Biography
Steven James Maxwell
Owner and Chief Consultant
Steven Maxwell Drug Recognition Expert Consulting
Former Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) and Drug
Recognition Expert Instructor (DREi) #16089 as
designated by The International Association of Chiefs
of Police (IACP) October 2008 to May 2015
Steven J. Maxwell served as a police constable in the province of Ontario from 2001 to 2014. During that time he was an instructor in the Drug Recognition Expert "DRE" and the Standardized Field Sobriety Test "SFST" programs within the RCMP’s National Drug Evaluation and Classification Program. In addition Steven Maxwell also served as a Qualified Breath Technician and was trained in the use of both the Intoxilyzer 5000C and the Intoxilyzer 8000C.
As a DRE and SFST instructor Steven Maxwell testified and taught in both official languages on multiple DRE and SFST courses and served as course coordinator. He established himself among his peers and students as a knowledgeable, reliable, talented public speaker and trustworthy instructor who is intimately familiar with the International Association of Chiefs of Police standards and guidelines.
Steven Maxwell’s DRE and SFST teaching and field experience across Ontario and Quebec as well as internationally, provided him with in-depth knowledge and specialization with respect to drug impaired driving evaluations. Steven Maxwell has been directly involved in over 750 impaired driving investigations and has been deemed an expert witness by Ontario courts.
As a DRE instructor one of his major responsibilities was approving and critiquing DRE face sheets and narratives completed during live field evaluations by other DRE officers. This involved systematically going through each and every clue gathered by the officer and checking for consistency, accuracy and concurrence between face sheets and narratives prior to the submission of toxicological samples for analysis. These functions played an extremely important role in quality control and improvement of skills and abilities of all DRE’s.
Steven Maxwell began his policing career with the Toronto Police Service in 2001. He worked at 23 Division in a primary response capacity until 2004. He then obtained a position in the divisional Traffic Response Unit "TRU" gaining valuable experience conducting drinking and driving investigations.
In 2006 he transferred to Traffic Services Highway Patrol "TSV", a support unit responsible for all life threatening injury and fatal motor vehicle collisions throughout the City of Toronto. While working at TSV he was trained as a Technical Traffic Collision Investigator (Level III-Aylmer ON), and as a Qualified Breath Technician (5000C-Whitby ON). In 2007 he transferred to the Traffic Enforcement Unit where he was successful in becoming a member of the Winged Wheels precision motorcycle unit. While there he was trained in Standardized Field Sobriety Tests (SFST-Mississauga ON) and as a police motorcycle re-qualification instructor.
Steven left the Toronto Police in 2008 to continue his career with the Ottawa Police Service and in October of that year completed the theory portion of the RCMP Drug Evaluation and Classification Program (DECP-Ottawa ON). February of 2009 he completed the practical portion of the program and was deemed qualified as a Drug Recognition Expert (DRE-Phoenix AZ). Also in 2009, he attended the Standardized Field Sobriety Test Instructors course (SFSTi - Peterborough ON). In 2011 Steven continued his career with the Ontario Provincial Police assigned to Highway Safety Division – Burlington Detachment as a front line officer.
Since 2015 Steven has been working on a consultant basis specializing in drug impaired driving offences offering a variety of services to crown and defence counsel, insurance companies and corporate risk management departments in Ontario, Quebec and elsewhere.