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PRIVATIZATION AND PLURALIZATION ​ A historic shift that's happened since the 1970’s in the growth of private policing ​ The number of private security guards now is greater than the public ones. ​ Security guards: expected to do a lot more that officers ○​ Don't have authority to...

PRIVATIZATION AND PLURALIZATION ​ A historic shift that's happened since the 1970’s in the growth of private policing ​ The number of private security guards now is greater than the public ones. ​ Security guards: expected to do a lot more that officers ○​ Don't have authority to use force ○​ Area of significant legal liability if you are a security guard. ○​ Can find themselves in danger POLICING MENTAL HEALTH ​ Vast majority of violent crimes are not carried out by strangers having a mental crisis: most violent crimes are carried out by someone you know. ​ Violent crimes based on PMI receive more coverage in the news media; why? ○​ Unpredictable nature: stigma around mental health ○​ Shock is more newsworthy ○​ Wanting to rationalize these events: fear around these crimes has to do with not being able to predict why and who. Terms to be familiar with : Ethnography: -​ Interviews -​ Close-observation Police Property ​ Groups or problems that become the responsibility of police to deal with. ​ PMI is one of these groups ​ Historical context: how did mental illness become police property: ○​ The problem of policing skid row: people who are unhoused at the margins of society, there is both mental illness and substance use. ○​ DE-INSTITUTIONALIZATION: 1970s onward: the first big investigative stories come out showing conditions to these institutions. ​ Confinement of “mad” people. Locked up, put away, and forgotten about. ​ 1970s there is an exposure of those conditions: a push to shut down those sites. The ways in which persons with mental Illness engage with people Crime Main justifications with dealing with PMI: 1.​ Public safety a.​ Involves keeping people safe b.​ Keeping people from being a danger to themselves and others. 2.​ Public order a.​ It's about maintaining a certain sense of acceptable behaviour in public space. 3.​ Crime ​ It is often the case that police don't know when a call is PMI  ○​ They are often required to be the coercive arm of the system. ○​ Making quick decisions about what kind of call is in question. If someone is apprehended under the mental health act, it is a provincial problem. They can be taken to the hospital and then might end up in the psychiatric unit. THEORETICAL APPROACHES: 1.​ Consensus a.​ To protect and serve the public 2.​ critical/conflict a.​ Marxist influenced b.​ Asks the question: whose interest does the police serve? Serving some interests more than others. Sees society more of a struggle between certain groups rather than a unified body with conflicts. POLICE AND ZERO TOLERANCE. ​ Seemed to work out because crime rates fell, but they also fell in cities that were not practicing these policing. ​ The consequences of stopping mainly marginalized groups hurt the police-society relationship (racism, black lives matter movement). POLICE CULTURE: ​ RCMP has more military roots. ​ Police have their own occupational cultures, a world within a world. With the origins of policing, the idea was that these would be citizens in uniform; a vision of NOT a top-down society, but rather drawn and representatives. ○​ In reality, they are separate, removed. They have to stick together because of safety. ​ Policing is a bureaucracy: defined as hierarchies with roles and ranks. ​ Things have changed, but its still possible to make generalizations: ○​ A conservative orientation meant to uphold the social order. ○​ There is a gendered aspect to policing: a male dominated profession. Violence: only police have the ability to legitimately use violence in our society, and women and minorities have traditionally been excluded from this environment. INSTITUTIONAL RACISM: ​ Doesn't necessarily mean that there is a lot of racism in an institution ​ Evidence of institutional racism: over incarceration or over arrests of minorities. Who do we see behind bars? How are the ratios of demographics matching up? \ ​ Outcomes in the course: different types of sentencing in comparison of groups; who is treated worse and where does bias creep in? ​ The idea that the rules, policies, and how things are arranged can encourage racism, people don't necessarily have to be racist themselves. ○​ Bias can be the result of a logistic system that's set up by someone some time. Systematically disadvantaged people from certain backgrounds.  ​ Sometimes it does indeed involve racist individuals, but it can also be how the system is structured, its rules, policies, etc. ​ Can also manifest in terms of how the police treat victims (who is taken seriously as a victim?): missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. ○​ Chelsea poreman: not taken seriously as a victim; due to systemic racism and some victims being prioritized over others. VISIBILITY AND LEGITIMACY ​ We live in an age where we are all walking around with cameras in our pockets; meaning that police are increasingly being surveilled ○​ This can affect the legitimacy of police and their role in society. ​ Black lives matter movement: caused people to actually question the role of police in society. ​ Can we defund the police? It was attempted in numerous cities, but broadly speaking the police remained in place. ​ But it has changed the awareness of police officers: fills them with a level of anxiety, and it is now part of their training. POLICE DEVIANCE AND CRIMINALITY: ​ Their position of power and authority opens up lots of opportunities for police to do bad things. ​ Their power also allows for them to get different types of discipline and exemptions. WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS/CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS ​ Investigations are mainly about talking to people ​ Main form of evidence is what information is given by people, and their testimony. ​ Historically the best way to confirm a conviction is through a confession. VIDEO: ​ Inability or reluctance to admit to wrongdoings from the police ○​ Rationalizing the things they do as being necessary. ​ Lack of lawyer (a lawyer could have helped the suspects cases). ​ Peoples unawareness of rights ​ Vulnerability of suspects; people associated with the navy; used to top-down hierarchical ​ Reid technique: the technique involved in obtaining these confessions. ○​ The dominant technique by which police investigators were trained to carry out investigations in the US and Canada for many years; this has changed recently. ○​ Involves two stages: ​ 1. Investigators determine guilt; who did it? Reading behavioural cues and body language. Problem is you can give interrogators false confidence that they can easily spot violence. ​ 2. Obtain confession through whatever means you can. You can lie, offer a way out, minimize the crime. ​ Threats and leverage using the death penalty. Police will tell you they know you did it, but if you confess, they won't go through with a death penalty. ​ Psychological aspect: long and intense interrogations ​ Lack of recordings; you can't go back and show how the suspects were coerced.  ​ Tunnel views: starting with a particular speculation of the crime. Police have a theory of what happened, and they are not willing to entertain notions outside of that, and when confronted with contrary evidence, they try to find ways to push that evidence away. ​ Police deception CRITICISMS OF THE MORAL PANIC PERSPECTIVE ​ Can paint a simplistic picture of how the media works. ○​ Not all media play this fear fabricating role. KNOW the concepts of Folk devils!! THE POLICE ​ The invention of the police is pretty recent. Model of policing stemmed from England in the 1920’s. LEARNING OBJECTIVES ​ Legitimacy: when we accept that something has a right to exist: government, police. Accepting they are part of society and they play a certain role and they have our support. ​ When they are behaving badly, it threatens their legitimacy. ​ Creating legitimacy was essential when it comes to police. HISTORICAL ORIGINS AND CONTINUITIES ​ “Police “ is a recent invention but policing is not as new. ​ Police comes from the word polis; which is where police and politics comes from MODERN POLICING: ​ There were laws and rules, and if someone broke the rules, it was generally your responsibility to seek justice; it was a private matter. Law enforcement protected the interest of the wealthy ​ 1900’s development of police under Robert Peel; “were gonna create a police force, that is gonna go after the criminals, thieves, bandits, and causing problems”. ○​ To recruit citizens working class that were going to serve and protect; to look after common interests. ​ The creation of the police in England was driven by public order. VIDEO: ​ Criminal law was characterized as the Bloody code- offences that were punishable by death were more than 200. Hoped that behaviour would change if they would impose the harshest punishment ​ Bloody code had failed to stand. ​ The riot act: allows for the government to kill anyone on the street after some time of riots. ​ Peel advocated the creation of a police force: tried to convince people that police would control crime and not people. ​ Why were people opposed?  ○​ The fear of a standing army. ○​ They were scared it was just the government trying to get hold of the people. ​ Who was targeted by these new police? Where did most of their attention go? ​ Police property: refers to groups in society that are basically seen as a problem for the police to deal with. Responsibility for the police to manage; poor. ○​ Poverty was seen as a problem for the police to be responsible for. Being poor was seen as a moral failing. ○​ People with mental illness are also being police property. ○​ Protests and rioters: job of police to manage those political uprising. UNEVEN POLICING ​ Policing has always been unevenly applied and has focused more on kinds of law breaking. ○​ Early days in canada it was abut sex work, drugs, violence. ○​ Just trying to maintain order and making sure the streets were not overrun with violence; but a lot of this was unevenly applied; ​ Poor ​ Immigrants ​ Indigenous people PROTEST/PUBLIC ORDER POLICING ​ You recognize this as a foundational aspect of where policing comes from. ​ High (protests, social movements, national security) vs low policing. VISIBILITY OF POLICING ​ Key element: police would be in uniform, visible, identifiable. ​ When you don't know who the police are, lines may be crossed and legitimacy may be threatened. ​ Mark kennedy; British police undercover spying on environmental activists and trying to get environmental groups to cross a line. POLICING CANADA ​ We have police officers as our national symbol. The mounties have historically been celebrated, painting a virtuous picture of their roles in settlement etc. POLICING CANADA 1800S ​ Two kinds of policing in canada ○​ 1. Municipal police forces: they are democratically accountable through those municipal authorities. ​ Munipally funded. Have their jurisdiction limited to the city they operate in.  ○​ Mounties: ways for the Canadian state to project sovereignty and control over the West. ​ Baked on a paramilitary model. ​ Similar to the army in terms of recruitment and training. ​ Effectively under federal control. ​ Federal level stuff; national security, organized crime, etc. ​ Today we recognize the RCMP as our municipal police force. ​ A shift from what we recognize as policing today: more patrolling from cars. We used to have police call boxes when people didn't have phones. WHAT DO POLICE DO? WHAT IS THEIR JOB? -​ To maintain social order and social contract (give up some of our freedom from the protection of the state) -​ Law enforcement; the common sense answer. VIDEO POLICE: -​ Community support -​ Counselling -​ Noise complaints; not criminal law -​ Peace-keeping -​ Domestic calls -​ The vast majority of the time they are acting as social workers and counselors. -​ Report writing. They are basically information workers. They are taking information in and producing outputs. -​ problem-solving= you call the police when you have a problem and don't know where else to turn. POLICE: -​ THE ONE THING that they do that others can't: violence. A state is sovereign if they can control others, especially with violence.