As campus reopens for Fall 2021, you will find a different organization patrolling its streets and buildings: meet University of Toronto Campus Safety – Special Constable Service.
In June 2021, the University of Toronto Campus Police announced that it was changing its name and visual identity across UofT’s three campuses. Their official news release cites that the rebranding will “better reflect the robust range of public safety services that [they] provide to the University community.” According to web archives, individual members of the Campus Police Service were called Special Constables since at least July 2010. The organization’s mission remains the same: “Creating a safe, secure and equitable environment for those who work, live and study on the St. George Campus.”
Despite the rebranding, Special Constables’ front-facing literature defines their authority primarily in relation to police officers: “On or in relation to University property […] Special Constables have the powers of arrest and release, have the discretion to act on criminal and provincial offences, and have the authority to transport prisoners within the City of Toronto.” They are also mandated to bring infractions of university policies to academic leaders.
The current role and authority of Special Constables are nearly identical in its first archival, dated July 25, 2010. The same goes for the training program, which teaches Special Constables laws and procedures relevant to front-line officers: aside from a new name to match the new brand, its description is the same word-for-word.
This change in the Campus Police’s persona comes only a year after the widespread Black Lives Matter protests of June 2020, wherein faculty and student groups across campus continued an ongoing effort to advocate in support of the Defund the Police and Cops Off Campus movements. In an open letter, published in The Varsity in the summer of 2020, community members demanded “a comprehensive process for defunding and abolishing Campus Police and creating anti-carceral community safety initiatives,” as well as for “[f]unding intended for further training and policy development for Campus Police [to] be reallocated to the hiring of more counselors and trained personnel to support students in crisis.”
The letter cites a history of police misconduct on University of Toronto campuses, the most recent reported incident being in 2019 when a University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) student in mental distress was handcuffed instead of being provided with the appropriate counseling or support. A video posted to the University of Toronto Graduate Student’s Union’s Facebook page shows students being met with intimidation tactics from a number of officers after putting a Cops Off Campus banner in their office window last winter.
“At the very best, the rebranding of Campus Police signifies an acknowledgement of these long-standing issues, and is the first step towards reimagining the role of policing in the University and greater context,” said Isaiah Murray, Vice-President Equity at the Scarborough Campus Students’ Union—a group that remains committed to Cops Off Campus—in an email to The Strand. “At its worst, the rebranding stops at a performative avoidance to associations with existing police brutality and corruption.”
