ABSTRACT
Policing is the largest component of the Canadian criminal justice system and, accordingly, receives the biggest slice of criminal justice funding at $12.6 billion annually in 2010 (Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, 2011). There are 238 police services in Canada, and of those, 117 services have fewer than 25 staff. Five Canadian police services—the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the Toronto Police Service, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), the Sûreté du Québec (SQ), and the City of Montreal Police Service (Service de police de la Ville de Montréal, or SPVM)—account for just over 60% of all full-time police officers in Canada. Municipalities across the country, with the exception of those in the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut, have a choice as to whether to create and operate their own independent police service or to contract out to a provincial police service.
