Community Safety Unit

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• COMMENT. CBC News and the Toronto Sun are reliable sources. TCHC has a poor reputation, in part because of deferred maintenance of many of its buildings, the entitled behaviour of senior management and the overly aggressive behaviour of its security personnel. Perhaps some of text in the draft could be moved to a new section in Toronto Community Housing Corporation rather than creating a new article. I have added "unarmed" to indicate that these guards do not carry guns. I have also added a heading for "Complaints and incidents" since the article's creator omitted them. Eastmain (talk • contribs) 04:27, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

• COMMENT. They are not security guards as they go through the same background checks as police officers in order to obtain peace officer status. Furthermore they have the same powers as police on or in relation to TCHC properties. Security Guards solely operate under a trespass to property act and have little to no arrest authority and must turn over arrested parties to peace officers. Special Constables can arrest under many acts and the criminal code, and furthermore can transport their prisoners directly to a jail-cell for a show-cause, or issue them a promise to appear to court with conditions as well. There is a significant difference between a Special Constable/Peace Officer/Police Constable and a security guard. Please also cite your sources as to where you've seen "overly aggressive behaviour of Special Constables". And complaints and incidents will remain empty until you or anyone can contribute something to that heading because I have no notable complaints nor incidents to add.Tsirpas (talk • contribs) 10:09, 5 September 2021 (EST)

The Community Safety Unit (CSU) is the Law Enforcement agency of Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC), a nonprofit housing provider in Toronto, Canada. TCHC first established a protective service as contracted security guards in the early 1990s. Soon after, the security firm was taken in-house and adopted a corporate security model. In the year 2000 the City of Toronto launched a pilot project to create Special Constables in TCHC. These Special Constables were sponsored and sworn in by the Toronto Police Service. The pilot project was deemed a success and most in-house security guards became sworn peace officers (Special Constables).. In 2015 the CSU launched a new deployment model creating faster response times and greater community engagement. This was the first step taken towards a more policing model in the community to combat the increasing violent crime and drug trafficking taking place within and in relation to TCHC properties. In 2017 the Toronto Police Services board approved the expansion of the Community Safety Unit (CSU)

Currently the CSU consists of approximately 192 (and approved for a complement of 300) special constables making it the largest (independent) special constable agency in Canada. The CSU is larger than some police services in Canada and statistically deals with more investigative and criminal code enforcement than many rural police services in the province of Ontario. The CSU went under a rapid progression to a law enforcement model under their new Chief Special Constable William (Bill) Anderson (a former Peel Regional Police and Hamilton Police Service Staff Sergeant) in 2018. Many initiatives were brought in such as the Violence Reduction Program (VRP). The VRP was introduced as a tool to counteract the extreme increase in violent crime in the city of Toronto. This project was backed and applauded by both Toronto City Council and the Toronto Police Service

References

This article "Community Safety Unit" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Community Safety Unit. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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