Police Foundations: Bias, Force Options, and Charter

• Police powers encompass strategies, decision-making, and community engagement.

Charter of Rights and Freedoms

• The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms plays a vital role in defining the scope of police authority.
• Charter rights and pre-existing legal rules combine to legally safeguard against the uninhibited exercise of police authority.
• The Charter allows those accused to challenge police actions.
• Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) rulings resulting from the Charter have also granted significant powers.

Police Accountability

• The principle of accountability ensures actions of police officers and services are subject reviewing through formal channels.
• Individuals can lodge complaints against the police through these channels.

Police Ethics

• Canadian police officers must follow established conduct and ethics codes.
• Questions are designed to help officers navigate and avoid ethical challenges.

Discretion in Policing

• Discretion constitutes the power or right to decide or act according to one's own judgment.
• The amount of discretion exercised is inversely related to the seriousness of the incident.

Cognitive Lenses

• Patrol officers use cognitive lenses to interpret people and events.
• This process involves typification, recipes for action and decision-making.

Bias-Free Policing and Racial Profiling

• Bias-free policing requires decisions based on reasonable suspicion and probable grounds, not stereotypes.
• Racial profiling is one form of biased policing.

Racial Profiling vs. Criminal Profiling

• Racial profiling relies on race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, or origin stereotypes, rather than reasonable suspicion.
• Racial profiling arises from unconscious or explicit biases and can lead to over-policing and pretext policing.
• Criminal profiling uses objective evidence of wrongdoing and attention to "unusual fits".

The Force Options Framework

• Response is proportional to risk
• Officer presence: alters behavior to enable control.
• Dialogue: uses verbal and non-verbal skills to achieve voluntary compliance.
• Empty hands: uses physical force to gain control.
• Compliance tools: uses equipment or weapons to gain control.
• Lethal force: completely incapacitates the subject when reducing a lethal threat.

Entrapment

• Entrapment occurs when someone commits an offense they wouldn't have, due to police pressure or cunning.
• The SCC provided guidelines in R. v. Mack (1988) to help assess entrapment.

The "Mr. Big" Technique

• The "Mr. Big" technique is an investigative strategy that aims to secure confessions through elaborate scenarios.
• The SCC provided guidelines in R. v. Hart (2014) related to the the "Mr. Big" Technique.

Search and Seizure

• Section 8 of the Charter safeguards citizens from "unreasonable" search or seizure.
• Evidence obtained during an illegal search may be excluded from trial per Section 24 of the Charter.
• As held in R. v. S.A.B. (2003 SCC 60) by the Supreme Court of Canada, for a search to be reasonable.
• Generally, a search warrant is required for a lawful police search.

Power to Detain and Arrest

• Police officers can arrest a suspect without an arrest warrant when someone:
  • is caught committing an offense.
  • is believed about to commit an indictable offense.
  • is believed to have committed an indictable offense.
  • Due to the Anti-terrorism Act someone can be arrested on suspicion rather than reasonable grounds.

Professional Model of Policing

• The professional model of policing emphasizes reactive, incident-driven work centered on random patrol.
• It is based on random patrol, rapid response, and reactive investigation--the three R's.

Community Policing

• Community policing is a policing philosophy centered on police-community partnerships and problem-solving.

Crime Analytics

• Crime analysts apply statistical programs to create crime maps.
• These programs provide intelligence to police officers across patrol and investigative units.

Public Attitudes and Confidence in the Police: Research Findings

• Strong support for increased police visibility and accessibility.
• Foot patrols favored by community residents.
• Residents with casual contact with police display more favorable opinions.
• Residents who feel safe and have a positive feeling about their community rate the police highly.
• Community policing boosts police legitimacy.

Levels of Knowledge and Participation

• Community residents, despite victimization, often avoid involvement in community policing.
• Many citizens know little about community policing initiatives.
• Community residents generally view community police stations positively, but these are rarely used.
• Police have experienced difficulties sustaining community interest in community policing.

Police-Community Partnerships

• Community surveys consistently show high public support for police.
• The public expects police to engage in both proactive and reactive policing.

Crime Prevention Programs

• These programs aim to reduce crime.
• These programs generate community involvement.
• These programs heighten perceptions of safety.
• Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary crime prevention programs exist.

Different crime prevention focuses

• Do not make yourself an attractive target for crime
• Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED)
• Areas focus
• Reoffending prevention

Effectiveness of Crime Prevention Programs

• Effectiveness is examined in terms of Primary and Secondary prevention.
• Primary crime prevention includes:
• Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED)
• Closed-circuit television (CCTV)
• Neighbourhood Watch
• Secondary interventions:
• Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE)
• Police school liaison programs
• Community mobilization

The Broken Windows Approach

• The theory is more serious crime emerges if minor crimes are unchecked.
• This view originated in New York City in the 1980s.

Zero-Tolerance Policing

• Zero-tolerance policing emphasizes strict order-maintenance.
• Coupled with high police visibility, it reduces serious crime.
• Quality-of-life policing increases police visibility and targets disruptive behaviors like panhandling and public drug use.

Problem-Oriented Policing (POP)

• Problem-oriented policing (POP) is a strategy where police address the causes of recurrent crime and disorder.
• Crime can be displaced with a focus on one community.

Crime Attack Strategies

• Proactive operations apprehend likely repeat offenders and target specific areas.

Effectiveness of Crime Response and Attack Strategies

• Depends on how one measures, and who one asks.
• Problem-oriented policing (POP) is typically effective.
• Broken windows theory is typically effective.
• Zero-tolerance/quality-of-life policing is typically effective.
• Tactical-directed patrol crime attack strategies are typically effective.
• Hot spots policing crime attack strategies are typically effective.
• Foot patrols crime attack startegies are typically effective.

Clearance Rates

• Clearance rates are crimes reported and leading to a suspect.
• Crime displacement is when crime is moved around.

Explore bias-free policing, racial profiling, and the Force Options Framework. Understand entrapment, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms' impact on police powers, and police accountability. Review key principles and distinctions in law enforcement.