DRBH involving FELSOP (Bennell et al. 2021, 2022; Simpson and Nix 2024) and police-involved deaths (e.g., Marcoux and Nicholson 2018; Tracking (In)Justice: A Law Enforcement Data 2023), but no such databases currently exist. Canadian DRBH and police-involved deaths can be contextualized relative to occurrences and a reasonable comparator group to manage expectations.
