A report from Chief of Police Frank Bergen recommended the move. Pictured: HPS Chief Frank Bergen. Photo Credit: HPS.
The Hamilton Police Service Board approved the addition of 16 new full-time Special Constables to the Hamilton Police Service (HPS) after a report from Chief of Police Frank Bergen recommended the move.
The hiring will result in an increase of $463,216 (or 0.22 per cent) to the 2025 budget and is inclusive of salaries and benefits with a Sept. 1, 2025, deployment date.
However, HPS expects that a large portion of those costs could end up being offset by the province since Special Constables are often involved in providing court security and prisoner transportation, which the Government of Ontario helps cover.
Bergen also noted that Special Constables now have additional powers as of April 1, 2024, under the Community Safety and Policing Act which allows them to exercise duties under the Highway Traffic Act s. 134, Liquor Licence and Control Act, Trespass to Property Act, and provide custodial care under the Mental Health Act.
Special Constables can also be used to provide security at crime scenes, assist with road closures, transport property, collect, tag and process lost/found property, controlled substances and weapons, provide a visible presence in the community and assist with other administrative tasks.
As such, Bergen noted that the hiring of more Special Constables would free up other officers and also reduce the need to have employees work overtime.
HPS has been running a pilot program called “180 Wagon” since January 2024 where Special Constables have been used to perform some of the above tasks, and police have found that “their work has eased the pressures on frontline patrol officers which in turn has allowed those officers to focus on their core policing tasks and ultimately the provision of public safety.”
HPS states that the pilot program has “diverted a total of 805 events, totaling an estimated 2,172 hours of work away from frontline Constables.”
Bergen said that HPS currently has 41 full-time Special Constables that provide court security at the three Hamilton courthouses, but that five of those members are off on WSIB.
In terms of provincial funding, Bergen says that HPS’s 2023 costs for court security and prisoner transportation totalled $7.59 million, with the province covering $4.88 million (64.3 per cent) of those costs.
HPS also currently employs 44 part-time Special Constables who are limited to 112 hours per month, but due to staffing shortages both part-time and full-time employees have had to be called in for overtime which increases costs.
HPS says that in the past 12 months, part-time labour has been used to service 49 per cent of the total hours required for court security.
Thus, Bergen recommended that 16 part-time Special Constables be converted to full-time, a move that was approved by the Hamilton Police Service Board.
Since those members are already part of the existing workforce, HPS will also save recruiting and training costs.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
