Policing – Not Yesterday but Today

         

 

 

Comments.    Considerations.     Questions.

      

           by Kenneth Bagnell

   

                 

 

It’s now about half a century since Robert Kennedy, then a Senator and Attorney General, made a comment that bears recalling: “Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves; what is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists upon….” Today? I’d modify that by adding one word: “maybe.” Canadians – at least in Ontario – may well be wondering if the rank and file of their police forces include more questionable officers than they ever realized. And if it’s so in Toronto what about elsewhere? The evidence to back this up appeared over several days in a reliable and lengthy series of articles in Canada’s largest circulation newspaper, The Toronto Star. (For the record, The Toronto Star checks very carefully; when I was an editorial writer on The Star it had a media trained lawyer sitting at the editing desk virtually every hour. This particular series would most certainly have been “lawyered.”)

Here’s a sample of a few revealing incidents that have been proven to have happened in the last few years:

• In 2008, a constable who wanted to advance to sergeant took a test leading to that level. But first he put in an earpiece so that his girlfriend, also on officer, hidden nearby with the police study booklet, could radio her boyhood with any answers he had trouble with. Still he didn’t pass when interview time came. His girlfriend, ever loyal, helped him cheat the next time. He still failed. Third time, he got caught. I guess he’d never make it to a Rhodes scholarship not just on intellectual grounds but ethical ones. His punishment? A modest pay cut. I suggest a university student discovered in such a corrupt act could be out on his ear, thereby giving notice to every other student at exam time.
•   An officer, in a police force on the edge of Toronto, entered over 60 false insurance claims, and thereby gave himself many thousands of dollars obviously fraudulently. He was arrested, charged with fraud and forgery to which he pleaded guilty. He was demoted, given lower pay, but stayed on the force. (And, as if to help him next time, he was given training in finance.) Maybe he’ll do things more smoothly from now on.

 

• A Toronto officer, less than three months after being disciplined for an assault, turned on his wife, beat her, and pushed her to the ground. Once again, (actually for the fifth time), he was “disciplined.” While the prosecutor said that given his record he should be fired he wasn’t. His lawyer claimed the assault “low level” and the good news was that he was trying to recover from alcoholism. There’s a great deal more but that’s probably enough to give you the perspective of the Star’s series which, took many months to research and, when it appeared, each filled a page or two for most of the week.

 

Naturally, as in years past, the senior chiefs assure us most police officers are not corrupt which, I’m quite sure, is true as in most organizations. Nonetheless the shocking presence of so many very questionable officers is a matter of deep concern which the public must not dismiss. I mean everywhere. After all, if it’s so widespread where I live it’s not absent where you live. Moreover, the senior officers and the overseeing boards almost always complain that newspaper editorial writers are too hard on them. I’ve experienced that. My memory of discussing issues, more than once, with Toronto’s then chief of police and a handful of his deputies far back in 1960s when I was on the editorial board of The Star, is that they were reasonably controlled but highly and openly impatient if not indignant. The Chief of the day got so red in the face and then got redder by the minute I honestly worried he might have a heart attack. A member of the overseeing “police board” leaned over to me and murmured: “Look, if you guys keep up this criticism the police will start quitting….” (For years, criminologists have been mostly scorned by senior police officers, many of whom I say with regret, being quite –at times deeply — anti-intellectual.) Now, about 40 years later, the evidence, some of it printed above, doesn’t bear that out. They rarely quit and even the miscreants, most of them, outrageously survive the dismissals they deserve. Why so? They can easily be replaced. Why? Because the job is highly attractive and rewarding. Its income and benefits make a very good package coast to coast, so good an overflow of young men and women fresh from police academies vie to join a local force.

A worthwhile perspective to consider is that of Tracey L. Meares, a Yale Professor of Law, who was appointed by President Obama to a Task Force called “21^st Century Policing.” In brief she makes subtle but genuine distinctions in police policies and practices: whether they comport with the law, whether they are fair, but ideally if they conform to what she calls and commends: “rightful policing.”  She’s written on this in a scholarly essay called: “The Good Cop: Knowing the Difference Between Lawful or Effective Policing and Rightful Policing – and Why it Matters.”

As she explains it: “First, rightful policing does not depend on the actual lawfulness of police conduct. Instead, rightful policing depends primarily on the procedural justice or fairness of police conduct. Second, rightful policing does not depend on an assessment of police as ever more effective crime fighters, although it turns out that rightful policing often leads to more compliance with the law and therefore lower crime rates. Additionally, and critically, ‘rightful policing’ is likely to help us move toward police governance that is substantially, as opposed to rhetorically, democratic. (Surely elected civic councillors and board appointees might well note her view.)

So what to do about the misconduct which readers tell me is almost omnipresent, and in my view, is in danger of getting worse. One of the most important is the most obvious: effective teachers in policing academies and on policing boards, people progressive enough to understand and adopt what the above practice means. For years such boards have been too close to being only fronts, servants of police service. How do I know? From personal experience and more recently from media sources and friends who are reliable witnesses. But there’s good news: no less than a couple of weeks ago, the Editorial Board of the credible Montreal Gazette had this to say, in approving the city’s new overseeing police agency: “The current system, which still has police investigating police in Quebec, is outdated and has been roundly criticized by citizens, civil liberties groups and even the provincial ombudsman.”  Almost at the same time, The Globe & Mail, historically noted for calm and civil editorials, let go with one on police conduct which almost shocked me. It called for police civility to law abiding citizens and in part said this:

“In general, society has given police the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes, police have to keep order, and sometimes they have to use force to uphold the law. But the blanket trust implicit in this arrangement was granted before society began to see, on video, how unnecessarily violent and brutal some officers can be, and how far they are willing to go to cover their tracks….. Canadian law allows an innocent person walking down the street all sorts of latitude in responding to police including the right not to respond. But for many cops, anything less than bovine docility is grounds for a punch in the face and handcuffing…If officers don’t have the wherewithal to remain calm and respectful when a citizen exercises the constitutional right to tell them to go to hell, they need to consider another job. Crossing guard for instance.” My, my. When I was on the editorial board years ago, some people used to call the paper The Good Grey Globe & Mail. Times do change.

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 All past blogs are archived on my website: your comments are welcome there: www.kennethbagnell.com.