Policing In Canada

In the summer of 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic surged, millions gathered across Canada and the United States to protest violence and racism in policing sparked by the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers. In the days and weeks following, the deaths of Regis Korchinski-Paquet in Toronto and Chantel Moore in New Brunswick showed that police violence is also a Canadian reality. Although BIPOC communities and activists had been calling for action for years, these events sparked unprecedented public outrage and drew crowds in the thousands across Canada calling for the defunding of Canada’s police. Many authoritative reports have identified big problems in Canada’s law enforcement system and have concluded that police are more likely to create or escalate violent situations than promote safety and security. Why? How has an institution tasked with keeping citizens safe become so dangerous to so many Canadians? John Sewell has been studying the problems facing Canadian policing since the 1980s. In Crisis in Canada's Policing, he shines light on the origins of police culture, synthesizes dozens of reports that reveal the failures of the police system in Canada and offers solutions that put power back into the hands of community leaders while reining in and reforming police organizations.

Delving behind Canada’s veneer of multiculturalism and tolerance, Policing Black Lives traces the violent realities of anti-blackness from the slave ships to prisons, classrooms and beyond. Robyn Maynard provides readers with the first comprehensive account of nearly four hundred years of state-sanctioned surveillance, criminalization and punishment of Black lives in Canada. While highlighting the ubiquity of Black resistance, Policing Black Lives traces the still-living legacy of slavery across multiple institutions, shedding light on the state’s role in perpetuating contemporary Black poverty and unemployment, racial profiling, law enforcement violence, incarceration, immigration detention, deportation, exploitative migrant labour practices, disproportionate child removal and low graduation rates. Emerging from a critical race feminist framework that insists that all Black lives matter, Maynard’s intersectional approach to anti-Black racism addresses the unique and understudied impacts of state violence as it is experienced by Black women, Black people with disabilities, as well as queer, trans, and undocumented Black communities. A call-to-action, Policing Black Lives urges readers to work toward dismantling structures of racial domination and re-imagining a more just society.

How can police remain effective and vital in an era of unprecedented technological advances, access to information, and the global transformation of crime? Written by a long-serving officer, Canadian Policing in the 21st Century offers a rare look at street-level police work and the hidden culture behind the badge. Robert Chrismas shares experiences from his years of service to highlight areas where police can more effectively enforce laws and improve relations with the communities they serve. He proposes tactics for addressing widespread social issues such as gang and domestic violence and strategies for cooperating in international networks tackling human trafficking, internet-based child exploitation, organized crime, and terrorism. Chrismas stresses how changing demographics related to age, gender and racial diversity, and increased dangers and demands, require intensified training and higher education in policing. He highlights the need for more effective collaborative relationships between police and local, provincial, and federal governments, non-government agencies, and their communities. While the principles and goals of policing remain largely unchanged, police challenges, tools, and strategies have evolved dramatically. Chrismas's vantage point as an officer and a scholar provides an illuminating account of the Canadian justice system, and road-maps to future success.

This study examines the origins and development of the CACP an important but little-studied non-governmental organization reflecting the interests principally of municipal police administrators within the broader political and social context of the 20th century, a period of dramatic changes in the r

In The Vigilant Eye, Greg Marquis combines the narrative and chronological approach of traditional institutional history with the critical approaches of social history, legal history and criminology. The book begins with the English and Irish roots of nineteenth-century British North American policing and traces the development of the three models of law enforcement that would shape the future: the local rural constable, the municipal police department and the paramilitary territorial constabulary. Marquis examines the development of provincial police services, whose expansion coincided with the rise of mass automobile ownership and controversies over alcohol prohibition and control, and their eventual absorption into the RCMP. In terms of political policing, the vigilant eye has monitored, harassed and disrupted various social and political movements ranging from Fenians to communists, to Quebec separatists and environmentalists. Marquis argues that the style of community policing in vogue during the 1970s and 1980s lacked confidence and had a limited impact. Canada’s simplistic crime-fighting model undermines genuine reform, including curbs on the use of deadly force on citizens, and justifies the increased militarization of policing. Marquis argues that it is time for citizens to turn their vigilant eye towards police and policing in their own communities.

Police services around the world are embarking on a major period of change that has seen few parallels since the founding of modern policing in the 19th century. A conflation of factors some long-standing, others of more recent origin, but all significant – are now coalescing, with implications for the traditional ways in which police services have been providing safety and security for the public. Today, there are many actors who help ensure a safe and secure environment, including technical specialists, public and private security providers, and first responders. As such, police have begun to work within a safety and security web that requires new and dynamic partnerships, flexibility, and adaptability. In addition, police are addressing increasingly complex and global crimes such as terrorism, identity theft, and cybercrime. These challenges, along with increasing costs, have led many around the world and in Canada to re-examine the traditional policing model and consider what modern approaches are required to ensure effective and efficient policing for the future.

In the summer of 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic surged, millions gathered across Canada and the United States to protest violence and racism in policing sparked by the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers. In the days and weeks following, the deaths of Regis Korchinski-Paquet in Toronto and Chantel Moore in New Brunswick showed that police violence is also a Canadian reality. Although BIPOC communities and activists had been calling for action for years, these events sparked unprecedented public outrage and drew crowds in the thousands across Canada calling for the defunding of Canada’s police. Many authoritative reports have identified big problems in Canada’s law enforcement system and have concluded that police are more likely to create or escalate violent situations than promote safety and security. Why? How has an institution tasked with keeping citizens safe become so dangerous to so many Canadians? John Sewell has been studying the problems facing Canadian policing since the 1980s. In Crisis in Canada's Policing, he shines light on the origins of police culture, synthesizes dozens of reports that reveal the failures of the police system in Canada and offers solutions that put power back into the hands of community leaders while reining in and reforming police organizations.