Supt. Peter Clark, the commanding officer of the Yukon's RCMP, spoke one-on-one with reporters for the first time Wednesday, in the wake of a civil suit filed against the force and eight of its members by the family of a man who died in police custody.

The negligence claim was filed Tuesday afternoon by Deanna Charlie, daughter of Raymond Silverfox, who died on Dec. 2, 2008.

Because of that, Clark could not talk specifically about Silverfox, but focused instead on how the organization is responding to the revelations – made at the inquest into his death – that a number of RCMP employees treated the Little Salmon-Carmacks First Nation man with callousness and disrespect.

Halfway through the inquest, on April 19, Clark and the Yukon Justice Minister Marian Horne announced the government would be doing a policing review to address a number of issues. Those include chronic inebriates, addicted people who are constantly cycling through the RCMP's drunk tank as well as the Salvation Army and the emergency room.

"There has to be a community or social mobilization,” Clark told the Star of what he wants to see come out of the review.

"We need to – and I think we already do – recognize that the social problems that the police deal with – really, the police should be the final method of social control and support. We're the final safety net, and so is our cell block. It's only when other options have been exhausted or unavailable that the law should be used to take away someone's freedom.

"I hope that we can work with the others to develop options that are useful. And I think it needs to be action-oriented.

"I think there's been a lot of work done already and it's appropriate that we look for some really meaningful outcomes. Which is why I think the review that we've initiated through minister Horne has a lot of opportunity to it because it's the first time you have the RCMP and the Department of Justice actually sitting together and working on recommendations, rather than having somebody from an outside source or an outside organization coming in and saying,

‘This is what you should do,' because sometimes those recommendations or those action steps are not achievable.”

During the inquest, the coroner's jury heard from Judy Lightening, a longtime staff member at the Salvation Army, who said the church-run shelter can't take care of all the people who come through its doors.

When the shelter has a client it can't care for, it only has one place to call: 911.

If the ambulance arrives and the person says he doesn't want to go the hospital, as Silverfox did, then the only other place for him to go is the drunk tank.

The jury heard from a number of police officers that people in that position are generally arrested under either the Criminal Code, for causing a disturbance; or the Liquor Act, for public intoxication. They are taken back to the cells and released when sober, usually about 12 hours later. They are rarely charged with anything.

"That's the way we do business in Whitehorse,” one officer told the jury.

The only other place to go is the detox centre which has just 10 beds, two reserved for women.

As was heard during the inquest – and echoed last week by Dr. Rao Tadepalli, head of the territory's medical association – there are people who are in and out of the emergency room and the drunk tank daily.

Silverfox was not one of those people described as chronic inebriates; he had never stayed at the Salvation Army until the night before he died, and although he had been drinking heavily that weekend, he was not a regular drinker.

Regardless, his treatment has been blamed partly on officers' and guards' desensitization from dealing with drunk people on a daily basis.

"I think our people are very well suited to the job they've chosen,” Clark said of his officers. "I think they are exceptional men and women who do the best in difficult circumstances.

"I don't believe any employee of any organization comes to work intending to be disrespectful, but the grind and the sensitivity can result in some poor behaviour.”

At the inquest, the public heard about officers and guards laughing at Silverfox and never offering him medical help in spite of the fact he threw up 26 times while in custody, covering himself and the floor of his cell with vomit.

"When somebody makes a mistake, you first of all make sure they have the right training, they have the right information, they have the right knowledge of expectations, and you speak to them about that,” Clark said.

"We take them aside at a supervisory level and say, ‘No, what you did was wrong. Why did you do it? It should not happen again. What can I do to ensure that you understand that was incorrect and give you the proper tools, information, guidance and assistance to ensure that you will become a more valuable employee?'

"These things are sometimes merely a verbal conversation; sometimes they end up being added as a note to a file; sometimes there's a performance log created which is a document the RCMP uses to document guidance and direction.

"Different situations result in different levels of supervision. When those behaviours continue, there's an escalation in the way the supervisor should be dealing with it.

"At some point if it reoccurs, there might be some need for more training in cross-cultural sensitivity. There may be recognition that the employee has simply been in that job for too long, and needs to try out new duties because their focus and their attention has become dysfunctional.

"Those are not punitive transfers; those are developmental transfers which give people a fresh start, a different look at their duties.

Eventually, if it continues again, there may be a greater level of supervision, which is progressing up the ladder towards actual discipline, and there's different levels of discipline that are allowed within the RCMP Act.”

Following the Silverfox inquest, five officers are facing code-of-conduct investigations – the highest level of the formal discipline process.

A formal disciplinary hearing takes a much longer time than the informal process, and in fact it has been called "glacial” by Commissioner William Elliot, Canada's top Mountie, who has called on Parliament to update the RCMP Act to make the process more efficient.

"Formal discipline involves setting up adjudication panels; it involves legal motions. It's kind of like a trial .... Those can be lengthy delays and fraught with administrative challenges and legal arguments.

"And I certainly agree with the commissioner that as an organization, we need to look at legislative changes that will allow that to move forward more quickly.”

Last week, RCMP spokesman Sgt. Don Rogers said that in his experience, code-of-conduct cases can take as long as two years to be heard.