The Wicked Problems Of Police Reform In Canada

This book looks at police reform in Canada, arguing that no significant and sustainable reform can occur until steps are taken to answer the question of 'What exactly do we want police to do?' Adding challenge to this is that setting boundaries on what we expect the police to do requires grappling with the complex social problems we ask them to resolve. In public policy language, these are ‘wicked problems’ – social or cultural issues frequently seen as intractable. Authors Huey, Ferguson, and Schulenberg, all policing scholars, draw on a unique collection of data to explore these issues: over 20 years of research (2000– 2021) ranging from in-depth interviews, surveys, and field observations to document analysis and systematic social observation. Pooling this data generates a national-level picture of changes in the policing operational environment over these decades. This book focuses on four particular wicked problems (mental health, substance misuse, homelessness, missing persons) with causes and potential preventative treatments that lie primarily outside the criminal justice system and yet continue to be treated as 'policing problems.' Bringing about changes in public policing requires changes in public policy, and these are precisely the types of wicked problems that need innovative policy solutions. This book is suitable for a wide range of audiences within and outside Canada, including law enforcement and community leaders; scholars and policy experts who specialize in policing; students of criminal justice, organizations, and management; and citizen-consumers of information about policing.

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.

This book untangles the components of police education and advocates a robust community-based training model with significant civilian oversight. The recommended approach recognizes that the citizenry needs to be included in the provision of basic police education, for it is they who must both support and be served by their police. The police must be role models for society, demonstrating that freedom and rights come with obligations, both to the community as a whole and to individuals in need within that community. Ultimately, the quality of police training and the public’s safety depend not only on the leadership of police executives as well as the quality of educational institutions and police candidates but also on the building of a community’s trust in its police. The issues of police recruitment, education, and retention have greater consequence in an era when protests and other signs of negativity surround law enforcement. Several incidents, including, most notably, George Floyd’s murder by police, have sparked new training initiatives regarding police de-escalation and community engagement. At the same time, the proliferation of gun violence and a contentious political climate have led some officers to refrain from undertaking proactive types of policing. In this context, reform of the police education system is urgent. This book examines police training at all levels of government—local, regional, state, and federal. In addition, citizen participation programs, including the role of the media and programs for furthering law-related education (LRE), are highlighted. The proposed police education model recognizes that ordinary members of the American public need to contribute to the provision of basic police education, for it is they who must both support and be served by their police. The focus is on teaching a "guardian style" of policing at the local level. Police education would combine higher education, necessary practical proficiencies, and intensive field experiences through a gradual level of greater responsibility—likely extending over a 2-plus-year period for trainees with less than a year of previous college credits. This book will be of interest to a wide range of audiences such as law enforcement professionals and trainers, including those in executive development programs in police departments; community leaders, scholars, and policy experts who specialize in policing; concerned citizens; and students of criminal justice, especially those interested in police organization and management, criminal justice policy, and the historical development of police.

Relying on intense ethnographic research and extensive experiences teaching human rights policing to police officers, this book teaches law enforcement professionals how to apply human rights to their everyday interactions with community members. The data collected throughout this research process offers the reader first-hand accounts of police officers addressing the most important human rights as they relate to policing, telling stories of using their human agency while on the job, and providing insights into their discussions with community members on human rights, among other important topics. Human rights remain a relatively new concept in human civilization, but one largely unrealized at this point in history. Can police officers serve as the harbingers of human rights in a world that desperately needs it? We say yes. It starts with applying human rights to police work. But this book does more than teach police officers how to apply human rights to their careers. It reimagines the institution of law enforcement as we push toward the later stages of modernity. Refusing to tell readers what to think, this book provides the intellectual tools on how to think about policing in new and creative ways. It seeks to bring out the readers’ full creative potential as law enforcement agents, police officers, and criminal justice professionals and activists. This book advances new ideas throughout each chapter on how to make human rights policing a reality. The ideas in each chapter build on each other, offering a small piece of the puzzle and all the steps necessary to advance the goals of human rights policing. The book (1) analyzes the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and how it applies to policing, (2) develops a three-fold typology called “Human Rights Policing Social Interactions,” (3) discusses the relationship between the use of power and human rights, (4) explains the power of human agency to transcend the ordinary, (5) uncovers the creation of folk devils that threaten human rights, (6) describes how to use the sociological imagination to understand community members, (7) reveals the importance of storytelling to see the world from the actor’s point of view, (8) discusses the double consciousness and the creation of the “other,” (9) describes what we call “soulful policing” and engaging with the community— Chicago style, and (10) provides social policy suggestions at both the national level and local policing level. This book will challenge the reader in fascinating and highly surprising ways to think about, and, further, to reimagine policing as we push toward the future. It will appeal to professionals at all levels of law enforcement, and will be useful in programs offering degrees and/or certificates to students of criminal justice.

This book is an in-depth, evidence-based guide to interviewing suspects with specific vulnerabilities. It provides an overview of current research, practices, and legal considerations for interviewing vulnerable suspects, incorporating guidelines regarding the identification of vulnerabilities, engaging with third parties in the interview, and training and supervision. It then goes on to cover specific vulnerabilities typically encountered in suspect populations, providing clear summaries of current research, case studies, and practical guidance for conducting interviews with these populations to facilitate best practice in interviewing. Expertise is drawn from both law enforcement practice and academic research to ensure an evidence-based approach that is relevant for contemporary practice. Interviewing Vulnerable Suspects offers the international policing audience a practical guide to interviewing vulnerable suspects for both uniform police and detectives. It is relevant for statutory bodies involved in investigations of misconduct; legal practitioners and forensic psychologists; practitioners in counselling, social work, and psychology; and students in policing, criminology, and forensic psychology programs.

This book is about people who are marginalised in criminology; it is an attempt to make space and amplify voices that are too often overlooked, spoken about, or for. In recognising the deep-seated structural inequalities that exist within criminal justice, higher education, and the field of criminology, we offer this text as a critical pause to the reader and invite you to reflect and consider within your studies and learning experience, your teaching, and your research: whose voices dominate, and whose are marginalised or excluded within criminology and why? This edited collection offers chapters from international criminology scholars, activists, and practitioners to bring together a range of perspectives that have been marginalised or excluded from criminological discourse. It considers both obscured and marginalised criminological theorists and schools of thought, presents alternative viewpoints on ‘traditional’ criminal justice themes, and considers how marginalisation is perpetuated through criminological research and criminological teaching. Engaging with debates on power, colonialism, identity, hegemony and privilege, and bringing together perspectives on gender, race and ethnicity, indigenous knowledge (s), queer and LGBTQ+ issues, disabilities, and class, this concise collection brings together key thinkers and ideas around concerns about epistemological supremacy. Marginalised Voices in Criminology is crucial reading for courses on criminological theory and concerns, diversity, gender, race, and identity.

Part I. Definition of the issues -- A. Introduction -- B. Absence of a theoretical base -- C. Police discretion -- D. Political discretion -- E. Resource allocation -- 1. Apportioning responsibility for crime -- 2. Apportioning responsibility for services -- F. Societal and institutional change -- Part II. Present solutions -- A. Introduction -- B. The constitutional organization of public policing -- C. Public police organization -- 1. Functional divisions -- 2. Human resource development -- (a) Recruitment and selection procedures -- (b) Education and training -- (c) Promotion policies -- (d) Labour relations -- Part III. Advantages and disadvantages of current arrangements -- A. Introduction -- B. Constitutional arrangements of public policing -- C. Public police organization -- 1. Functional divisions -- 2. Human resource development -- (a) Recruitment and selection procedures -- (b) Education and training -- (c) Promotion policies -- (d) Labour relations -- Part IV. Preparing the police for the future -- A. Introduction -- B. Political discretion -- (a) The capability-factor and the optimum size of a police force -- (b) Selective enforcement and the constitutional position of the chief of police -- (c) Human resource development -- (i) Recruitment and selection -- (ii) Education and training -- (iii) Promotion policies -- (iv) Labour relations -- C. Police discretion -- (a) Preventive policing philosophy -- (b) Use of detective resources -- (i) The re-active function -- (ii) The pro-active function -- D. Conclusion -- Endnotes.