Ontario Provincial Police

The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP; French: Police provinciale de l'Ontario, PPO) is the provincial police of the Canadian province of Ontario, and the second-largest law enforcement agency in Canada, after the RCMP. It is responsible for all provincial, regional and local policing within the province of Ontario, including highways and rural areas, small towns, suburbs and their larger urban centres, and busy inner-city areas. While the force was founded in 1909, for most of the 20th century its responsibilities were limited to policing smaller towns and the countryside as well as provincial-wide policing, with medium to larger cities typically having their own municipal police departments. Following the 1977 amalgamation of policing in Ontario, all police forces within Ontario were integrated into the OPP, with all municipal forces dissolved and the OPP becoming the premier law enforcement agency in Ontario.

Each independent municipality, administrative county and regional municipality, as well as constituent lower-tier municipalities, of Ontario has a dedicated OPP detachment, which is responsible for all law enforcement activity within the respective jurisdictional area. Detachments of lower-tier municipalities operate as sub-detachments of their respective county or regional municipality. Some detachments consist of only a single station, such as those serving rural areas with essentially nothing but farmland; by contrast, the Toronto Metropolitan Detachment is the largest detachment of the OPP, consisting of 27 stations serving the Greater Toronto Area. This regionalisation of detachments is organised under the constabulary's Patrol Directorate; detective directorates like homicide or VICE have jurisdiction in all parts of the province, usually maintaining a headquarters but commonly setting up shop in other detachments' stations when following specific leads and/or working on a particular investigation.

Ontario is one of only three provinces in Canada (along with Quebec and New Brunswick) which does not have its own sheriff service; ie., a judicial police service responsible for the detention and transportation of remanded detainees prior to conviction and entrance into the correctional system, which is managed by a separate agency, as well as providing security and bailiff services for the provincial court system, maintaining the security of senior members of the provincial government, and other law enforcement roles as directed by the courts or the Solicitor General. Like Quebec and New Brunswick, in Ontario, the OPP has a special judicial division responsible for all sheriff work, inclduing bailiff services and provision of security to all provincial courthouses in Ontario. Activities which would be handled by the British Columbia Sheriff Service in British Columbia as opposed to the British Columbia Provincial Police are always handled by the OPP in Ontario, meaning that the OPP is also a judicial police force and bailiff service.

Rank structure
The rank structure of the Ontario Provincial Police is roughly identical to most other provincial police agencies, and like all Canadian police agencies, the rank insignia is displayed on the epaulettes of the officer's shirt or jacket; the rank insignia, however, vary slightly from other police agencies.

Unlike many other provincial police agencies, the lowest two ranks of the OPP do not have their badge number displayed on their epaulettes; instead, for ranking constables and sergeants, badge number is sewn onto shirt and jacket immediately below surname; this is in addition to badge number displayed on warrant card, which all officers carry.

Below are the ranks issued to all sworn constables of the OPP:

Civilian ranks
Like most other provincial police, civilian employees (ie. non-sworn constables/officers) use a three-tiered ranking system, which is indicated by tie colour: black is the lowest rank (clerk), red the middle rank (supervisor), and blue the highest civilian rank (director).

Even though, within the police, "civilian" refers to employees of the police who are not sworn constables, in reality this is a misnomer, as all members of a police force are in fact civilians, at least when distinguished from military personnel.