Police Reform
New thought and new initiatives are needed for true reform. A deeper discussion into law enforcement practices is required. Past and present efforts of re-enforcing the status quo (identify bad apples, fire them and then re-enforce supervisory mechanisms) is flawed and fails, as is seen historically and at present.
How to Initiate Police Accountability
In
Canada, similar to other western democracies, the police enjoy a
position of high regard and trust by the public. This position has been
consistently held for many years regardless of police scandals that
plague individual police organizations from year to year. For the most
part, Canadians are satisfied with the policing product that is
provided to them for their tax dollars. Satisfied because, other than a
scandal of significant merit and/or attention by which change is
demanded, we are assured by the chief of police or superintendent that
things are fine and to trust that everything is under control. Such
assurances, given when a department is shaken by scandal, are provided
in the guise of promises of "greater oversight" by police management,
and careful due diligence, to prevent such a thing from occurring
again; to trust the police, once again, to keep their house clean.
Assurances which are nothing more, really, than rebuilding an ever
larger sandcastle on a tidal basin.
But, organizationally, what
does it entail to keep ones house clean especially with such agencies
as the police who, internally, are secretive and suspicious of any
outside poking and prodding? The public is assured that everything is
fine and running smoothly regardless of the dearth of available
information of whether or not best practices are being followed. And,
when a best practice is suggested it is tempered with the coda that
policing is a situational enterprise and thus the best practice is
watered down so as to tailor it to a specific community (a discretion
left to the police chief).
There is no sufficient reason as to
why this practice needs to continue. The police should be audited by an
outside agency. As the appointed Auditor General of Canada, Sheila
Fraser, has proven time and again, an audit brings light to dark
corners and reveals practices that need to change or even eliminated;
change that may not be obvious to those within the organization or who
are unwilling/unable to bring it about. Typically, the most opportune
time is either in response to crisis or when new blood, a new chief, is
brought in (from an outside agency not promoted from within). However,
this is not sufficient, as is evident from the continual cycling of
scandals which plague departments across Canada, an audit of a police
department should be a regular occurrence.
The Problem As I see It
The fusion of military structures and training procedures in a citizen constabulary inadvertently encourages behavior that may be seen as inappropriate by police officials and the judiciary. Military institutions have a different raison d'être than that of citizen constabularies, and thus a different code of behavior. The result is that citizen constables are continually forced to choose between conflicting traditions in carrying out their duties in any community. When they choose wrong the standing of the police organization may be diminished. Many instances of purportedly inappropriate police behavior result from the application of military rather than citizen policing perspectives.
Web Links
Policing, military ethos and territoriality
Email:Police Reform