It’s time to define what defunding the police means. It’s a question of ‘framing.’ If it means reducing the size of the Service – no! If it means, RE-TASKING or restructuring the Service, we answer yes.
Removing funds achieves nothing; funding new responsibilities and redirecting accountability does. Are police necessary to regulate traffic or act as first responders to non-violent health care calls? Yet, we need skilled officers with better techniques to resolve violent conflict, investigate organized crime and encourage public accountability to our diverse population. It also requires all of us, as an involved community, to work together with the police to identify criminal conduct.
Police are insular, slow to modernize, or accept outside advice. I personally tried developing courses with them and was often met with a polite but reluctant thanks. Policing originated in the 1800s in Europe, The U.S. and Canada, as an arm of the Courts before evolving into its own entity. In Canada, policing is under the Solicitor General and is responsible for laying criminal charges but the decision to prosecute belongs to the Attorney General. It’s a check and balance.
Historically, most laws were written to protect property. In the Southern U.S., it was started to oversee the slave industry. If you have no property you have few rights to enforce; therefore, policing has an historical social-economic focus. An economic Theory goes, “the more people who own property, the less crimes of self-help.”
Today, the ‘street-cop’, still a quasi-military structure has more than the original purpose of property protection on their plate. We have added: social, psychological, health (drugs, pandemics), human rights, intellectual property, hate and such — a multitask. The generalist tries to be everything for everyone. Like many large institutions the Services resist change. In the past, hiring required physically large men to reflect power.
Once a very hefty, retired Long Branch officer, confided, “If I met a belligerent drunk at the old Long Branch Hotel — a regular Friday event, he could choose to have it ‘out’ around back or he could come along peacefully, sleep it off at the jail and go home – his choice, either way, no charges.” It was a Police Force, not a Service.
The term ‘Service’ has replaced ‘Force’ trying to market a new image for its multi-tasks. The street-cop’s role has become too challenging trying to satisfy diverse cultures and modern psychology. It’s too complicated for a generalist. Force is no longer the universal answer. What we need is certified uniform training and licenses to work in a variety of specialities
RE-TASKING, requires more than just a corporate declaration of new roles. It needs the officer’s personal
accountability for the job requirements. Policing is more than a job. It is a profession. Justice Tulloch, in his ‘Independent Police Oversight Review’ recognizes this need. He suggests, a professional body for policing, like England and Wales.”
Policing is a calling in the same way many doctors are called to medicine and teachers are called to teaching. Policing should be seen as a distinguished profession …. the requirements needed to enter and continue in the profession of policing in Ontario remain largely static, ill-defined, and inconsistent.
A police officer may be promoted for various reasons. Unlike some other professions, there is no standard educational requirement …. the hallmarks of a profession are a well-developed code of ethics. It provides members of the public with a clear idea of the values and responsibilities; they also serve as a mechanism for ensuring professional accountability.
Most professions have licensing requirements. This is the case for doctors, lawyers, electricians, architects, accountants, engineers, real estate brokers, teachers, and many other regulated professionals. It should set the standards for policing including standards on police education and training for both new recruits and seasoned officers.
The net effect would redirect the individual officer’s duty to the professional standards and not his colleagues. They would have to meet evidence-based standards of the licensing authority, the ‘College’, and could not work without a revocable license. “The goal of the Licensing Authority, the College, would be to develop a culture of professionalism in policing.” Criminal Conduct would still be enforceable by agencies such as the SIU.
Higher qualifications, means higher costs. We need to re-task not defund; hoping monies are diverted to other social agency is not a political competence. We closed Psychiatric Residential Facilities, promising to divert the savings to community housing. Ask some ‘street-people’ where’s the money. We are the problem. We start thinking taxes when we speak ‘costs. We must recognize — better performance means a price for quality goods. It’s your Ontario, you decide.
Judge Lloyd Budzinski retired after 28 years and was a former Crown Attorney, Defence Counsel and Onario’s Assistant Deputy Minister of Criminal Law. He was Chief Prosecutor in the high-profile trial of ex-RCMP officer Patrick Michael Kelly, who was found guilty of murder for throwing his wife from at 17-floor balcony in 1981.