École nationale de police du Québec - Police investigation

Basic Training Program
The Program Objective
Program Curriculum

Basic Training Program

Three Public Inquiry reports on police investigative work and its relevant training have greatly influenced how the Police Act is formulated with reference to investigative functions. The Bellemare Report (1996), the Corbo Report (1997) and the Poitras Report (1998) recommended raising the minimum standards in investigator training and suggested that this training be of an advanced level. Enacted in 2000, the Police Act grants the School the exclusive responsibility of providing basic training to police personnel, including training in police investigation. In order to fulfil its responsibility, the School has been offering, since 2002, a basic training program in police investigation, in partnership with a number of Quebec universities.

Pursuant to Article 116 of the Police Act, the government may, by regulation, establish the minimum qualifications required to carry out investigative functions. In force since July 27th 2006, this regulation provides new training standards for investigating officers within police forces, which include the completion of the School’s basic training program in investigation.

The Program Objective

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The basic training program in police investigation allows the police officer wishing to become an investigator, to develop the basic skills required for an effective intervention in common and everyday situations, namely regarding criminal law, crime analysis, work planning and organization, problem solving, ethics, rules of professional conduct, as well as the general methods of police investigation. Target Clientele
The basic training program in police investigation applies to police officers wishing to become investigators or those officers currently employed as investigators but who have yet to complete the required training.Content
The basic training program in police investigation consists of five university-level courses, totalling 285 hours, broken down as follows:

Criminal Law applied to police investigation (3 cr.) The Investigative Process (3 cr.) Criminological Analysis: police investigation (3 cr.) Elements of Applied Ethics (3 cr.)
Police Investigation Integration Activity (6 cr.)

The first four courses may be offered off campus if there is sufficient demand. They are prerequisite to the Police Investigation Integration Activity

To obtain a degree in police investigation, the basic training program offers two possible paths: the scheduled curriculum and the regular curriculum.

The Scheduled Curriculum
The main characteristic of the scheduled curriculum is that it has stated starting and termination dates, which allows police forces to plan the training of their future investigators. For the scheduled curriculum, the five courses are distributed in three segments.

Segment A
The first segment is made up of the Criminal Law applied to police investigation and the Investigative Process courses, offered in team teaching over a two-week period. At the end of this two-week period, the officer who has successfully completed the Criminal Law applied to police investigation course may be employed as an investigator, under supervision.

In the Investigative Process course, the student must complete 17 hours of on-the-job training following the two weeks of team teaching, with distance support from the School staff. The student’s assignment is to prepare a suspect interview plan using a real case from the force they work for. The student must also determine the work the investigator must do, taking into account the suspect’s profile, the conjugal violence intervention protocol and the multisectorial agreement concerning children who are victims of sexual abuse, physical abuse or negligence that threatens their physical health.This method also gives the student the opportunity to benefit informally from the expertise of investigators in his police force.

Segment B
Over three non-consecutive weeks, the second segment consists of the courses Criminological Analysis: police investigation and Elements of Applied Ethics.

Segment C
The third segment is based on the Police Investigation Integration Activity. This activity is offered over three non-consecutive weeks, exclusively at the School.

The Regular Curriculum
Students enrolling in the regular curriculum can take the five-course program according to their own availability and the School’s schedule of courses. The following structure illustrates the order of the courses as recommended by the School.

Students are strongly encouraged to first enrol in the Criminal Law applied to police investigation course, and as such comply with the Regulation on the minimum qualifications required to be employed in investigative functions within a police force. Once this course has been successfully completed, they may be employed as investigators, under supervision. If they wish, students may register for courses from segment A (Criminal Law applied to police investigation and The Investigative Process in team teaching.

Course Calendar
The groups for the scheduled curriculum of the basic training program in police investigation are planned in the course calendar for the 2008-2009 school year. The course calendar also offers different possibilities to people wishing to register in the regular curriculum.