The Wicked Problems of Police Reform in Canada

135 Pages·2022·11.744 MB·English

by  Laura Huey, Lorna Ferguson, Jennifer L. Schulenberg

i
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.
Laura Huey is Professor of Sociology at the University of Western Ontario, Editor of Police Practice and
Research, Chair of the Working Group on Mental Health and Policing of the Royal Society of Canada, and
the former Executive Director of the Canadian Society of Evidence- Based Policing. She is also a member of
the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada, and a Senior Research
Fellow with the National Police Foundation.
Lorna Ferguson is a PhD(c) in the Sociology Department at the University of Western Ontario, Canada,
and is the Founder of the Missing Persons Research Hub. Lorna has a broad interest in policing research
and developing evidence- based approaches to policing and crime prevention, including issues related to
cybercrime and persons with mental illness. Currently, she focuses on police responses to missing person cases
across Canada. Lorna’s most recent research has appeared in Criminology and Criminal Justice, Policing & Society,
and Policing: An International Journal.
Jennifer L. Schulenberg is Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo. In 2019, she was an EU
Erasmus + Teaching Fellow at the University of Graz. Working closely with police practitioner communities,
she is also the author of several government reports and has either consulted with various community crime
prevention groups or sits as a committee member on community safety advisory panels. The author of peer-
reviewed publications in policing and research methods – among other topics – her work has appeared in The
Journal of Crime & Delinquency, Criminal Justice and Behavior, the Journal of Experimental Criminology, and Police
Quarterly, among others.
ii
ROUTLEDGE SERIES ON PRACTICAL AND
EVIDENCE- BASED POLICING
Books in the Routledge Series on Practical and Evidence- Based Policing disseminate knowledge
and provide practical tools for law enforcement leaders and personnel to protect and serve the
public and reduce crime. With an aim to bridge the “translation gap” between frontline policing
and academic research, books in this series apply sound scientific methods as well as practical
experience to make everyday police work safer and smarter. These books are an invaluable resource
for police practitioners, academic researchers, public policymakers, and students in law enforce-
ment and criminology programs to guide best practices in all aspects of policing.
Police Misconduct Complaint Investigations Manual, 2nd Edition
Barbara Attard & Kathryn Olson
Police and YOUth
Everette B. Penn & Shannon A. Davenport
Twenty- One Mental Models for Policing
A Framework for Using Data and Research for Overcoming Cognitive Bias
Renée J. Mitchell
Public Corruption in the United States
Analysis of a Destructive Phenomenon
Jeff Cortese
The Wicked Problems of Police Reform in Canada
Laura Huey, Lorna Ferguson & Jennifer L. Schulenberg
Human Rights Policing
Reimagining Law Enforcement in the 21st Century
Peter Marina & Pedro Marina
iii
THE WICKED PROBLEMS OF
POLICE REFORM IN CANADA
Laura Huey, Lorna Ferguson
and Jennifer L. Schulenberg
iv
Cover image: ThomasVogel
First published 2023
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Laura Huey, Lorna Ferguson & Jennifer L. Schulenberg
The right of Laura Huey, Lorna Ferguson & Jennifer L. Schulenberg to be identified as authors
of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN: 978- 1- 032- 28350- 0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978- 1- 032- 28185- 8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978- 1- 003- 29644- 7 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/ 9781003296447
Typeset in Bembo
by Newgen Publishing UK
v
CONTENTS
List of Figures vi
List of Tables vii
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction 1
1 The Policing Mandate and the Question of Reform 12
2 Wicked Problem 1: Mental Health 29
3 Wicked Problem 2: Substance Misuse 48
4 Wicked Problem 3: Homelessness 66
5 Wicked Problem 4: Missing Persons 83
6 One Year Later 100
Conclusion: Moving Forward 114
Appendix: The Studies 120
Bibliography 121
Index 124
vi
FIGURES
1.1 Google Search Trends (Police Reform) 2004– 2021 17
1.2 Google Search Trends (Police Brutality) 2004– 2021 18
1.3 Google Search Trends (Abolish Police) 2004– 2021 18
1.4 Communist Party of Canada: ‘Change the System’ 20
2.1 Vancouver Police CAD Dispatch Screen 43
3.1 Overdose Fatalities, B.C. (2011– 2021) 57
5.1 Race/ Ethnicity of Victims in Unsolved Missing Cases, Saskatchewan
1940– 2020 (RCMPS, 2020) 84
6.1 Tweet on an Article Regarding Toronto Encampment 105
6.2 Missing Persons Poster and ‘Every Child’ Matters Sticker 108
vii
TABLES
2.1 Chronology of Major Public and Public Policy Events Related to
Mental Health (2000– 2010) 34
2.2 Chronology of Major Public and Public Policy Events Related to
Mental Health (2011– 2020) 38
3.1 Chronology of Major Public and Public Policy Events Related to Substance
Misuse (2000– 2010) 51
3.2 Chronology of Major Public and Public Policy Events Related to Substance
Misuse (2010– 2020) 56
4.1 Chronology of Major Public and Public Policy Events Related to Homelessness
(2000– 2010) 68
4.2 Chronology of Major Public and Public Policy Events Related to Homelessness
(2011– 2020) 74
5.1 Chronology of Major Public and Public Policy Events Related to Missing
Persons (2000– 2010) 85
5.2 Chronology of Major Public and Public Policy Events Related to Missing
Persons (2010– 2020) 90
A.1 Table of Data Included in the Studies 120
newgenvprepidfii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank Jason Boutcher, Peter Callahan, David Sverding, and Colin Watson
for reviewing earlier drafts and providing critical feedback.
1
INTRODUCTION
Overview
On the one-y ear anniversary of the death of George Floyd,1 the Police Executive Research Forum
(PERF) recently released a statement in which they summarized a series of major trends in public
demands for police reform. These demands2 focused primarily on accountability measures (civilian
oversight) and operational policy (banning no- knock warrants and chokeholds) (PERF, 2021).
Reviewing the list is instructive because it tells us what various groups and individuals do not want
police to do. However, they fail to answer a question that should lay at the crux of any meaningful
conversation on reform: What exactly do we want police to do?
In this book, we argue that no significant and sustainable policing reform can occur until
we take steps to answer this challenging question. The reason for this is simple: Our inability or
unwillingness to tackle it means that police will continue to be seen as the most expedient – but
not always the most effective – solution for far too many social problems. In short, we cannot
change policing without a cohesive sense of what the policing mandate should be and then make
significant changes to their operational environment. Some might argue that such change can
only come about as a result of increased public awareness. As we demonstrate throughout the
pages to follow, police services are dealing with the exact same issues in 2021 as in 2000. And,
if we look to classical works by Bittner (1967, 1970, 1974), Wallace (1965), and Ericson (1982),
among other prominent writers, we see these are also essentially the same issues as policing
scholars were documenting in the 1960s and 1970s. Public awareness has not been the cause of
inaction; lack of consensus over a coherent idea of who the police are and what we, as communi-
ties, require them to do is a much more likely culprit. Adding further challenge to this task is that
setting up boundary limits on what we expect the police to do also requires us to grapple with
the complex nature of the social problems we currently ask them to resolve. In the language of
public policy, these are too often ‘wicked problems’ – social or cultural issues that are frequently
seen as intractable because addressing them would entail policymakers to address the limits of
our knowledge, resolve contradictory sets of social values, identify and tackle complex, often
interconnected root causes, and work within and across institutional boundaries and networks,
each with their own challenges.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003296447-1