U of R study finds RCMP members at higher risk of sexual victimization

Officers likely to report sexual victimization A study suggests that across Canada, officers are more likely to report experiences of sexual victimization. Hallee Mandryk reports.

When Juliana Khoury was deciding on a topic for her thesis, she saw a need for more information regarding sexual victimization among RCMP members.

“I think that the first step in addressing a problem is really understanding it. So my hope is that data can provide a representative scope of the problem and therefore help the RCMP in their ongoing efforts to reduce sexual victimization along their members,” she said.

The study had 1,324 respondents. Results showed that both men and women reported a higher number of instances of sexual assault and harassment throughout their lifetimes compared to the average Canadian population.

Additionally, women in the RCMP reported more instances of being victimized by their colleagues while their male counterparts are more likely to be victimized by members of the public.

“Men RCMP are being sexually assaulted by civilians while on duty so I hope to assess how often RCMP are being physically assaulted and what the supports are in place for them,” Khoury said.

There were some positive findings as well, with RCMP cadets reporting less sexual assaults and harassment than the average Canadian university and military students.

“The surprises were very good surprises that we saw such low prevalence of our cadets working at depot and also the relative change that we think we’ve seen since the 2018 report,” said Nicholas Carleton, professor of clinical psychology at the U of R.

Carleton was speaking in reference to a class action lawsuit against the RCMP concerning gender and sexual orientation based harassment and discrimination of female RCMP members and public service employees in the workplace from 1974 to 2017.

The two also credit the inception of the National Police Federation.

There are now supports in place for RCMP members, including the Independent Centre for harassment Resolution which was formed in 2021.

CTV News reached out to the RCMP for a response.