By: Sylene Argent, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Essex Free Press
Superintendent Mark Loucas told Essex County OPP Detachment-North Board members – which oversees Essex, Lakeshore, and Tecumseh – he has received some heat regarding the delays many have experienced with the Criminal Record Check process.
He updated the Board on the matter at its December 8 meeting.
“We do obviously take this seriously,” Loucas said. “Each time we received those notifications of what was going on, I made sure we passed it up our command chain to get to the Commissioner, so he had a good perspective as to what the issues are with the program.”
Earlier this year, the North Board (in February) and Essex Council (in May) separately discussed this issue, and both decided to send a letter to the Crime Prevention and Community Support Bureau of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) regarding concerns heard from individuals trying to receive a criminal record check and the length of time it had been taking.
There was concern that the delay with the process was making it challenging to become a volunteer and to provide employment.
In following up on that, Loucas told members of the North Board last week that the Commissioner has provided strict timelines in what is believed organizations should be able to complete in terms of a turn around.
Locally, to address the issue, the third-party agency responsible for providing Criminal Record Checks has hired and trained additional staff, and the OPP has been able to utilize staff that has been trained to help expedite the process and handle the Criminal Record Checks, as well.
“We have seen a reduction in the wait times,” Loucas said, believing the process has gotten better over the past 12-weeks. He told members of the North Board he hoped they had heard less negative feedback regarding the length of time it was taking to complete Criminal Record Checks.
Those with a tight timeline to get a Criminal Record Check complete have been prioritized, he added. That is “so we don’t have the issues like we experienced with people who were not able to get into medical school because they were waiting [due to] those delays,” Loucas added.
North Board Chairperson, Paul Sweet, thanked Loucas for the update, adding to his understanding, the Criminal Record Check process became much more in-depth than they once were, adding to the delays, in addition the third-party agency taking them over.
Loucas explained there is a tiered system in place for the types of requests, depending if it is community volunteer versus someone going to be working with children or vulnerable individuals. That changes the level of clearance required.
The issue, once the process was transitioned to the third-party and being an online platform, if the wrong stream was selected, the applicant could have been reverted to the beginning of the process. With the process now, they are able to help individuals as they want, face-to-face, through the process.
He does believe it will take sometime to clear-up the backlog of Criminal Record Check requests.
Essex Mayor Sherry Bondy asked that a letter be sent to the Board from the professionals with an official response that can be sent to those who have concerns. Loucas said he can accommodate that.
