This brief examines Canadian police incident command response teams’ process of decision-making during major, critical, and public order events. It explores the different factors that influence how police Incident Commanders (ICs) approach their work, and demystifies this work and how it is organized and operationalized.

The chapters in this book detail:

• The basics of how incident command is structured in Canada.

• How incident command models in Canada relate to those in other countries.

• Overviews of the training and responsibilities for different incident command types.

• First-hand accounts of how ICs approach their work and feel about the decisions they have to make.

This book is ideal for practitioners and policymakers who are interested in how this mode of policing works. It is also suitable for policing students in upper-level criminology and criminal justice courses curious about this potential line of work.