Pubdate: Sat, 22 Apr 2006
Source: Winnipeg Free Press (CN MB)
Copyright: 2006 Winnipeg Free Press
Contact:  http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/502
Author: Tom Simms
Note: Tom Simms is co-director of the Community Education Development 
Association.

KEEPING THE PEACE

Winnipeg Police Need To Abandon War Mentality

YOU will not find the term law enforcement officer in the Criminal 
Code of Canada. The term that is used is peace officer. There is a 
big difference between keeping the peace and enforcing the law. Peace 
keeping is a more proactive and preventive form of policing, while 
law enforcement is more of a reactive approach.

The previous police chief of the Winnipeg Police Service, David 
Cassels, fully understood this difference and demonstrated this 
understanding on his first day on the job in May 1996. Cassels had to 
face a large delegation of community groups from the Lord Selkirk 
Park public housing development who were calling upon city council 
for neighbourhood foot patrol officers to work in the local community 
because of the growth of gangs, prostitution and drug trafficking. 
Half of the housing units in this public housing development were 
vacant and boarded up because people were too scared to live in this 
neighbourhood.

Cassels supported the request of the Lord Selkirk Park residents and 
assigned neighbourhood foot patrol officers to begin working 
immediately in the local community. Within a year, all the boarded-up 
housing units were re-opened as people found that Lord Selkirk Park 
was once again a safe place to live. Cassels went on to establish 
over 20 of these neighbourhood foot patrol officer positions in high 
crime neighbourhoods throughout the inner city of Winnipeg in his 
first six months on the job.

Chief Jack Ewatski has dismantled community policing over the past 
number of years. He has recently promoted Operation Clean Sweep as a 
strategy to address safety concerns in high crime neighbourhoods. 
This policing approach paints entire neighbourhoods as the place 
"where the bad guys live" and innocent citizens are often victimized 
by the police services' over zealousness to win the "war on crime."

Chris Braiden, the retired police superintendent who was the 
architect of community policing in Edmonton points out, "if I am 
thinking of war, I am looking for enemies; if I am thinking of peace, 
I am looking for allies."

He believes that the police need to do a better job of building 
relationships with community residents, just like the old British 
"Bobbies" used to do, in order to improve public safety in inner city 
neighbourhoods. Sir Robert Peel, the founder of modern policing, 
identified that "the power of police to fulfill their functions and 
duties is dependent on the public approval of their existence, 
actions and behaviour, and on their ability to secure and maintain 
public respect." The Winnipeg Police Service has lost the trust and 
respect of a growing number of inner city residents. It's hard for 
the police to build positive relationships with residents of the 
community if there is a "revolving door" of police officers coming 
into these neighbourhoods simply to "chase and arrest the bad guys."

In order to be effective peace officers, the police need to learn 
about the strengths of the local community as well as the challenges 
of the neighbourhood. If the police only relate to the community by 
dealing with the criminal element, it is inevitable that the police 
will become jaded with and disrespectful of inner city neighbourhoods 
as they will only develop a one dimensional view of the community.

Chris Braiden argues that police need to make better use of existing 
policing resources in order to improve services to the community. 
Braiden conducted a workload analysis study of the Edmonton Police 
Service in 1991 and found that only 34 per cent of the police 
officers handled the 172,000 dispatched calls for service. This 34 
per cent of the police force was also responsible for initiating 85 
per cent of the criminal charges. He questions what the other 66 per 
cent of the police officers were doing if they were not responding to 
calls for service.

The average citizen would be surprised how few police officers are 
actually out patrolling the streets each day. The 1991 workload 
analysis study of the Edmonton Police Service indicated that only 25 
per cent of police officers were involved in general patrol duties. 
Everyone else was in some form of specialist back up role or 
unavailable due to vacation time, sick leave or days off.

Between 1980 and 1990, the Edmonton Police Service hired 45 
additional police officers but had 72 less officers on the street; 
between 1990 and 1994 when the police service shifted towards a 
community policing approach -- four additional officers were hired 
and there was 92 more officers on the street; between 1994 and 2004 
with a shift away from community policing -- 125 more officers were 
added to the force but there were 124 less officers doing street 
level policing.

More funding for police officers does not necessarily result in more 
police officers on the street due to personnel deployment decisions 
that promote the use of specialized units rather than general patrol officers.

One of the alternatives to improve police accountability in our city 
is to establish a civilian police commission to oversee the operation 
of the police service. Of the 10 big cities in Canada, Winnipeg is 
the only city that does not have some form of a civilian police 
commission. A key role for a police commission is to establish a 
vision and policy direction for how the citizens of the community 
want their police service to operate.

A police commission, could for example, set an objective for the 
Winnipeg Police Service to find a better balance between reactive and 
proactive policing. Inner city residents want the crack and crystal 
meth houses closed down, they want the gang issues to be addressed, 
and they want to have safer neighbourhoods. In order to accomplish 
this, the Winnipeg Police Service needs to deploy more officers on 
the street as a way of doing business instead of relying on expensive 
specialized initiatives like Operation Clean Sweep. While cranking up 
the testosterone makes for good headlines, it does not necessarily 
address the long term challenge of keeping the peace in inner city 
neighbourhoods.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman