(CRM3b) Safety, Inclusion and the Future of Policing II

This session will feature research that explores policing practices and community wellness. Existing challenges surrounding the themes of policing, community, safety, inclusion, diversity, and social problems will be further discussed. Tags: Criminologie, Police

Organizers: Doug Thomson, Humber College, Emma Smith, Humber College; Chairs: Emma Smith, Humber College, Doug Thomson, Humber College

Presentations

Chris Giacomantonio, Dalhousie University

Institutionalization, legitimacy, and governance in civilian-led crisis response

Utilizing publicly available documentation from new civilian-led crisis response services in Canada and elsewhere in North America, this paper examines the new organizational ‘field’ of civilian-led crisis response. Drawing on organizational and institutional theories, the paper considers the processes, structures, and pressures that are currently developing, imagines several potential futures for the field, and sets out the consequences of those different futures. Across North America, municipalities are establishing new crisis response services that are focused on mitigating crises resulting from insufficient mental health supports, homelessness and the housing crisis, and/or substance use and addictions. A central driver for the establishment of these new services has been advocacy work focused on ‘de-tasking’ the police, which inter alia promotes the removal of police from activities where a uniformed, armed responder may be ineffective or harmful. Civilian-led crisis response services remain a highly varied organizational field, with multiple different staffing, funding, and operational models in place across the continent. Several services operate in parallel with other emergency response services, with some in direct partnership with police. Other models are funded publicly but operate at arms’ length from government, for example by non-profit community health or peer support organizations. Several services have been in place for several years (and in a few cases, decades), while many others are still in pilot testing phases (see, e.g., Livingston, 2023). The governance of these services also differs alongside these organizational models, with some being managed directly by municipal or state/provincial government agencies, while others have greater autonomy and direct community involvement in decision-making. This emerging arrangement raises practical questions about how these services will navigate their relationships with police and other state and community resources, as well as normative questions regarding the basis for legitimacy of these novel institutional configurations. While these new services are intended to replace police in at least some situations, they will inevitably operate to support social order and exist in the shadow of police (state coercive) power. This means that these services will sometimes engage in ‘policing’ (sociologically speaking), which in turn raises questions regarding consent, authority, accoutability and, ultimately, legitimacy. Legitimacy, in this sense, refers to subjective judgements of a political community toward an authority’s rights to take action and make demands (e.g., Tyler, 2004; Worden and McLean, 2017). Legitimacy requires pre-existing expectations about an individual’s, or group’s, reasonable treatment by an organization or its representatives, based on broader institutionalized rules and norms about what that organization is meant to do. Once these expectations are broadly established, they create reflexive pressures on individual organizations, and other organizations in the field, to become increasingly similar to one another – a process known as ‘isomorphism’ in organizational theories (see, e.g., DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Mulone, 2022). These pressures will, in turn, circumscribe the futures available to this organizational field, and constrain – for better or worse – the kinds of expectations that political communities may have of how these services should operate. To this end, this paper reviews available evidence on the operation of civilian-led crisis response services to date, and considers the potential mechanisms through which these services may establish institutional legitimacy and related governance and accountability mechanisms. Building on organizational and institutional studies in policing (e.g., Crank, 2003; Terpstra, 2020), and acknowledging the policing role of these organizations (among other roles), the paper builds a conceptual a foundation for near-term debates as the field moves toward institutionalization.

Ibrahim Turay, Lethbridge College and University of Lethbridge

Being Black in Southern Alberta.

Knowledge of the often-negative experiences of people of African descent from their encounters with police in Canada tends to be informed primarily by academic literature from the United States (US) and the Province of Ontario, making it seem incidences of police violence directed towards Black Canadians are, for instance, not prevalent in the Canadian prairie provinces. This paper represents a chapter in my dissertation project aimed to amplify the voices of self-identified Black youth, aged 16-30, in Southern Alberta of their experiences from their encounters with police in Lethbridge, Calgary, Brooks, and Medicine Hat. Using a Critical Race Mixed Methodology consisting of an online perception survey and interviews, I created 37 cases that I analyzed in NVivo, using an intersectional Counter-Storytelling framework. Findings from this study suggest the type of policing they experience is associated with their identified city of residence and gender. For example, those who identified as women, who were also Black youth from Lethbridge, were more likely to experience subtle forms of police violence, ranging from dismissiveness to harassment and intimidation. In contrast, participants from Calgary who predominantly identified as men were more likely to experience physical and hostile police violence, ranging from handcuffing to having firearms aimed at them. Thus, I found that anti-Black police violence is as much a problem in Southern Alberta as in larger cities like Toronto or Ottawa, Ontario and that covert police violence happened more to the participants and significantly impacted them.

Luiza Dutra, Pontifícia Universidade Católia do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS)

The Use of Digital Technologies by Military Police: debates on surveillance, the future of policing and privacy

Surveillance has become a subject of great interest among researchers and social activists worldwide in recent years. The advancement of digital technologies, the expansion of the internet and mobile networks, as well as communication applications, has led to an expansion of the range of control, data processing, and institutional actions. It can be said that even social relations have changed as a result of these events. From data processing in health areas to policing and security, macro and micro relational dimensions have experienced new dynamics. Currently, surveillance depends on the digital infrastructure that has enabled the growth of large-scale, faster, and distributed computer systems in various institutional and private locations, as well as the active participation of millions of people who, consciously or unconsciously, contribute to its growth. Disputes surrounding this discussion daily take shape around the fields and limits of surveillance and privacy, presenting important examples that illustrate the current struggles. In this sense, the integration of new digital technologies, the use of artificial intelligence, and data monitoring and processing software in various social institutions are hallmarks of contemporary society. In police corporations and the field of public security, it is no different: facial recognition and the use of body worn cameras are some of the technologies that mark public debate on policing and public security in Brazil and worldwide. Specifically, the use of body worn cameras emerges amid disputes within the field of Public Security in Brazil as a way to better manage police operations, reduce abuses of power, confront the high number of deaths caused by agents, and prevent deaths of police officers themselves. Despite promises of social improvements through the use of this technology, the analysis of conflicting discourses in the field of police action control, as well as challenges/possibilities/trends for the use of these technologies, has been the focus of many national research efforts. Building critical awareness based on studies of the field seems to be a necessary path to consider how to manage the future of policing in vigilant societies that seek to manage security in the best possible way. In these different analytical scenarios, the present research aimed to provide a state of the art regarding studies on police body cameras conducted in the last 5 years in the field of social sciences in Brazil. Thus, the bibliographic search and research focused on Humanities literature, with special attention to literature that brought experiences from the Latin American continent, but also encompassing American and Canadian productions that have already adopted the use of these tools. The research is taking place on some journal portals such as Scielo, CAPES Periodicals Bank, Google Scholar, and Scopus. We also sought to include other formats of scientific works, such as theses, dissertations, and conference proceedings, published until 2023: CAPES Theses Bank, the proceedings of the National Association of Research in Social Sciences (ANPOCS), the Brazilian Society of Sociology (SBS), as well as conferences from Lavits, IBCCRIM, and Digital Humanities. The main terms searched, in Portuguese and English, were: body worn cameras; cameras on police uniforms - câmera nas fardas dos policiais; câmeras corporais. A selection of texts was made based on the scope of the intended discussion, as well as the necessary debates for greater theoretical consistency. In a preliminary conclusion, we can identify that, in Brazil, studies on the use of body-worn cameras in police departments are still in their early stages. Similarly, research tends to be divided between fields that aim to demonstrate the increase in surveillance with the use of these tools, highlighting potential future dangers, or between fields that empirically indicate that cameras can bring benefits regarding police violence, demonstrating a narrative dispute.

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Non-presenting author: Rodrigo Ghiringhelli de Azevedo, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul

Adam Vaughan, University of Regina

Helping the helpers: A scoping review of mental health programming for police officers

Police officers are routinely exposed to unique work-related stressors, including potentially psychologically traumatic events. Exposure to stressors may result in an increased risk for developing post-traumatic stress injury (PTSI) which encompasses a range of adverse psychological outcomes, including but not limited to: substance abuse, burnout, suicidal thoughts and behaviours, depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, moral injury, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The current knowledge of PTSI in police officers often highlights that prevalence in policing populations often exceeds that of the general population. Consequently, the mental health of police officers has become a priority for all levels of government, policing organizations, professional associations, experts, and advocates alike. A great range of interventions, including programs, services, therapies, and policies, have emerged to protect the mental wellness of police officers. Unfortunately, the theoretical foundation and empirical evidence to support these initiatives is often lackluster or completely absent. The uncertainty regarding how to best navigate diverse programs and services without a clear, coordinated approach leaves decision-makers relying on anecdotal evidence and market pitches based on testimonials alone. To improve sectoral capacity, funders have recently invested millions of dollars in research addressing PSP mental health and suitable interventions. As a result, the quantity and quality of research in this field has increased exponentially in recent years. The objective of the present study is to explain the growing body of programing evidence. More specifically, the current study identifies and catalogues the existing empirical research on psychosocial interventions designed to protect and address the mental health of police officers across their career continuum. Structured literature reviews are a useful research tool as they allow researchers to summarize and disseminate research findings to policymakers, practitioners, and knowledge consumers. Scoping reviews (a type of structured literature review) are particularly valuable to decision-makers when a problem is understood (in the case of police officers, the evidence-base on prevalence has been well documented) but the solutions are not. A scoping review aims to identify knowledge gaps, determine what types of evidence are available, discover unknown aspects of a problem or concept, and build an understanding of how research is conducted. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) statement, a scoping review will be completed. Inclusion criteria for the study includes 1) peer-reviewed publications, 2) published within the previous 20 years, 3) published in English language, 4) police officers are the primary research participant, 5) intervention or program was scientifically evaluated. Exclusion criteria will also be included in this study. Preliminary results indicate that the volume of publications has increased considerably in the previous two decades. Much of the research evidence that is generated emerges from North America sources though a considerable volume of evidence is emerging from Australia and the United Kingdom. In comparison to police recruits and retired police officers, the vast majority of the evidence focuses on employed/active duty police officers. Lastly, the majority of studies highlight a heavy emphasis on “upstream” proactive or health promotion programs (e.g., mindfulness programs). A smaller subset of studies (e.g., exposure-based treatment) are designed for “downstream” or police officers who have already been exposed to PTSI. The evidence base for the spectrum of interventions is mixed, with some interventions supported by high-quality evidence-based on synthesis of multiple studies and a number of emerging approaches that will require additional studies to determine their effectiveness more conclusively. Additional work is needed to address less well-studied populations such as police officers who are just starting (or completing) their careers, families and friends, occupational groups, and members of equity groups.

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Non-presenting authors: Kathy McNutt, University of Regina; Jade Anderson, University of Regina