Building bridges, then burning them: The evolution of Toronto Police Service’s Neighbourhood Community Officer program

17th March 2026Matthew Wood, Policing Insight in Canada

For more than 12 years, Toronto Police Service’s Neighbourhood Community Officer (NCO) program has been working to place officers directly within communities, build relationships, and focus on solving problems; since its launch, Dr Doug Thomson and Dr Emma Smith have been evaluating the successes and challenges of the NCO program – both from the perspective of the officers involved, and from the communities they work in and with – as Policing Insight’s Matthew Wood reports.

To read this article you need to have an individual paid subscription or subscriber access via your organisation’s corporate subscription.

Please sign in to your account or subscribe to a plan below to read this article.

If your organisation has a corporate subscription please register a FREE account with your organisation email address for full subscriber access.

Email Address or Username:

Password:

Forgot password?

Having problems creating an account or can't sign in? Please e-mail [email protected]

Username: *

Email Address: *

Verify Email Address: *

Captcha: *

A registration to Policing Insight also registers you for access to sister site PolicingTV.

Receive the Policing Insight Weekly Digest Receive the Policing Insight Daily Brief (powered by Media Monitor) I would like to receive information and offers from carefully selected partners of Policing Insight and PolicingTV

Having problems creating an account or can't sign in? Please e-mail [email protected]

Building bridges, then burning them: The evolution of Toronto Police Service’s Neighbourhood Community Officer program

Request a password reset using the form below