There is an application for that, even to help monitor people on bail in Ontario.
And he is receiving some updates, courtesy of a provincial subsidy of $ 2.4 million, completed last year.
In 2019, the Toronto Police created a bail compliance board, a mobile and desktop application, to give officers a place to review the bail conditions, the guarantee information and the address of those who are released on bond for charges related to firearms before verifying them. Earlier this year, the Provincial Police (OPP) of Ontario took over the application of the application to expand it throughout the province.
With three years of provincial financing, which began in 2023 and involves next March, the Toronto Police have improved its systems, so the board receives faster judicial information and in more people, which allows officers to do more compliance controls.
Now they can also start monitoring people in the application facing other serious positions, such as car theft, housing invasions and people trafficking. The work, carried out in association with the Regional Police of Durham, is called Project Adak.
“We have expanded year after year,” said Craig Lawrie, leader of the Information Management Unit of the Toronto Police.
“We are obtaining faster judicial data, it is more precise, and we are ensuring that we are reducing administrative loads where we can, so the frontline officers have more time for the fulfillment of the bond.”
Number of checks up to 200%
Last year, Toronto police completed 200 percent more bail compliance controls compared to when the board was created for the first time six years ago. During the conscious project, officers were able to complete 2,718 more checks in 2024 than in 2023.
“In the past, officers would have to use manual type methods such as spreadsheets or cup shots on a wall,” Det said. Sergeant Andrew Steinwall, who works with the bail compliance unit.
“This leads us to modern times.”
Steinwall says that officers check the application before completing a compliance check, which usually begins with going to a person’s house on bail for a serious crime to ensure that they continue their conditions. What happens later depends on what they find.
Now there are more than 1,200 people who face TPS charges with their information on the board. The majority (714) are for crimes of firearms, along with approximately 500 people who are monitored by the other serious positions that the service has added.
More application better than bail reform: lawyer
Alison Craig, a Criminal Defense Lawyer with headquarters in Toronto, believes that this is a good investment.
“For a long time I have said that the solution is more compliance and application controls, instead of changing in bail laws and bail reform,” he said. “I hope that the system shows that it is effective, it will perhaps help more people receive bail, because our prisons are overcrowded.”
Most of the Ontario prisons had a lot of capacity in 2023, according to a Canadian press investigation last year. And the people arrested in custody waiting for a cutting date or a trial represented 80 percent of that population in 2022-23, the most recent year for which the data is available in Statistics Canada.
“One of the reasons that should be considered on bond is public perception,” said Craig.
“If the public is aware that the fulfillment of the bond is taken seriously and money is being invested in that, then it will help less people detained awaiting trial, because more people can be released safely on bail, knowing that there will be compliance checks.”
The financing for the expansion of the application throughout the province of the OPP and these updates come from $ 112 million in spending the Ontario government aimed at strengthening the application of the bond in April 2023.
16 Ontario Police services using the application
There are now 16 police services in Ontario using the provincial bond compliance panel, with another service ready to start this week, according to the OPP. All police services in the Great Toronto area are in it, and a OPP spokesman confirmed that he is working with the remaining police services in the province to obtain their data in this regard.
Together, the application is monitoring more than 2,730 people on bail, compared to approximately 1,650 almost two years ago, Lawrie told CBC Toronto.
“We have been able to have a better idea of the broader image of who is on bail and for what, through this project,” he said.
CBC Toronto obtained a copy of the TPS financing application and other related records for this provincial bail compliance subsidy through a request for freedom of information.
The application included baseline numbers and objectives for several statistics aimed at reducing the rate of bond and recidivism violations, and improving the monitoring of “high risk” individuals on bail.
The Toronto Police wrote in the request that in 2023, 2.9 percent of those who monitored for the fulfillment of the bond had repeatedly. But they said they did not know how many people under community supervision had found themselves in violation of their bail conditions in general or how many of them had been readmitted into custody while they were on bail.
In their application, they said they did not have the “technology and/or processes” to track those statistics.
But Lawrie says that is also changing.
“We have developed processes,” he said. “We have hopes, as he mentioned in the subsidy, in the end that we can have a better idea of that number, and then we can also climb it to other agencies.”
Another objective listed was to increase the total number of people monitored by the board to 2,900 at the end of March 2026. At this time, they have just under 200 people less than that goal. But Lawrie says her approach is the quality of the quantity.
“We need to make sure we have the capabilities to ensure that what we have in front of the officers who perform the checks are always updated and precise,” he said.
“Until that can make sure, then we cannot expand.”
