Private policing contracts by the Edmonton Police Service have grown significantly over the last five years, according to new data, with the number of hours and dollars involved more than quadrupling since 2020.
The extra duty detail (EDD) program allows private organizations to contract Edmonton police officers outside of their regular shifts, for duties ranging from traffic control to providing a visible police presence at large events.
CBC News obtained the data through a freedom of information request to EPS.
Temitope Oriola, a professor and criminologist at the University of Alberta, said that while there may be situations where extra duty details make sense, current EPS policies lack clarity on the distinction between public and private policing.
“The line appears to be quite blurred right now,” he said. “It’s unclear to me where one ends and where the other begins.”
The practice of providing private policing services through paid contracts goes back decades at EPS.
In the past, EPS’s private contracts included “weddings, bars and nightclubs, graduations and other questionable events,” according to an EDD policy document. Those shifts often “devolved into security work resulting in an unacceptable ownership of liability and careless stewardship of EPS resources.”
As a result of a 2013 review, the program today has stricter rules and a client’s request must meet certain criteria to be approved.
The policy outlines three categories for EDD requests.
One category is “crime and/or disorder.” For these requests, clients must first provide “verifiable information and statistics” to demonstrate that crime or disorder is occurring. A risk analysis of the request must be completed, weighing safety concerns and how the proposed deployment would reflect on EPS.
According to the policy document, these types of requests are rarely granted because it would invite allegations of preferential treatment or two-tier policing. If a client’s request highlights a legitimate public safety concern, it may be addressed by deploying regular EPS resources.
Extra duty requests can also address “client risk management,” described as cases with the potential for crime, disorder or risks to public safety, such as with large crowds during festivals or sporting events.
The third category, which is rarely used, involves police officers being requested for ceremonial roles.
The EDD rules also allow for the deployment of police to direct traffic during construction or the movement of large equipment. Such “vessel move” jobs are described as an “exceptional” subcategory. However, they account for 32 per cent of the list of clients, although the data does not indicate how many hours or officers that represents.
There are also restrictions around when officers are allowed to accept the voluntary shifts, including requirements to have at least one hour between their regular shift and an EDD shift, and at least eight hours of rest between an EDD shift and their regular shift.
The EPS data provided to CBC includes monthly totals for the number of hours, number of officers and amount paid to police working extra duty shifts. The hourly rates for extra duty police start at $150 for a constable and $30 for a car, with a minimum charge of three hours.
The data also includes a monthly list of clients. However, no information is included about how many hours or officers each client represents, or even how many days per month a contract might be for.
For example, although Hope City Church appears once per month during the past three years, the church said in a statement that it had hired two officers each Sunday to help with the congested traffic from the 4,000 people who attend its services.
In 2020, the amount paid to police for extra duty shifts was less than $800,000. By 2024, that figure rose to $3.8 million.
Between 2021 and 2024, the number of EDD shifts increased by 215 per cent, while the number of hours rose by 240 per cent.
During that same period, the number of Edmonton’s sworn police officers rose from 1,921 to 2,119 — an increase of 10 per cent.
The time frame of the data spans the social restrictions of the pandemic and three Oilers playoff runs past the first round. These events may explain some of the trends but it’s not backed up by the data, because of the lack of detailed information around hours or shifts per contract.
In a statement, EPS provided figures of extra duty shifts for 2018 and 2019, saying that the recent increase was simply a return to pre-pandemic levels.
However, the number of EDD shifts last year
