When Can I Be Arrested?

Police can always place you under arrest if they have an arrest warrant. They can arrest you without a warrant if they find you committing an offence of any kind - summary conviction, indictable or hybrid - or have reasonable grounds to believe you have committed an indictable or hybrid offence. Remember that most offences in the Criminal Code are hybrid offences. 

To arrest you without a warrant for a summary conviction or hybrid offence, police must have other reasons to think that they have to arrest you instead of just charging you and giving you a "notice to appear" (see our Long Answer).

Police can also arrest you without a warrant if they believe you have breached or are about to breach a condition of your release, if they believe a warrant for your arrest exists and in a couple of other situations we talk about below.

If you think you have been arbitrarily (without a legal reason) detained or arrested, tell your lawyer.

Police can always arrest you if they have a warrant for your arrest. An arrest warrant must be signed by a judge. To get an arrest warrant, the police need to give a judge evidence that the person has committed a crime. Unless the police are specifically searching for a person, they do not usually have the warrant with them. However, you have a right to see a warrant as soon as possible if you ask.

Police can arrest you without a warrant if they: 

• find you committing an offence of any kind (summary conviction, indictable or hybrid) OR
• have reasonable grounds to believe you have committed an indictable or hybrid offence.

But in order to arrest you without a warrant for a summary conviction or hybrid offence (whether they find you committing the offence or have reasonable grounds to believe you committed the offence), police must have other reasons to think that they have to arrest you instead of just charging you and giving you a notice to appear (a piece of paper listing your charge and telling you when to come back to court). They need to have reasonable grounds to think:

• that you will not attend court unless arrested OR
• that it is in the "public interest" to arrest you to:
  • figure out who you are if you will not identify yourself
  • make sure you do not destroy any evidence
  • stop you from continuing a crime or committing another crime

There are other circumstances in which police can arrest you without a warrant...

• They have reasonable grounds to believe that a warrant for your arrest exists.
• They have reasonable grounds to believe you have breached or are about to breach a condition of your release. They can arrest you to let a judge deal with the alleged breach.
• They find you committing a breach of the peace. This can be difficult to define and will depend on the circumstances.
• You have breached a condition of your parole, release or temporary absence from jail. In this case they must believe they have to arrest you to figure out who you are OR to prevent you from committing another breach or continuing the breach. They must also believe you will not report to your supervisor if they do not arrest you.
• You have breached or are about to breach an assessment order under the mental disorder provisions of the Criminal Code.

There are also some non-criminal situations in which police can arrest you without a warrant. You  can be arrested if:

• you are intoxicated in a public place, but only if police reasonably believe your are likely to injure yourself or another person if you are not detained and there is no other person able to look after you
• you are suffering from a mental disorder and are likely to cause harm to yourself or others or suffer serious deterioration if not detained, in which case you must be taken to a mental health centre and you must be examined by a doctor within 24 hours