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Mental Health Apprehensions: Sharing Preliminary Findings as Part of our Phased Approach

The Toronto Police Service continues its pioneering work on Race and Identity-based Data Collection (RBDC) and is posting the preliminary findings of 2021 mental health apprehension data under Phase 2 of the RBDC Strategy.

The Service continues to deliver on its commitment to transparency by publicly sharing how this work is unfolding.

Today, we’re posting preliminary findings of 2021 mental health apprehension data following engagements with the Community Advisory Panel (CAP), our RBDC Unit Liaisons and Neighbourhood Community Officers, and the four stakeholder contact groups.

Initial analyses of this police interaction have revealed a unique pattern we haven’t seen in other interactions considered so far under the strategy:

• White people are over-represented in mental health apprehensions relative to their presence in enforcement actions;


• At the same time, Black people are under-represented in mental health apprehensions relative to their presence in enforcement actions.

More in-depth analyses are required to better understand these patterns. Consultations with the CAP, our members, and the stakeholder groups have generated several questions requiring further exploration.

For example:

• Do police have biases in the interpretation of people’s behaviours across race groups when making decisions to either arrest or apprehend under the Mental Health Act?
  • Relative to White people, are Black people more likely to be arrested rather than apprehended?
• Are socio-economic factors, particularly housing, impacting rates of arrest versus mental health apprehension?
• Are mental health apprehension outcomes influenced by the individual reporting the issue to police?
  • Is the presence of caregivers at an encounter associated to the increased frequency of an apprehension?
  • Do lack of supports associate to increased frequency in arrest?
• Do communities with negative relationships with police avoid engaging police when persons are in crisis?
• Relative to those with diagnosed mental health issues, are undiagnosed subjects more likely to be arrested rather than apprehended?
• Are the answers to the above different when specialty mental health (MCIT) units are deployed?

Next steps

Our next step in the process is to conduct further analyses to help us answer these questions. Clarity on the ‘why’ helps support the development and implementation of relevant solutions, which the Service is committed to.

Over the next few months, we will:

• continue conducting in-depth analyses to understand what is driving the patterns mentioned in this release;
• host a forum with key stakeholders in the mental health sector (once more in-depth data findings are available to discuss results, meaningful solutions, and cross-sectoral collaboration).

Visit the RBDC Findings page to read the full RBDC Phase Two - Mental Health Apprehensions in 2021 - Contextual Information.