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MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 1

MODULE TWO POLICE: INSIDE THE

BLUE WALL

SECTION 2. 1: Recruitment and Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Gives an examination of how the ‘disciplinary technologies’ of paramilitarism and

neutrality have long shaped police officers in both positive and negative ways.

SECTION 2. 2: Police Subculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

An introduction to police occupational culture followed by a look at the personality

traits this subculture and the daily workplace pressures of policing encourage.

SECTION 2. 3: Community Policing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Community policing models have been proposed to re-integrate police departments into

their communities. This section looks at Toronto’s recent experiments with community

policing to assess it.

SECTION 2. 4: Police Funerals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Examines police funerary rituals through both an interpretative and socio-political lens

to gain insight into this little-discussed phenomenon.

SECTION 2. 5: Cultural Depictions of Policing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

No look at policing would be complete without including the media depictions of it, so

we explore this topic to see what it reveals about changing cultural ideas and differing

national views toward policing.

2 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

SECTION 2. 1: Silent Instruments of a Remote Power

Police officers serve as public representatives of the nation-state whose authority they

represent. The needs and demands of governments, as embodied in their selection and

recruitment processes, consequently have a crucial influence on how people are shaped

into police officers and on the institutional culture of police departments. In countries

with strong central governments recruitment and training can be standardized creating

the foundation of a common national police culture despite regional differences. In

Canada, the federal government, in partnership with the Canadian Association of Chiefs

of Police (CACP), has ensured that “ a common recruitment process is in use virtually

across Canada” (Sewell, 2010). Today’s Canadian police applicants are judged on a

wide variety of criteria including: physical fitness, education, life experiences,

psychological test scores, language skills, and diversity quotas.

The Roots of Police Recruitment and Training

In the 1800s the first British police recruits were drawn from the “ respectable class of

labourers” with an emphasis on an applicant’s sobriety and height. In America the

emphasis was on height and political connections as American police were viewed as

“ blatantly politicized henchmen” dependent on their personal strength and charisma for

their power. In contrast, English police were to be a disciplined, politically neutral

force, whose public persona 1 brought “ décorum and order to public places” and power

resided in their professional occupational identity (Emsley, 1996).

To achieve this Robert Peel envisioned a police training process that “reshaped recruits

in the image of a neutral, objective, machine-like figure” through the twin ' disciplinary

technologies' of paramilitary discipline and bureaucratic neutrality by appointing joint

commissioners to guide his new force (Emsley, 1996). To bring paramilitary discipline,

Peel appointed Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Rowan, a Scottish cavalryman and lifelong

bachelor who had fought Napoleon at Waterloo. Rowan was joined by Sir Richard

Mayne, a lawyer who was a ' rising star' in English law and the son of a famous judge.

Mayne’s legal background was to ensure the new police were efficient, disinterested,

' silent instruments of a remote power' —the remote power being the British central

government’s legal system.

1 persona http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Persona_%28psychology%29

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 3

The joint commissioners managed to “ recruit, train, organise, equip, and deploy a force

of nearly one thousand men” within only three months. Thirty years later the force had

largely attained the ideal of mass producing machine-like officers as this 1859

description of a Bobby from London’s Quarterly Review makes clear:

We all know him, for we see him day by day as we promenade on the

streets. Stiff, calm, and inexorable, he seems to take no interest in any

mortal thing—to have neither hopes nor fears, amid the bustle of main

street or the roar of Oxford-Street. ‘Private Constable X 59’ stalks

along, an institution rather than a man. We seem to have no more hold

of his personality, than we could possibly get off his coat, buttoned up to

the throttling point. (Wilson, 1859)

IN FOCUS

Psychological Screening

One selection tool not available to the first police commissioners but used by police

departments since the early part of the 20 th century are psychological screening tests

(Bartol, 1996). During the 1960s and 1970s such tests became a standard part of the

application process as corporate management policies were adopted by many police

forces. Such tests not only help identify unfit candidates, thus shielding departments

from ' negligent hiring' lawsuits brought by civilians who have been victimized by

officers but also select candidates likely to maintain psychological fitness relative to

future job performance providing a good investment for police departments (Barrick &

Mount, 1991; McQuilkin, Russell, Frost & Faust, 1990; Twersky-Glasner, 2005).

Typical police assessment instruments include the MMPI-2, California Personality

Inventory (CPI), the Inwald Personality Inventory (IPI), the Edwards Personal

Preference Schedule (EPPS), projective tests like Rorschach tests and polygraph

(though the validity of polygraphs” 2 to do anything besides “scare the hell out of

people” 3 remains highly questionable). The original qualities screened for were

intelligence and aptitude but the focus on desirable traits has shifted from cognitive

abilities to personality traits (e. g. , emotional stability). This move was due to the

potentially adverse effects on minority police applicants although many of the

personality tests used by police departments maintain a component of intelligence

testing (Twersky-Glasner, 2005). Police personality tests also select against applicants

2 validity of polygraphs http://antipolygraph. org/ 3 scare the hell out of people http://www. skepdic. com/polygrap. html

4 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

who show high levels of impulsivity, hostility, lack of autonomy, immaturity, anti-

social tendencies, potentials for alcohol and/or drug abuse, emotional labiality, social

introversion, paranoia, and psychoses.

Police psychological scores can be an interesting data source and a recent study of one

set of recruiting data revealed that successful and unsuccessful applicants were

significantly different on nine of the 19 California Personality Inventory (CPI) scales.

The successful applicants were:

• more assertive and dominant;

• had more potential for social mobility and desire for status;

• more self confidence and social presence;

• a more pronounced sense of self worth;

• more need for autonomous achievement;

• more functional (efficiency) intelligence;

• more self-insight;

• more masculine;

• possessed greater ability to perceive the psychological state of others.

(Twersky-Glasner, 2005)

The Paramilitary Roots of Policing

Lieutenant-Colonel Rowan’s military background profoundly shaped the origins of

policing. Based on military tactics he divided London into six divisions to be regularly

patrolled. This beat system of patrols was based on the Shorncliffe System for light

infantry. More importantly, from a subcultural perspective, Rowan insisted that his

men be held to strict standards of conduct and organized into a military hierarchy with

“ the co-ordination and integration of all officers deployed as squads under centralised

command and control” (Waddington 1993). The first Bobbies lived in communal

military-style barracks, were regularly drilled in marching, penalized for unkempt

uniforms, and were subjected to a written code of regulations administered by superiors

as penalties and rewards (both monetary and symbolic) that 'trained up' new recruits

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 5

through the ranks.

Taken as a whole, this “application of (quasi)–military training, philosophy, and

organization to policing laid the paramilitary foundation of the police culture that

endures to this day” (Jefferson 1993). The goal of this paramilitarism was to make

police training a ' well regulated machine' that produced ' automatic policemen' through

drill and discipline in the way that military organizations of earlier periods had produced

soldiers (Miller, 1977).

This fixation on discipline was seen as vital to police training because whenever young

males are gathered into a group and given weapons, the potential for violence, bullying,

and abuse is enormous. Early police forces were plagued with alcoholism, dereliction

of duty, extortion, fraternization with (and abuse) of prostitutes, and gambling. A 1904

survey of Chicago police found that they spent most of their time “ not on the streets,

but in saloons, barbershops, bowling alleys, pool halls, and bootblack stands” (Buntin,

2010). The situation was little better in London with the very first police recruit

dismissed after only four hours when he was found drunk on the job (Learn History,

2004). Rowan, and other commanders who were recruited from the military, believed

that a strict, sometimes cruel, regime of paramilitarism was the best cure for this.

The creation of most police forces in Canada was done through importing the British

paramilitary model and the British military officers who were needed to institute it. For

example, the first OPP commissioner (or ‘commanding officer’ as he was then called)

was a British Major General, born in colonial India, who had suppressed a nationalist

uprising in English-occupied Ireland. He was loaned to Ottawa as the Director of

Artillery before being assigned “ to develop [the OPP’s] quasi-military character which

would prove enduring” (Higley, 1984). His replacement was another British Major

General who fought against South Africans Boers 4 as part of England’s Dragoon Guard

cavalry before setting up the School of Cavalry in Canada. The first RCMP

commissioners have similar backgrounds; it is not too far a stretch to say that the OPP

and the RCMP were originally envisioned as colonial auxiliary forces to the British

Army.

This predominance of English military officers in the OPP came with a price and an

early OPP Assistant Commissionaire complained about the “ protection of Englishmen

on the [OPP] Force. . . Canadians, Scotch or Irish had little chance, but the English

received every favour and consideration, before appointment and after” (Higley, 1984).

Yet it is difficult to contest the value that British paramilitary discipline had in securing

the high regard many Canadians have for their police. It also explains why Americans

4 Boers http://www. foreignaffairs. com/articles/63383/nicolas-van-de-walle/diamonds-gold-and-war-the-

british-the-boers-and-the-making-of-so

6 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

would idealize the RCMP as a model of discipline and morality compared to their own

less disciplined forces.

As time passed, Canadian police forces and senior officers were recruited from within

the ranks and the hierarchy became less British-dominated, but the goal of using

military-style discipline to create ' automatic police' did not lessen. In a 1929 speech

made to the Chief Constables Association of Canada (now called the Canadian

Association of Chiefs of Police) an Ontario police chief proclaimed:

the symbol of the machine is applicable to the functioning of the police

department to a degree to which does not apply elsewhere . . . Discipline,

and discipline alone can ensure that the force functions as a unit.

(C. A. C. , 1929)

Like many factory owners of the time, Canadian police chiefs believed that

transforming their employees into machine-like objects was the highest ideal of efficient

and impersonal performance. Some chiefs went as far as to write out time-tables for

patrolling officers dictating exactly where they should be on their route at any given

time.

The ideal of machine-like, paramilitary-like officers has translated into the lasting

legacy of valuing a certain emotional remoteness in officers. As Lt. Al Benner, a San

Francisco Police Department psychologist has noted, this extracts a high price on

modern police officers,

To function effectively in our job, you must annihilate, smother and

suppress normal emotions like fear, anger, revulsion and even

compassion. To do otherwise is to invite overwhelming doubt or

hesitancy when action is required. The penalty for achieving this

competency is a mind set foreign to your social contemporaries. We are

victims of our own success. This psychological sacrifice creates a

paradox where officers are rewarded for maintaining emotional distance

on the job, but punished for doing the same in personal relationships.

(Kirschman, 2006)

Another dubious legacy of paramilitarism in police cultures is the deeply hierarchical

military chain-of-command that has the “ propensity to induce rigid mindless, deference

to authority, ” discourage “ engaging, pro-active” ways of dealing with crime and

reward “ knee-jerk reactionary responses” (Perez, 2010). For some citizens in a

democracy encountering a machine-like police officer trained to unquestioningly obey

orders of a remote authority is a chilling experience. It is difficult to forget that when

given certain orders such ' silent instruments of remote power' can effect mass murders.

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 7

And for this reason the greatest moral lesson of the Second World War, enshrined in

Nuremberg Principle IV 5 , is that “ just following orders” is not a defense for

committing atrocities against civilians.

The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids

To ease democratic fears about having a government-controlled paramilitary force

permanently patrolling the streets, London Bobbies were armed with a stout club (or

sabres when performing crowd control) not firearms—except high-ranking inspectors

who were allowed to carry pistols. This lack of firearms became the hallmark of the

Bobbies’ commitment to democratic control and public legitimacy. In questionnaires

given to British police in 1987 and 1995 the majority (79%) of police still did not want

a hand-gun when on patrol though some British police have been sent on patrol armed

with handguns and sub-machine guns 6 since 2000.

A major departure from this ideal has been the rise of Paramilitary Police forces in

North America since 1980. University of Eastern Kentucky criminologist, Peter

Kraska, estimates there has been over a 1, 500 percent increase in the use of SWAT

teams in America from the 1980s to the early 2000s. So prevalent has been the push

that SWAT teams are created despite the absence of any historical need (Forcese,

1992). In the most extreme American case this process has seen the literal militarization

of police, as the US Army “ routinely sends armoured personnel carriers, grenade

launchers, and M-16 rifles to city police stations” (Sorensen, 1999).

These paramilitary units were intended to respond to special events such as hostage-

taking; whereas most policing is concerned with the banal and the usual. For example

the OPP TRU (Tactical Response Unit) originated as a response to the potential of

terrorism at the 1976 Olympics but “ its mandate has long since shifted to focusing on

providing police tactical response to domestic high-risk situations” which most often

means a disgruntled armed man who has barricaded himself inside a home (Higley,

1984). Critics have suggested that these heavily-armed units often experience ‘mission

creep’ and are applied unnecessarily simply because a use and justification for such

police resources must be found. The other dangers of such squads include: privileging

such paramilitary raids as ' real policing' , encouraging reactionary dangerous ' cowboy'

attitudes among tactical members, allowing such squads to become reservoirs of racist

5 Nuremberg Principle IV http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Nuremberg_Principles#Principle_IV 6 sub-machine guns http://www. msnbc. msn. com/id/33448132/ns/world_news-europe/t/some-british-

bobbies-gun-comes-job/

8 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

and chauvinistic attitudes, and the danger to bystanders when coordination and

communications breakdown. Forcese (1992) describes an example of a fatal

“ coordination and communications breakdown” :

On August 14, 1988, the Ontario Provincial Police called in their special

tactical unit to deal with a reported suicidal young man. There was no

evidence that the man was a danger to persons other than himself, but he

was undoubtedly armed with a rifle. Local police, known by the young

man, were removed from the situation, and the heavily armed tactical

squad in a briefing were told of the extreme danger of the situation. The

OPP, apparently, were never provided with the accurate description of

the suicidal man. In the confusion, where ranking officers apparently

misunderstood the location of the tactical unit and the man, an innocent

person, terrorized by the presence of armed intruders, was accidentally

shot to death in his yard. The pathologist who performed the autopsy

testified that two fatal police shots struck the man when he was down on

the ground, and that the victim was shot a total of thirteen times,

resulting in twenty-five wounds.

This fatal shooting lead to both a Coroner’s Jury and an Inquiry (Drinkwalter Report,

1989). A recent 2006 OPP report on tactical squads called the shooting and the

subsequent public investigations a “ watershed” moment that profoundly “influenced the

delivery of police emergency response services across the province. ” Despite safety

concerns both public inquires ultimately concluded that “tactical response is a life

saving support system that benefits the public, the police and even those who choose to

be the focus of tactical response” (Drinkwalter Report, 1989).

Such a claim is more difficult to support in America where 40, 000 ' no-knock raids' are

performed a year allowing tactical squads to storm a property without any prior

notification to the residents. The reasoning for these raids is that the element of surprise

will stop residents before they can destroy evidence or arm themselves. Such concerns

have some merit but the predictable consequences of allowing such heavily armed

officers to conduct surprise raids has been the killing of at least 40 innocent Americans

who were either killed by mistake when they tried to fight off the ' intruders' invading

their home at night or when the SWAT squads raided the wrong address (Wikipedia

gives summaries 7 of some of these accidents). Communication breakdowns and false or

mistaken warrant information are the lead causes of death in no-knock raids.

7 summaries http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/No-knock_warrant#Examples

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 9

Yet ' no-knock' raids are not just confined to the USA, Forcese (1992) describes the

following incident:

In 1987, Montreal tactical team members battered down the door of a

Montreal apartment where a man, wife, and eighteen-month old infant

were eating dinner. They entered firing automatic weapons, wounding

the woman and the man, who bled to death, untreated. The raid was

prompted by an arrest warrant for attempted murder, arising from a fight

in a restaurant between the victim and an off-duty police officer.

While there are likely un-stated elements in this situation that would give insight into

the Montreal tactical squad’s action, the outcome is still tragic. The simple equation is

that the increasing use of military-grade weapons and no-knock home raids will

inevitably result in a mounting number of civilian deaths and considering that less than

half of these home invasions result in felony charges this is a high price. Yet some law

enforcement officials consider this an acceptable trade-off because they occur as part of

the ' war on drugs' . When Florida police conducted a night drug raid on the wrong

house and roughly dragged a nearly nude innocent couple down to the police station the

attorney hired by the police union stated, “They made a mistake. There’s no one to

blame for a mistake. The way these people were treated has to be judged in the context

of a war” (Balko, 2006). We must ask “ if police are conducting nightly armed raids in

‘the context of a war’ are they a military organization?” because the very same type of

raids are being conducted by American Special Forces in Afghanistan and across the

rest of the globe an estimated 12 times a day (Turse, 2011).

IN FOCUS

Paramilitarism and Domestic Life

The paramilitary nature of policing not only separates police from their communities;

it can also separate them from their families. As police psychologist Ellen Kirschman

(2006) notes “ policing is a greedy, un-family friendly” profession that demands much

from its employees because officers “ must put in long hours, often doing night shifts

in ‘ergonomically incorrect’ police cars and uniforms to be eligible for promotion and

this often comes at the expense of their families. ”

The demands of policing have long been expected to influence an officer’s private life

and even modern officers’ families “ may feel like unpaid representatives of the police

force” due to the need to maintain appearances and live up to the moral standards that

policing is supposed to represent (Kirschman, 2006). In the enthusiastic “utterly

10 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

intoxicated” rookie phase such sacrifices are easy to make (and possibly even

welcomed by young adults) but for many older officers the lack of family contact is a

high price.

In the past the anti-family nature of policing was even more explicit largely due to the

many military policies adopted. For example, the OPP’s policy of rotating officers

between various Ontario districts every few years caused havoc for many officers’

families and was widely disliked by officers due to the housing and travel stresses it

caused. The ability of senior police to influence the rotation postings also led to

charges that it was being used as a tool to reward and punish officers. Yet this policy

was justified because “ an OPP officer must be prepared, as in War, to travel on short

notice” (Ontario Attorney General, 1928).

A similar rotation policy exists in the RCMP and a new recruit’s first posting was

customarily in the Near Arctic or another location far away from a recruit’s home

province. Even harsher was the RCMP policy forbidding officers from marrying until

several years of service had passed—an extremely unpopular regulation with young

officers (and their girlfriends) in the days when pre-marital sex was publicly

condemned and this policy lead to many deserters. The first officer had to wait a long

seven years before marriage, this was reduced to five years up until the 1950s and two

years until the mid 1970s (www. rcmpgraves. com). This policy was justified by RCMP

Commissioners by the need to ' maintain a mobile Force' —a need traditionally

associated with military, not policing, goals.

The Idea of Police Neutrality

While it was a cavalry officer who brought military discipline to the first modern police

force, it was up to the lawyer Richard Mayne, to bring the complementary efficiency

and disinterestedness to the new organization. Mayne' s hope was to create an

“ impervious body of men serving a ‘higher’ interest: the interest of the rule of law as

understood by the state.” The primary competitor for an officer’s loyalty was an

officer’s own sense of morality and his loyalties to his local community and class

interests, so these had to be over-ridden and subordinated.

New police officers were, and still are, severely warned about letting their own views

override their commitment to state law. For example, the first OPP training notebook

advises the constable against making any moral decisions, specifically warning them

that their moral evaluation of an act is ' immaterial' : “ If the act is illegal take what steps

you are supposed to bring the guilty parties to justice, if it is not illegal have nothing to

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 11

do with it” (Hegley, 1984). An officer’s ability to remove his personal judgement from

the volatile situations he dealt with became his proof of allegiance to both the higher

authority of the federal government’s rule of law and a sign of his own efficiency.

To re-route an officer’s loyalty from his local community to the ' higher interest' of the

government was the second task. Not only did new recruits arrive with emotional ties to

their town and family, the very public role of an officer seemed to naturally lead them

to an involvement in local affairs. Thus officers’ lives were strictly controlled; they

were not allowed to vote in elections, required permission to get married, and were

forbidden from sharing meals with civilians. The strongest regulation furthering this

purposeful alienation of an officer from the public was the strict prohibition against

engaging in informal conversation with the public when on-duty, especially

conversations with those of the lower class.

Paley (1989) notes that in England the new police were explicitly forbidden to “ enter

into any conversation” and the Discipline Book of the Toronto Police Force records

dozens of fines given to policemen for “ gossiping on the beat, ” —the most frequent

cause for disciplinary action. The Letterbook of an early Toronto Chief Constable

simply notes:

The Police on duty are strictly forbidden to gossip or idle with each

other, or with any persons, especially servants at houses on their beats.

(Hegley, 1984)

Toronto mayor and police reformer Adam Wilson (1859) puts the matter even more

bluntly:

nothing can be a greater abomination than a talking policeman. All his

duties should be quietly and promptly executed.

As the police broke off all conversational contact with the public they were being

simultaneously trained in a new language: bureaucratic legalism. A key part of an

officer’s impersonal efficiency was his ability to translate a wide spectrum of disturbing

crime into the impersonal language of official court statements. To do this, police

evolved a ' robotic style' of delivery that did not always please the courts as one

irritated Justice of the Peace in 1917 wrote:

[A constable] never walks or runs, he always ‘proceeds’; he never asks,

he always ‘requests’: he never finds people quarrelling, they are always

‘having an altercation’: for a stable to be behind a house near a church is

too simple; it has to be ‘situated at the rear of a house in the vicinity of a

church’; he never watches, he always ‘keeps observation’ or ‘keeps

12 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

observation in conjunction with another officer’; if he charges a man

with what in our days is considered the indecency of making water in the

street, he must describe the action as ‘urinating’; he prefers not to speak

of a scratch or a bruise, it must be an ‘abrasion’ or a ‘contusion. ’ The

ridiculous state of things sometimes occurs that the court has to translate

his pompous phraseology into more homely language which the ignorant

can understand. (De Lint, 1999)

This new police ' special dialect' not only encouraged impersonal efficiency but also

gave nervous uneducated police officers the ' proper police way' to address the

intimidating court judges. Unfortunately, this commonality of speech has the

“ disadvantage . . . that when several officers give evidence of the same facts their

testimony sounds stereotyped, and this lays them open, often unjustly, to the suspicion

of having compared notes” (De Lint, 1999).

While this police special dialect has never completely gone away, by the mid-twentieth

century the strict prohibition against conversing with the public had lessened

considerably as the loyalty of the police profession to their government employers

solidified. A quote from a WWII-era OPP training notebook shows this transformation:

Be civil to everyone, you are a servant of all classes of the community,

irrespective of their social standing. Do not talk unnecessarily. Keep

your eyes open, and your brain alert, to absorb of all what goes on

around you. (De Lint, 1999)

By the 1960s and 1970s police training began “ re-situating the constable back into the

community” as ideals of community police became widespread. Soon the prohibition

against talking was not only removed, but its opposite was now promoted and gossiping

was encouraged as a means of information gathering and building community

partnerships (Cordner, 1997). Despite this shift in training, the purposeful

disembodiment and alienation of police from their communities has had a profound

effect on shaping how police and the public view each other.

Manufacturing Solidarity

Police commissioners realized early on that divorcing a young man from both his local

community and his own conscience placed a heavy emotional burden on police officers

and recommended that police solidarity or ' esprit de corps' 8 be generated during

training as compensation. The hope was that by turning the police institution into an

8 esprit de corps http://en. wiktionary. org/wiki/esprit_de_corps

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 13

officer’s ‘new family’ that new recruits could find a sense of belonging that would

soften the loss of other social ties and also serve to “ counteract the human tendency to

become involved in local community groups or sects” (De Lint, 1999).

Many ways of creating police ‘esprit de corps’ during training are adopted from

military practices: group rewards and punishments, similarity in appearance (buzz cuts

and uniforms), and painful hazing rituals like being tear gassed. The RCMP ' depot' 9 in

Regina is a mandatory ' boot camp' for all new recruits and serves the same function as

a military boot camp, to sever a recruit’s ties to their previous life by making them

completely dependant on the RCMP for shelter, food, clothing, and self-esteem. Some

psychologists have pointed out that this enforced dependency is fundamental to most

brain-washing procedures as the new provider of these basic essentials takes over the

role of parent in the recruits’ minds (Wilson, 2009).

Another bonding technique adopted from the military is heavy alcohol drinking

sessions. A modern sociological study tracking 117 American police recruits during

their training found that (Obst, 2003):

The results showed that recruits socialise and drink more with colleagues

after entering the Academy than they did pre-Academy. The way recruits

drank also changed during training with a tendency towards heavier

drinking sessions. These findings, based on a longitudinal methodology

suggest that the enculturation process encouraging recruits to socialise

and drink with peers begins early in the training process with 45% of the

recruits stating that they felt some pressure to drink during their

Academy training.

While it would be expected that drinking may increase while living in at

the Academy, it would be expected to drop off as officers moved into

operational positions with stronger supervisory practices. However, this

did not occur, particularly in terms of the quantity of alcohol consumed.

It could be concluded that during their time in the Academy, recruits

actually learnt to drink alcohol in larger quantities. These results may

reflect the development of the trend towards the heavy drinking sessions,

which have been reported by many studies into police drinking (e. g. ,

Davey et al. , 2000; McNeil & Wilson, 1993; Shanahan, 1992).

9 depot http://www. rcmp-grc. gc. ca/depot/journal/index-eng. htm

14 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

IN FOCUS

A Jealous Profession

A sense of belonging to a large police family is welcomed by most new officers but it

can also be a jealous community. If an officer chooses to go home instead of

socializing with other officers, they can be labelled as distant; if they ask for time off

for family reasons, they can be labelled as “ unable to control their domestic life"

(http://www. rcmp-grc. gc. ca/depot/journal/index-eng. htm). Ellen Kirschman (2006)

offers the following example when a husband asked his police officer wife to call

home if she was going to be late:

Karen resented his suggestion. She told Manny she felt as though he was

her father and that she didn’t have to ' report in' and ' ask permission' .

Manny stuck to his ground and said it was unacceptable for him to be left

hanging. He valued his time with Karen and wanted to wait for her,

providing he knew how long that would be. Manny emphasized that he

was not trying to control Karen’s life but to control his own. Karen

finally revealed that she was afraid of being humiliated in front of the

' guys' , who would tease her for having to tell her husband where she

was. She felt this would make her look foolish—if she couldn’t stand up

to her husband, how could she confront the bad guys?

Manny didn’t budge from his bottom line. He told Karen that handling

the taunts of her shift mates was her concern, and he wasn’t playing

second fiddle to her need for their approval. He offered to help Karen

figure out a snappy, light-hearted response to their teasing, but he clearly

said that he expected her allegiance to be to him first.

The next time Karen was delayed and telephoned home, she did get

teased. She responded by telling the guys that they were afraid to tell

their ' mommies' they would be late, that she was a grown up and was

taking responsibility for managing her marriage. Some of them got the

hint and called their wives; some of them didn’t. But Karen had broken

the ice, and she and Manny eliminated a nagging source of resentment.

Manny and Karen solved this issue in a straightforward way, with little

upset. They also made a symbolic statement about the relative value of

work and family.

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 15

16 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

US versus THEM

Policing not only draws officers together as a group but separates them from the rest of

the population (Skolnick, 1977). Any job that requires the exercise of authority and the

need to act as a rule enforcer is often disliked by those on the receiving end of it—as

every teacher, police officer, and referee knows. New officers begin to develop a belief

in an ' insider/outsider' structure where fellow officers are trustworthy (' insiders' ), but

they should be sceptical and ever vigilant of those who are not police (' outsiders' ). The

suspicious working-personalities of police officers make them less likely to engage in

social discourse with non-officers (Skolnick, 2000). As the Toronto police union

president Craig Bromell bluntly stated, “ Forget everything that you learned in Police

College. It is us versus them” (The Fifth Estate, 1999).

People who can demonstrate characteristics and traits like those already on the force

stand a greater chance of being hired (Twersky-Glasner, 2005). This division is

reinforced by a recruitment "training regimen that reinforces fitting in” and even once

accepted into the police force a new officer feels continuing pressure by the police force

to “ fit in or move on. ” In this way officers have a “ different experience from

accountants, dentists, or lawyers, who often practice with much less peer pressure,

even in large firms; police culture is more obvious than that of most other occupations”

(Sewell, 2010).

This insular tendency is so extreme that many officers select their spouses and close

friends from the policing ranks and the profession has a strong hereditary element with

sons and daughters of officers often becoming police themselves. This sort of culture

encourages an environment where it seems few people outside the police circle can be

trusted. In turn, the public perceives police officers as distancing themselves from civil

society; caught in a feedback loop of distrust, research indicates that many officers

rarely feel integrated with the community despite the vital role policing fills in the daily

workings of a community.

Ankony (1997) defines this alienation as “ a condition in social relationships where there

is a low degree of integration or common values and a high degree of distance and

isolation between people in a community” and believes these feelings result from how

an officer’s personality has developed due to the experiences of his job. However some

of this alienation must be attributed to the first 100 years of policing when the

separation of police from their local community and the creation of an inner solidarity

was purposefully cultivated as a way of securing police loyalty to the remote authority

of state law.

Perhaps the most infamous expression of police insularity is the ' blue wall of silence'

that strongly discourages police officers from discussing policing matters with non-

police. Despite being continually claimed as a myth by police public relation officers,

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 17

its existence is found in both sociological literature and anecdotal evidence. While some

form of a wall of silence is found in most professions that deal with sensitive personal

matters, the ' us versus them' nature of policing makes the blue wall stronger than most.

It has been a serious obstacle to both sociological inquiry and civilian reform as the

alienated police culture resents civilian control and demands a relatively free hand,

making it very difficult to democratically reform police forces. As the book Police in

Canada: the real story 10

states:

The characteristics of police culture can be summed up this way: it

encourages robust solidarity with other officers; it is isolated from other

parts of society; it assumes importance for protecting social values as

understood by police; it believes others do not have a real understanding

of police work. (Sewell, 2010)

10 Police in Canada: the real story http://www. thepolicefile. ca/?page_id= 44

18 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

SECTION 2. 2: Police Subculture

The idea that policing has a distinctive subculture has “ enjoyed wide acceptance, great

longevity [and] intense study” in the field of sociology (Sewell, 1999). Since the early

1950s sociologists have spent many hours in patrol cars, handing out departmental

surveys, and conducting officer interviews in an attempt to “ unlock the world of the

police officer and open it to scrutiny and understanding” (Sewell, 1999). The

conceptual model of a subculture has been applied in many different areas as it allows a

researcher to ask what “behaviours, values, beliefs, attitudes, socializations. . . and

cognitive tendencies” might be collectively shared by a group of people. As Meehan

(1992) describes:

police officers must juggle and balance their response to accommodate

the conflicting demands of the citizen, the law, and the formal police

organization, and all of these with their own sense of working (policing)

the streets. In the face of these conflicting demands, officers develop a

set of shared assumptions [. . . ] in order to draw inferences for controlling

groups, making decisions, and taking action.

Such shared assumptions do not suggest that every member of a subculture is identical

or interchangeable but it is predicated on the idea that various forms of ' gravity' pull all

members of a group in a similar direction toward similar traits. Various models have

been proposed to explain why officers share these collective traits, but most agree the

demands of the job play a large role. Crank (1997), for example, asserts police’s

“ widely shared attitudes, values and norms [. . . ] find their genesis in these work

environments. ” Paoline, Myers, and Worden (2000) agree that a police officer’s need

to work in an environment “ characterized by uncertainty, danger, and a coercive

authority” is the primary form of gravity working on police subcultures.

When the subculture theory is applied to policing it is referred to as ' police culture' ,

' police occupational culture' , or ' working personality' . A summary of three such

sociological studies give us a survey of the research in this field.

 Skolnick (1977) found that police personalities clustered around the traits of

machismo, bravery, authoritarianism, cynicism and aggression.

 A later Skolnick study (1966, 2000) described the ' working personality' of

police with three main components: danger, authority, and efficiency.

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 19

 Balch (1977) found a consensus among researchers that typical police

characteristics were suspicion, conventionality, distrust of the unusual,

cynicism, and prejudice.

 A study by Reiner (1992) found ' cop culture' in the late 1980s to be based on

the traits of machismo, pessimism, suspicion, public isolation/internal solidarity,

conservatism, racial prejudice, pragmatism, and a cycle of mission-action-

cynicism.

 Lester, Babcock, Cassisi, Genz, and Butler (1980) found that the psychological

scores of local American police in comparison to their English counterparts

were significantly higher in exhibition, dominance, and heterosexuality.

Despite local variations, the idea of a policing subculture common to Anglo-American

societies has been a productive hypothesis. From the brief survey above we find that

sociological studies agree that the policing subculture draws officers toward the general

traits of suspicion (cynicism, pessimism), authoritarianism (bravery, assertiveness,

machismo), conservatism (distrust of the unusual, pragmatism, conventionality,

efficiency) and internal solidarity (alienation from the public).

Having already explored internal solidarity in the previous section, we will now explore

the other four traits: suspicion, authoritarianism, pragmatism and conservatism.

IN FOCUS

The Blue Wall and the Ivory Tower

Policing is one of those public professions where everybody seems to have an opinion

about it. At the most extreme ends are those who believe that the police do everything

right or everything wrong, but most people fall somewhere in-between, usually based

on their interactions (or lack of interactions) with various police forces and officers.

The same can be said about the police, as most officers have their own view of the

public, some are disdainful of non-police, and some embrace the ethos of public

service, while the majority fall somewhere in-between.

The relationship between the ' blue wall' of policing and the ' ivory tower' of academia

can be just as varied—and as polarized. The phrase “ college kid” has long been an

insult among senior Canadian police (Stroud, 1983). This state of affairs might be

understood by looking at Toronto Police Chief, Bill Blair’s experience in the

criminology classes he took,

20 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

“ I found it prudent not to offer myself as an expert. ” One day, the

professor was lecturing about police enforcement of drug laws. Blair bit

his lip and listened. Some of the discussion, he recalls, “ was grossly

misinformed. ” (Lorinc, 2010)

Nonetheless, Blair found the experience of hearing other perspectives useful: “ It was

valuable to see how people perceive us. ” Considering the profoundly self-assured

nature of both police officers and professors, Blair’s position of empathy is a wise

middle ground. Police officer turned sociologist, James Albritton, also places empathy

at the heart of any dialogue between police and academics,

Based on my personal experience in both academics and policing, I have

progressively understood the decisive importance of empathetic

understanding in social science research. Without empathy, an essential

part of the human element under study is lost, and the resultant research

becomes nothing more than the projection of the researcher’s

assumptions, biases or presuppositions. (Sewell, 1998)

To understand the actions of the police the sociologist must take the role of the other

in order to see how police perceive their circumstances and accordingly construct their

actions just as the police must engage in a parallel process of role-taking in attempting

to understand the variety of people they encounter in their own job (Hester & Eglin,

1992). This module explores the sociology of police subculture and in doing so makes

broad generalizations about police officers, again this parallels police officers need to

rely on generalized ' working concepts' about members of the public.

The necessity of role-taking is not the only similarity between sociology professors

and police officers. Both professions are sometimes disliked rule-enforcers (especially

as the efforts of both jobs are largely aimed at 18-25 year olds), both are trained to

look critically at the actions of others even if this earns them their scorn and both

professions often focus on the darker parts of human society. It is easy to understand

why both police and sociology professors can share the trait of cynicism. The gulf

between the ' blue wall' and the ' ivory tower' is large but empathy, professional

respect, and dark humour can help lessen the gap.

Subculture Trait I - Suspicion

A common saying goes that “ a good cop suspects evil wherever they goes” (Twersky-

Glasner, 2005) and the sociologists have noted that an “ element of danger seems to

make the policeman especially attentive to signs indicating a potential for violence and

lawbreaking” (Skolnick, 1966). As a result, police can be generally suspicious people,

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 21

always sceptical and vigilant of ' outsiders' , a category which includes most non-police.

Sometimes this trait can transform into domestic hyper-vigilance with an officer

obsessing over a child’s or spouse’s safety.

The application of suspicion while on duty is the most pressing concern because

Canadian police are authorized by section 25(1) of the Criminal Code of Canada to use

force to resolve conflicts. Police learn when to use force from their training and the

shared understanding of other officers (Hunt, 1985). For example explaining the rapid

escalation of force 11

by a police trainer gives examples of how to ' educate' the jury to

the realities of the use of force. The use of force is a delicate matter in police training

because for both officers and civilians it can be a matter of life and death. If an officer

fails to use enough force they can risk their own life and that of their partner or

bystanders, but if they use too much force they can turn a tense but non-violent

situation into a fatal encounter (see Figure 2. 1 for an example of a force chart).

Figure 2. 1: Go to the following web address to view a ' typical escalation

of force' chart used in training

http://www. rcmp-grc. gc. ca/ccaps-spcca/cew-ai/imim-migi-

eng. htm#imim

With such high stakes an officer must find a delicate balance between suspicion and

paranoia (Kappeler, Sluder & Alpert, 1994). Unfortunately it appears that the police

training and attitudes in the post-911 environment are now priming officers towards

seeing threats everywhere, sometimes fantastical in nature.

This paranoia was demonstrated in the 2010 Toronto G20 protests when the city’s

police chief presented 12

padded swords, padded arrows and chain mail from a self-

described fantasy role-playing ' nerd' 13

teenager, a crossbow and chainsaw from a man

heading to his cottage, and various items not considered dangerous such as “ bandanas,

skateboard and bicycle helmets, golf balls, tennis balls, goggles, rope and walkie-

talkies” as “terrorist weapons” confiscated from “ anarchists” (Mahoney, 2010). This

same paranoid worldview was present when police justified arresting a G20 protester

who blew bubbles 14

near an officer by stating the officer did not know if the bubbles

11 explaining the rapid escalation of force http://www. policeone. com/corrections/tips/120741-Explaining-

the-rapid-escalation-of-force/ 12 police chief presented http://www. theglobeandmail. com/news/national/toronto/weapons-seized-in-g20-

arrests-not-what-they-seem/article1622761/ 13 nerd http://cnews. canoe. ca/CNEWS/Canada/G20/2010/06/30/14570136. html 14 blew bubbles http://www. youtube. com/watch?v= PGMTm3QRwEc&feature= relmfu

22 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

contained “ urine or ammonia. ” Toronto officers also justified arresting people behind

their canvas banner because they did not know whether protesters were “heating up

super glue to produce cyanide and kill everyone” and they expressed further worries

that “ terrorists were in the sewers and going to contaminate our water system” (Coles,

Garvie, Bansal & Rousseau, 2010) 15

.

Heightened security at high-profile international events is justified but when police

begin curtailing civil liberties and making arrests in order to fight threats like chain-

mail clad protesters wielding chainsaws, ammonia-laced bubbles, and caldrons of

poisonous superglue it seems they are preparing to fight a Batman villain not provide

security. Such paranoia is not appropriate since the actual vandalism that does occur at

political protests is less than many post-Stanley Cup hockey riots. For example, after

the 2008 Montreal Stanley Cup rioters destroyed 16 police cars while the G20

protesters destroyed 3. Nor does such paranoia do much to actually stop vandalism as

“ black bloc” anarchists (described by one storeowner who had his storefront window

smashed as “ mostly 18 to 20 [years olds]. Many were girls” ) did the majority of their

vandalism while 50, 000 officers were mysteriously not deployed to stop them 16

—a

situation that still remains unexplained.

Perhaps the true danger of this paranoid mindset is summed up by the RCMP officer in

charge of the whole G20 operation who said the security operation was a success

because despite “ multiple false alarms” they never had “to urge NATO planes to shoot

down any threatening civilian aircraft” (Freeze, 2010). Such a heightened sense of fear

threatens to make such false alarms a larger danger to the public than any criminal

enterprise. This worldview is not just limited to policing protests and it is not just

civilians who are worried about it. A retired Minnesota sheriff has stated that he is,

vehemently opposed to the kind of training cops get these days, training

that in essence teaches cops to shoot first and ask questions later. He is

appalled by the number of mentally ill people killed by the police,

unarmed people killed by the police, innocent bystanders killed as a

result of reckless police chases. (Guillermina, 2004)

When a local reporter commented to the sheriff that he could never personally imagine

shooting “ a 97-pound woman armed only with a knife, ” the former sheriff replied “ No,

you wouldn’t shoot her, nor would anyone who has not gone through police training. ”

At the heart of such comments is the question of how accurately an officer can perceive

15 Coles, Garvie, Bansal & Rousseau, 2010 http://rabble. ca/news/2010/06/eyewitness-accounts-police-

brutality-and-indiscriminate-arrests 16 failed to be deployed to stop them

http://www. torontosun. com/news/columnists/joe_warmington/2010/06/30/14564416. html

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 23

the threat facing them. There is no questioning the dangerous nature of policing, like

bouncers or orderlies in mental hospitals, as one of the key duties of police officers is

to confront threatening people, but in a paranoid world-view where every protest

banner hides an improvised chemical weapon factory, the ability of police officers to

accurately perceive ' threats' is increasingly being called into question. A Globe and

Mail (2015) Editorial accurately summarizes the changing views on police and their use

of force:

Police sometimes need to use force. Sometimes they must even use deadly

force. But what police need above all is training in how to not use force.

They need to be experts in de-escalating conflict and calming people down.

They need to be smarter, more reasonable and more level-headed than the

people they come into contact with. That is the job.

Unfortunately, North American police culture often seems to be built on

meeting threats with greater threats, and issuing ultimatums of the ' comply-

or-die' variety. In most circumstances, that is exactly the wrong way to go.

(Baird, 2015)

IN FOCUS

How Dangerous is Policing?

Is policing the most dangerous job in Canada? This question is difficult for many

people to objectively judge because the death of a police officer—especially those

killed on-duty—receives substantial media coverage while 80% of the over 300

Ontarians killed at work each year receive no media coverage at all. We can look at

the statistical data to help resolve this question, but first we need on a definition of

dangerous.

If ' dangerous' is defined as having the highest on-the-job homicide rate then the

statistics show that 133 Canadian police officers were murdered at work between 1961

and 2010. This makes policing the second most dangerous profession in Canada next

to taxi drivers who are murdered at about twice the rate of police. In the USA, retail

cashiers, restaurant and hotel managers, and cab drivers have higher rates of on the

job homicide than police.

Statistics Canada data reveals that modern officers face less of a chance of being killed

than earlier officers. Before 1989, an average of 3. 6 officers were killed per year, but

since then the rate has halved to 1. 5. The higher pre-1989 rates are likely due to a

24 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

higher rate of crime as research shows that the on-duty homicide rate of police officers

follows other basic homicide trends. The lack of protective body armour also led to

higher rates in the past as 92% of the officers killed were shot (Cardarelli, 1968). The

most dangerous tasks were investigating robberies, domestic disputes, and firearms

complaints (Dunn, 2010) 17

. In the 1970s, Canada ranked fourth highest among 14

nations for the rate of officers murdered in the line of duty.

Limiting the definition of ' dangerous' to only homicides ignores the majority of police

killed on the job because half of on-duty police fatalities are due to traffic accidents

and 20% are due to natural causes or other types of accidents (like heart attacks or

drowning). If we expand the definition of ' dangerous' to include all types of on-the-job

fatalities then the rate Canadian police has for on-the-job fatalities is 14 fatalities per

100, 000. This rate is well below many resource-extracting occupations such as

mining, logging, and fishing.

The death rate per 100, 000 workers (1988-1993) is (Perspectives on Labour and

Income, 1996):

 281 for mining and quarrying (cutting, handling, and loading)

 246 for construction (insulating)

 139 for mining and quarrying (labouring)

 137 for air pilots, navigators, and flight engineers

 123 for timber cutting

 116 for log hoisting, sorting, and moving

 110 for net, trap, and line fishing

 14 for policing

Even workers in less dangerous occupations like truck drivers (38), construction

labourers (35) and pipefitters and plumbing (31) are twice to three times more likely to

be killed doing their job than a police officer.

17 Dunn, 2010 http://www. statcan. gc. ca/pub/85-002-x/2010003/article/11354-eng. htm

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 25

A broader definition of ' dangerous' would include non-fatal injuries and diseases.

Policing is associated with high stress injuries from assaults, lower back pain and

higher cancer rates from using traffic radar guns (Parsons, 2004). Contrary to popular

belief (and their easy access to firearms), the rates of suicide amongst Canadian police

officers is lower than the general population rate (Andrews, 1996; Loo, 2003; Loo,

1986).

Policing is a dangerous job, especially in terms of homicide; yet policing is much less

potentially fatal than a number of industrial labour jobs or even driving a taxi. A

balanced approach to considering the danger of policing is important because a

University of Colorado sociologist observes that the constant exaggeration of

policing’s danger may be creating an unhealthy mindset in American officers:

Police training and socialization in the US is suffused with constant

reiterations of its risks and dangers. Steve Herbert’s ethnography of Los

Angeles police describes the litany of safety and danger talk that

characterizes daily police life, and that my own research confirms: “ Roll

calls regularly end with the admonishment to “ stay safe out there, ” and

officers at the end of a watch express satisfaction that they have returned

safely. . . . A common folk saying around the department holds that “it is

better to be judged by twelve than carried by six”—it is better to take an

action that guarantees the preservation of your life even if it results in

criminal action against you. It is difficult to imagine a more subtly

effective recipe for long-term terrorization of patrol officers.

The idea that policing is among the most dangerous of professions is

axiomatic in US popular culture. Even more so since the September 11 th

terrorist attacks, pictures of police as everyday heroes who risk their

lives to save us from chaos and destruction are commonplace. Without

doubt, police officers sometimes perform heroic deeds; without question,

they sometimes face fatal risks. But the dangers they face are not nearly

as great as most of us have been taught to assume.

Yet, faced with data that incontrovertibly challenges their perceptions of

police work, many people with whom I have shared this information still

express scepticism. As a friend of mine put it, “ the statistics might be

right, but the meaning of the statistics is wrong—something about the

essential quality of policing is missed. Policing feels more dangerous.

I’m sure even the fishermen whose jobs are eight times as risky would

say policing feels more dangerous. ” Maybe. But I would argue that the

statistics suggest policing needn’t feel so dangerous. Why does it? And

26 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

why are we so invested in believing it should?

The perceived danger of policing, for them and for us, is inextricable

from the glamour the job has. How many young men, in particular,

would choose to become police officers if they knew just how much of

their time would be spent assisting the ill, stranded or frightened,

resolving domestic disputes, and writing reports?. . . The glamorization of

danger, the hyper-representation of extreme events, and the assumption

that at whatever cost, all risks of danger should be prevented if possible,

are all inextricable from public demands that police be prepared at all

times for the worst case scenario: they could be shot in every traffic

stop; every troubled teen could turn out to be another Columbine killer;

every mentally ill person could potentially become violent. While these

are technically true statements, the likelihood in any given situation that

homicide is a risk is extremely small.

I am not arguing therefore that police shouldn’t be on guard or shouldn’t

be prepared for worst case scenarios. Rather, I am arguing that the

excessive emphasis on lethal possibilities may not in fact be serving to

more effectively protect us and police officers. No studies have been

done on what less intensively danger-focused policing might produce in

terms of police and citizen safety. As a nation, we have simply assumed

that the “overwhelming force” by our military and “ total control of the

situation” by police will provide us with the safest environments. I raise

here a possibility I believe is at least worth testing: perhaps our

preparations for danger are not neutral in their effects on police and

citizens. Perhaps they may even increase the likelihood of dangers

escalating out of control. (Rosga, 2003)

The number of Canadian police officers murdered on duty nationwide since 1961 is

2. 7 per year yet in Ontario alone from 2005-2014 Special Investigations Unit' s (see

Module Three for more about the SIU) statistics show that firearm deaths by police

officers was between 4-10 civilians per year (i. e. not including vehicle deaths and

custody deaths) (SIU website, n. d. ). If changing how police perceive and react to

danger could reduce the second number without increasing the first would it not be in

everyone’s benefit to do so?

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 27

Subculture Trait II - Authoritarian

Authoritarian behaviour is the “psychological expectation to be obeyed or submitted to

by subordinates. ” In policing, the category of subordinates encompasses most civilians

(except those with powerful social connections or wealth) and all lower-ranking

officers. This attitude is encouraged by the paramilitary structure of the police

hierarchy and also by the expectation of the public and fellow officers that an officer

should be able to take charge of a chaotic situation when others cannot. To fulfil this

expectation an officer must act from a position of power and “ with the knowledge that

what one says or thinks is probably correct” (Paoline, Myers & Worden, 2000).

Paoline, Myers and Worden (2000) also believe authoritarianism helps officers cope

with the danger and uncertainty of their occupational environment by allowing them to

“ maintain the edge” which they describe as “ employing a take-charge approach to their

work as they create, display, and maintain their authority to be ‘one up’ on citizens (the

outsiders. )” This combined need to maintain a ' one up' on civilians and an expectation

to be automatically submitted to can create conflict when police encounter others who

fail to properly submit in their body language, words, and behaviour. To an overly

authoritarian officer any ' disrespect' is a punishable offence. The book Not A Kid

Anymore gives the following example of the volatile mixture of authoritarianism,

juvenile disrespect and racially based “ working conceptions” :

Just ’cause we look tough don’t mean shit. But you see the police use

that to say we’re dissing [disrespecting] them. Even if we are, that’s not

a crime. [. . . ] Cops are on my case a lot. At night when I’m hanging out,

just swinging, a dick will come up and ask why I wear my handkerchief.

What gang I belong to. They say I’m in their “ face. ” Sure hassle the shit

out of me when I’m doing something. But not for nothing. [. . . ] The cops

like to see you squirm. We hate it. But we are forced to accept their

reasons for stopping us. White kids walk away after their nasty dealings.

(O’Bireck, 1996)

Such ' attitude checks' by officers to see if an individual will submit or not are common

on the street but the mere presence of an officer can spark a hostile response from

upper and middle class citizens who are unused to having to submit to authority. A

writer reporting on the Canadian police claims that:

As an observer, I felt most threatened, most in danger of violent assault,

when I accompanied uniformed policemen into upper- and middle-class

bars and private clubs. In the bad bars, we were a familiar sight, part of

the daily routine in places like the Drake or the Blackstone in

Vancouver, in the Charley or the Princess in Winnipeg, in the Gasworks

or Stages in Toronto, but we were attacked most often in bistros and

28 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

lounges where members of the educated classes were relaxing and

drinking. In a bar called the Arts and Letters Club, two uniformed

officers of the Vancouver police were almost mobbed by well-dressed

and well-heeled club members when they entered to eject a troublesome

patron at the special invitation of the management. We all got pushed

around by men and women who worked as lawyers and executives and

entertainers. Perhaps cocaine had something to do with this, but there

was a deeply felt outrage on their part that the “ cops” should intrude on

their ground. I had the distinct impression that we were suppose to be off

somewhere less tasteful thumping poor folk and busting street punks.

(Stroud, 1983)

The authoritarian nature of policing is often complicated by the fact that an officer’s

expectation of respect can refer to both their personal pride and to the ' higher interests'

(state, capitalism, racial privilege, patriarchy) they represent. Thus, situations can

occur where a citizen respects an officer but not the government that employs them or,

conversely, the institutions are respected but the individual officer is not. This dynamic

helps explain the extra abuse, both verbal and physical, some officers heap on

protesters even when they have been respectful to the officer—they are being punished

for their disrespect to the institution there are protesting.

More often the demand for respect is personal. Often both officer and suspect are

younger males with strong (often exaggerated) senses of manliness and such ' dick-

wagging' or ' pissing' contests are a constant risk. To avoid such pointless conflicts the

police culture proscribes norms that view overly authoritarian officers as

‘unprofessional’ or ‘immature. ” As Carsten Stroud (1983) describes,

One of the first things I discovered was that there is a distinct difference

between the policeman in the United States and in Canada. Bearing in

mind the dilution of truth implicit in all generalizations, I think it’s

accurate to say that most Canadian street cops were far less ready to use

violent and threatening tactics on even the most deserving citizens.

On Davie Street in Vancouver I spent hours with many different

policemen, of varying ages, and none of them were eager to rough up

the frequently obnoxious street people they had to deal with. Even

policemen who didn’t know I wasn’t a cop took a long slow time to think

about it before they decided that force was called for. I watched one cop

stand quietly and accept five minutes of gross verbal abuse from a

drunken tourist on Robson Street in Vancouver. The man cursed the cop

creatively and thoroughly for far longer than I would have

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 29

considered acceptable, and then he left untouched. I can’t think of a State

Trooper or a city cop in any of the American towns I’ve visited who

would have stood still for half that harangue without striking back.

Taking abuse such as that may be part of the job description, but taking

it as often and as gracefully as most of the men and women did calls for

a genuine commitment to restraint. Officers who carried a chip, who

provoked a fight, were openly frowned upon as men without maturity or

control. There were men like that, but the peer group pressure they

opposed was immense and sustained. The worst insult was to be

considered “ unprofessional” and a pugnacious cop was always seen that

way by his colleagues.

In sociological terms the occupational needs of policing places a high value on

authoritarianism but other subcultural values such as maturity and professionalism help

to rein in excessive authoritarianism. According to Stansfield (1996) the English police

culture encourages tempering authoritarianism into a milder more mature form called

paternalism:

What [Peel] actually created was a police force that operated according

to the principle of “ parens patriae. ” Parens patriae means, literally,

“ parent of the country” and refers, traditionally, to the role of the state

as sovereign and guardian of persons under legal disability. In this

context, it is intended to convey that, as delegates of the state, public

police are responsible for the safety of the public much like a parent is

responsible for the safety of their child.

Piaget’s (1977) observations that this type of “ parent-child” relationship is still one of

' unilateral respect' —the inferior is expected to respect the superior—but the parental

role prevents the macho aggressiveness that can easily arise in authoritarianism. A

parent may need to discipline a child but they should not lose their temper and start

beating them.

The need to constantly maintain an authoritarian persona can affect an officers’ personal

life by encouraging them to “ police their families they way the work the streets”

(Kirschman, 1997). Some officers instil their homes with demands of obedience that

create an appearance of domestic “ clarity, simplicity, and order” and thus lowers an

officer’s anxiety level, but it can come at the price of intimacy, positive regard, and

many spontaneous emotions. For example, a relative of mine who worked as a police

dispatcher, and who was married to an OPP officer, made her children stand ready for

a room inspection each week as the kids announced, “ Ready for inspection, commander

mommy. ” Outside the family, the combination of “ training in interrogation skills and

30 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

over certainty of opinions” in some officers can create an “irritating, adolescent

combative conversational style” that makes “ communicating with any non-police peers

nearly impossible” (Kirschman, 1997).

Subculture Trait III - Pragmatism

Like every professional, police must learn to adapt to the realities of their job by using

ways not necessarily formally sanctioned by society and their superiors, but that are

nonetheless efficient. Such methods are not based on “ the administrative rules, which

derive substantially from the criminal code or municipal regulations, but are those

“ rules of thumb” that mediate between departmental regulations, legal codes, and the

actual events on the street” (Manning 1978). William Waegel (1981), for example,

documents that a large part of detectives’ working knowledge is their ability to decide

which cases contain enough information to lead to an arrest and are worthy of further

investigation, and which are not. A similar informal but valuable job skill is the use of

deception as an aid in efficiency (Skolnick, 2000).

To the public a deceptive cop might be synonymous with a ' crooked cop' but police

officers’ job experiences teach them to view deception as a natural tool. This view is

often endorsed by the court system when it is practiced in the investigative and daily

activities of police work and consequently police develop ' extralegal' powers to assist

them in detecting criminal offences. Those police officers who become good at such

techniques become known as ' good street coppers' (at least in British parlance) while

those who cannot or will not master the techniques risk being ostracized.

According to Stansfield (1996), “ examples of extralegal police powers are the use of

informers, inducing confessions, finessing criminal acts, and differentially targeting the

poor for surveillance. ” These powers are adequate in most cases; however, in some

cases, such as the control of organized crime, the police resort to illegal acts such as

fabricating evidence or coerced confessions. The informal system of extralegal powers

and illegal acts, known colloquially as the ' Ways and Means Act' (referring to a

fictional statute 18

that police use to justify extralegal practices) makes manageable the

difficult police assignment of using the law to control those members of society who

represent the most serious threat to social order (Stansfield, 1996). Unfortunately such

discretionary, dubious actions will naturally penalize some members of society more

than others and this can make both the police and knowledgeable civilians, cynical

about achieving ' justice' in the criminal justice system (Stansfield, 1996).

18 fictional statute http://policecamerapaperwork. blogspot. com/2007/05/section-69-of-ways-and-means-

act. html

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 31

IN FOCUS

Informants

A rarely discussed but important ' working ability' for many officers is the handling of

informants. Physical evidence may get convictions but it is often ' snitches' who first

identifies suspects. No one likes informants but from Judas Iscariot (Imperial Roman

informant on radical cults) to Ronald Reagan (FBI informant on Hollywood leftists)

they have profoundly shaped history (Herhold, 1985).

Over the last two decades law enforcement dependence on informants has grown and

many countries have introduced policies to facilitate this by offering financial

incentives, protection, or leniency in exchange for information or testimony. As a

result, "the ' flipping' of criminals is now a central approach in the investigation [and]

increasing organisational pressures are exerted on police officers to recruit and establish

long-term relationships with criminal trade participants" (Aaronson, 2013). For

example, in 1975 the FBI had 1, 500 informants, and during the 1980s the number had

quadrupled to 6, 000 due to the ' War of Drugs' . In 2004 a presidential directive gave

the FBI an additional 13 million dollars to increase informants and it now has a

"network of over 15, 000 informants, the largest network of spies ever to exist in the

United States. " (Aaronson, 2013)

The benefit of increased intelligence from informants has its dark side because

informants are becoming increasingly powerful within the justice system. Considering

most informants are criminals themselves this is a worrying trend. A former Drug

Enforcement Agent who had "close association with more than 10, 000 confidential

informants" vividly describes them as "traitorous information whores who betray

friendships, relatives, business and/or criminal associates, nations, and even terrorist

organizations. They are criminals and conmen who use their insider positions of trust to

steal and barter information that can and often does destroy those who most trust them"

(Levine, 2009).

Some informants snitch for emotional reason like vengeance but most often have strong

legal and financial incentives to produce information that can lead to a conviction.

Informants can receive payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars per case and in

one infamous case,

a federal narcotic task force in New Mexico, took a child rapist who had

raped so many young boys in the past that “he lost count, ” as their

undercover informant. While working under the protection of the feds, the

informant continued to rape young boys. The allegations are that the feds

32 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

knew that their informant was the predatory rapist being hunted by local

police and continued to protect him so that he would not be discredited as

a witness in a drug case. (expertwitnessradio. org, 2010)

Informants and the War on Terror

The ' Wars' on Drugs and Terror have been boom times for informants. Studies have

found that nearly 50% of the federal terrorism convictions since 9-11 resulted from

informants, 30% were sting operations where the informant played an active role in the

underlying plot and in 10% of cases the informant was an agent provocateur—an FBI

operative who actually instigated the terrorist action. As a Human Right Watch 2014

study into the subject concludes "with three exceptions, all of the high-profile domestic

terror plots of the last decade were actually FBI stings" - a fact that is rarely mentioned

in the resulting media coverage (Human Rights Watch, 2014).

A typical FBI counterterrorism operation involves examining all the immigration data

and taxi licences of a city' s Muslim population looking for any violations that can be

used to create informants. Potential informants are then offered legal and cash

incentives to turn over any ' terrorists' they can find, so the informants will hang around

a mosque until they can befriend some “powerless braggarts” in their early twenties or

someone with mental health issues and together they plot ' terrorist' attacks. At this

point the FBI swoops into to make a high-profile arrest.

Most such ' terrorists' caught in this manner live on the "fringes of society, occupying

neither the skills nor the financial resources necessary to execute an attack on their own

and who never came into contact with Al Qaeda or any other terrorist network

whatsoever. " One ex-FBI agent described the 19 year-old Somali-American student

convicted of trying to bomb a Christmas tree lighting ceremony as "a kid who, it can be

reasonably inferred, barely had the capacity to put his shoes on in the morning”

(Aaronson, 2011). In the case of the ' Newburgh Four' , accused of planning to attack a

US military base, a judge said the government “came up with the crime, provided the

means, and removed all relevant obstacles, ” and had made a ' terrorist' out of a man

“whose buffoonery is positively Shakespearean in scope” (Human Rights Watch,

2014).

The CSIS informant who brought about the conviction of the ' Toronto 18' for their

plans to behead the Prime Minster had wanted $2. 7 million or he would refuse to testify

but in the end he was paid $300, 000. This informant was also the only member of the

terrorist group with any military training, firearm experience or even a driver' s licence.

The training videos the group produced are almost comedic with teenage ' terrorists'

jumping over camp fires, doing doughnuts in Canadian Tire parking lots, giggling

during their jihadi speeches, and frequenting the local coffee shop still dressed in

fatigues (Teotonio, 2010). A RCMP informant was also brought in to arrange a phoney

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 33

fertilizer purchase on behalf of the youths so charges relating to explosives could be

laid; this informant wanted $14-million for his efforts but was paid $500,000 (Freeze

and Akkad, 2007). Without the aid of such highly-paid informants the group seemed

unlikely to accomplish anything.

The case of Rezwan Ferdaus is similar. Despite an FBI agent admitting that Ferdaus

had “obvious” mental health problems, he was targeted for a sting operation and an

informant was sent to his mosque. Together, the informant and Ferdaus devised a plan

to attack the Pentagon and US Capitol, with the FBI providing fake weaponry and

funding their travel. The stress of the fake plot was so hard on Ferdaus that he began

suffering seizures and depression so badly that his father had to quit his job to care for

him. Ferdaus pled guilty and was sentenced to 17 years in prison (Human Rights

Watch, 2014).

The current legal climate is so hostile to terrorism that almost every suspect is

convicted with a lengthy sentence and prosecutors "can introducing evidence obtained

by coercion, classified evidence that cannot be fairly contested, and inflammatory

evidence about terrorism in which defendants played no part, asserting government

secrecy claims to limit challenges to surveillance warrants" additionally "the bar on

entrapment in US law is so high that it’s almost impossible for a terrorism suspect to

prove" (Human Rights Watch, 2014). Law enforcement agencies are under heavy

political pressure to stop terrorist attacks, and when this pressure is combined with

financial rewards for informants and a vulnerable population of Muslim males,

especially the young, the poor and those with mental or developmental disabilities, and

"you have a recipe for rampant human rights abuses” under the guise of safety (Human

Rights Watch, 2014).

Subculture Trait IV - Conservatism

Police officers must deal with examples of human selfishness, cruelty, and apathy on a

daily basis and this constant exposure can erode a person’s faith in “the basic goodness

of humanity until an officer feels that only the most innocent of victims—children,

elderly, pets—are not assumed to have somehow deserved their victimization”

(Kirschman, 1997). I refer to this phenomena as ' moral erosion' and it is found to

varying degrees among many people who work in the criminal justice and mental health

systems who witness some of the worst sides of humanity on a daily basis.

A steady stream of discouraging experiences convinces many officers that “ the judicial

system doesn’t work, criminals have too many rights, and victims’ needs don’t count,

the public doesn’t appreciate the police enough and politics not justice dominate their

34 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

job” and they react by adopting an attitude toward the society they once swore to

protect that ranges from protective detachment to misanthropic pessimism (Twersky-

Glasner, 2005). Other officers adapt to moral erosion by subscribing to the narrative

that they are different from the general public because they compromise a thin blue line

protecting society from mayhem and anarchy. As police are employed to maintain the

state’s conception of order it is not a far jump for many officers to ascribe to a sense of

mission in safeguarding a larger social order and accordingly adopting a conservative

view of life, society, and politics.

A conservative attitude generally expressed as a disposition “ to preserve what is

established, stressing tradition and social stability, keeping established institutions, and

preferring gradual development to abrupt change” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2011)

and this can be a healthy respect for the need of humans to be guided by rituals,

initiations, and culturally accepted values and meaning. Police officers’ daily

experiences dramatically illustrate to them the multitude of ways a human can ' fail' in

life and so their understanding of the human need to have established forms of guidance

and role-models is reinforced. Consequently, police culture often finds itself working

with churches, schools, sports, popular charities, and other widely accepted institutions

that try to instill communal values and respect for authority. In many ways this

conservatism is in agreement with the sociological theory of anomie first popularized by

French sociologist Émile Durkheim in 1897. Anomie (Latin a-nomos or ' without

norms' ) is described as “personal feeling of a lack of social norms; normlessness”

caused by the disintegration of a society’s widely accepted values. Some schools of

sociology believe that suicide, depression, and criminality result from prolonged

anomie and conservative attitudes work to prevent anomie and its negative

consequences.

On an individual level this conservatism can express itself as an officers’ embrace of

conventionality in their lifestyle, relationships, purchases, and tastes. Hence the officer

may try to conform to the domestic ideal of “ a nice house, with a white-picket fence

and 2. 5 kids” by purchasing expensive houses in the suburbs and shunning anything

weird or unusual. Other officers try to cope with the “ adrenaline withdrawal” of being

off-duty by becoming avid consumers going on “shopping sprees” for “ novelty gifts or

expensive toys—TVs, speedboats, big houses and motorcycles” in accordance with

mainstream tastes (Kirschman, 1997). This conventionality is also expressed in officers’

“addictions to caffeine, alcohol or sedatives” and horror at less harmful but

unconventional drugs. One side-effect of this middle-class consumerist lifestyle is that it

creates both a literal and figurative distance between police officers and the poorer,

inner-city citizens with whom they most often interact.

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 35

IN FOCUS

Political Conservatism and Policing

The personal conservatism of police culture (“small-c” conservatism) easily becomes

intertwined with the “ big-c” Conservatism espoused by the American Republican

Party and the Canadian Conservative Party and polling has estimated that 80% of

police officers vote for these types of parties. Since North American Conservative

parties represent the sometime radical interests of big business, imperialism, and

fundamentalist Christianity this can result in officers holding some strange belief-

systems despite their adherence to conventionality.

For example, modern Conservative Parties are dedicated supporters of America’s

exceptionalist right to aggressively invade other countries in violation of international

laws. This creates the unsettling paradox of many law-enforcement officers supporting

the “supreme international crime” as such aggressive invasions were termed by the

Nuremberg Tribunals that followed in the wake of World War II.

The politics of fundamentalist Christianity and unregulated capitalism create similarly

odd mixtures. In my personal conversations with a Sudbury Regional Police officer

who became a Conservative candidate and minister for the Pentecostal Assembly of

Canada, he stated that if elected he would enforce “ God’s law not man’s law” —this

was a strange statement to hear from a law enforcement officer. This fusion of law

enforcement and fundamentalism has become more prominent in the last decade and

stretches to the highest level of the Canadian legal system. In recent years (2006 -

2008) the position of the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, the

ministry in charge of the RCMP and corrections, was held by Stockwell Day who also

belonged to the Pentecostal Assembly of Canada. Day is well known for his

fundamentalist beliefs and has said “ I believe that the Bible is the infallible word of

God and every word in it, cover to cover, is true” (Day, 1998). From 2011-2013, the

Minister of Public Safety has been currently held by Vic Toews, a Paraguayan

Mennonite who stridently opposes same-sex marriage and abortion. In 2003, Toews

opposed including sexual orientation under the protection of hate crime legislation

because “ A homosexual activist could go to the Holiday Inn, say, and tell them,

“ We’ll sue you for the removal of those Bibles because they constitute hate literature. ”

36 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

Toews previously held the position of Attorney General (Minister of Justice)

before he was replaced by Rob Nicholson in 2007. Nicholson is a devout

Roman Catholic and described by fellow Conservative Kim Campbell as

very decisive and things are very black and white to him. There is a

wrong and there is a right. He never questions. He is very strong in his

faith. He believes in exactly what the Catholic Church preaches. He is

not one of these Catholics who picks and chooses. He is a devout

Catholic and he does believe in the doctrine of the church, so that’s why

. . . that’s why he takes the stand that he does on [abortion and] gay and

lesbian marriages. (Schmitz, 2007)

The role of the American Attorney General was held by John Ashcroft from 2000-

2005, yet another subscriber to the Pentecostal Assembly of God church. Ashcroft' s

devotion to literal interpretations of the Bible are almost too many to count, such as

having himself anointed with oil whenever he won an election and holding Bible study

groups with the Department of Justice employees each morning in his office, but

perhaps his most famous act was ordering a curtain ' burka' placed on the female semi-

nude ' Spirit of Justice' 19

statue located in his department’s Great Hall where news

conferences were held. Ashcroft ordered the statue covered up because he did not

want to be photographed besides the statue’s one fully-exposed breast that protrudes

from her toga.

The adoption of the Conservative political desires of big business can also result in

contradictory philosophies in police culture because the desires of large corporations

are often far removed from the pragmatic needs of police. For example, Conservative

officers are often anti-union (except their own), anti-tax (except for their own salaries

and sizable budgets which are paid from taxes), anti-government regulation (expect for

the criminal code, gun registry, marijuana prohibition, etc. ) and anti-social program

(despite knowing how limited policing is in fixing larger social ills).

The paradoxical belief that governments are too incompetent to regulate markets but

competent to regulate individual morality through increased police power is at the

heart of most conservative and neoliberal political philosophies (Harcourt, 2010). This

strange state of affairs leads to the irony of police officers advocating the radical

philosophy of unregulated capitalism despite most sociological studies of anomie

(including Durkheim’s own original analysis) concluding that unregulated capitalism is

anomie’s greatest cause. Over the last 200 years unregulated capitalism has:

19 Spirit of Justice http://news.bbc. co. uk/2/hi/americas/1788845. stm

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 37

 destroyed rural farming forcing people to crowd into cities;

 destroyed middle-class factory jobs through ' free trade' that sent those jobs to

other countries;

 demanded high levels of unemployment and immigration to keep job wages

down;

 kept a constant flow of new technologies pouring into society with no regard

for the radical social effects they incur;

 preferred alienated labour that emphasized profit-maximizing efficiency over

family, community, and living wages;

 allowed the gap between rich and poor to grow to grotesque proportions;

 successfully fought to lower corporate taxes at the expense of health,

education, social and environmental programs;

 filled the media with narcissism-inducing ads and programs that constantly

privilege individual desires over the public good;

 repeatedly crashed economies through reckless stock-market gambling and

banking fraud.

The near anarchy of such unregulated capitalism is a dedicated foe of any social

conservatism that tries to preserve traditional modes of social order such as family,

religion, government, and notions of the public good. This paradox means that police

officers daily deal with the negative human consequences of poverty and alienation,

yet they are also the front-line defenders of the anomistic-economic system that

produces it.

38 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

Subculture Trait IV. I - Prejudice and Stereotypes

One aspect of police culture closely related to conservatism is the use of stereotypes.

This is then often broadened to racism and condemned as one of the worst aspects of

policing and this can be the case. Yet imagine it is your job to drive around the city and

find criminals: Where do you go? Who do you stop? Do you go to ' the bad part of

town' ? Do you stop ' rich white people' who have enough social power to make your

life difficult? Do you investigate the scruffy-looking walker in the suburbs with shifty-

eyes? If you don’t use stereotypes and ' conventional' wisdom to guide you what do you

use?

Van Maanen (1978) states that “ police use stereotypes to guide them on whom to

police” and studies by Bittner (1967) and Sacks (1972) have shown that police officers

react in terms of practical notions of what appears to be “suspicious for this time and

space” plus a set of stereotypes about the kinds of people who constitute typical

criminals. Rubington and Weinberg (1996) refer to such practices as the “ working

conceptions” used to select potential criminals by the police. Griffiths and Verdun-

Jones (1994) refer to these practices as ' typifications' and ' recipes' ; ' typifications' are

typical or common expectations about routinely encountered events and ' recipes' are

the standard actions taken based on those typical formulations.

Ericson’s (1982) work on proactive policing provides a list of four such typifications

that police use to decide on which people are worthy of further investigation:

1. Individuals out of place; those who “ are engaged in activities at a time and/or in

circumstances deemed not normal” . Examples given by Ericson include “youths

who were not well dressed but were driving an expensive Cadillac, a man at 4 am

in a commuter train station with no scheduled train due for several hours, an old

man in ' derelict' conditions walking in a wealthy residential area, and a group of

men sitting in a car outside a bank. ” Such typifications are bound by time periods

and local variations in fashion, for example, “ an administrative directive within

the Los Angeles police department in 1959 “urged its men to be suspicious of

persons wearing sneakers at night” (Rubinstein, 1973).

2. Individuals in particular places; those people found in places that police have

defined as areas where deviants gather (for example, parking lots, public parks,

fast food chains). Proactive stops, in this context, would be for liquor and drug

violations and high crime areas.

3. Individuals of particular types regardless of place; people who are seen as being

particularly troublesome (for example, bikers, gang members, punks, and

individuals with a record).

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 39

4. Unusual circumstances regarding property. For example, an officer might look for

“ old cars with damage to the front end assuming the driver may have been in an

accident where he was the culprit and, therefore, issue a summons. The person

who cannot afford to pay for car repairs might also not be able to pay a fine and is

more likely to have an outstanding warrant on him. ” This is a technique that

officers feel would yield a high probability of catching drivers with outstanding

warrants.

In using these indicators to decide whether or not to initiate proactive action specific

groups are more likely to be targeted than others based on stereotypes because

stereotyping judges people by their external appearance. Ultimately the use of

stereotypes is not a reliable assessment tool and when police use stereotypes to

determine their actions in law enforcement activities, they create a self-fulfilling

prophecy. According to Stansfield (1996):

A self-fulfilling prophecy can occur when police have a belief (i. e. , a

stereotype) that most, if not all criminals, belong to a particular group.

Consequently, police use their discretion to target members of this group

with the predictable result that they find members of this group

committing crimes. When police arrest and charge these individuals,

they produce statistics that reinforce the stereotype about who is doing

crime. Armed with these “ objective” statistics, police target members of

this group.

IN FOCUS

Racial Profiling and the Irish

The question of self-fulfilling prophecies is a key question in discussing racial

profiling. Unfortunately the topic of racial profiling has become so controversial in

Canada that it has been called the “ Northern Taboo” resulting in Canadian police

agencies being prohibited from even collecting statistics on the race of those they

investigate; this makes research on the topic difficult (Wortley, 1999). Racist attitudes

among police officers are well documented but the need to rely on stereotypes and the

nature of self-fulfilling prophecies suggests that it is more complicated than racism

alone. If an ethnicity is over-represented in crime statistics, racists are quick to assume

that this reveals an ' eternal' cultural or genetic predisposition for crime- but a

historical view shows just how often such ' eternal' faults disappear when social

conditions change. An examination of the relationship between Toronto police and

Irish immigrants in 19 th century Canada gives us an example of this.

40 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

In the 1800s Catholic Irish immigrants were widely considered by

Protestant Anglo-Canadian elites to be a ' troublesome race' prone to

criminality and drunkenness. To many Canadians of this time all Irish

women were potential prostitutes and all Irish men were potential

hoodlums or gangsters. These negative stereotypes find some

justification in the Toronto police statistics of that era. The areas of

Toronto where Irish immigrants could afford to live were slums and the

high Irish Catholic birth rate and general poverty did little to change this.

Yet considering the background of these Irish immigrants, many of them

were destitute, escaping the famine of their homeland—a situation

facilitated to nearly genocidal proportions by the repressive British

policies and occupation of North Ireland. Irish gangs, tight-knit

communities, and devout Catholicism were responses to maintain an

Irish identity in the face of this British occupation when they were

imported to Canada. The largely Protestant English Toronto police

officers shared the anti-Irish bias of their British counterparts and the

force was rife with ' Orangemen' —a secret society that viewed Irish

Catholics the same way the Ku Klux Klan viewed African-Americans.

(Vronsky, 2004)

Thus in 19 th century Toronto we have an openly anti-Irish criminal justice system and

an immigrant Irish culture riddled with anti-state gang activity and the usual crimes

and addictions that accompany poverty. Add in the self-fulfilling prophecy of police

discretion and we begin to understand how Toronto officers believed that the Irish

were essentially a criminal race. Yet within two or three generations the typical Irish

stereotype transformed from a criminal to that of a brogue-speaking moustached police

officer; if someone talked about the ‘essentially’ criminal nature of modern Irish-

Canadians, they would be laughed at.

Similarly, popular views of organized crime reflect popular racist stereotypes. A

modern stereotypical organized crime outfit is that of the Russian mob or Vietnamese

gangs, forty years ago it was the Sicilian mafia or Japanese yakuza; in the 19 th century

it was Jewish and Irish gangs. This constant transformation shows that while certain

elements in ethnic cultures do have periods of increased criminality - dictated by a

variety of, often adverse, sociological factors - there is nothing ' essential' to such

criminality. The current inability to rationally discuss racial profiling stems from a

cultural inability to see crime in a larger sociological context.

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 41

SECTION 2. 3: Community Policing

In 1994, Bill Blair, an undercover Toronto detective responsible for some of the city’s

biggest drug busts, was asked by the Chief of Police to handle a potentially explosive

situation that had developed between 51 Division (or ' Fort Apache' as it was known

locally due to the ' cowboy' attitude and siege mentality of many of its officers) and the

residents of Regent Park. 51 Division officers were pursuing a suspected drug dealer

through the housing development when a young black resident shouted at them to slow

down because their high-speed pursuit was as least as dangerous to the community as

any drug-dealer. The officer responded with a sexual and racial slur, and the resident

grabbed his own crotch in response. The situation escalated and soon residents were

throwing bottles and yelling profanities at the officers. In response forty-five police

cruisers converged on the low income neighbourhood and released a cloud of pepper-

spray and batons. In the resulting melee several officers were injured and three people

were arrested and brought to the police station. Soon a crowd gathered around 51

Division angrily demanding their release.

A day later, residents held a meeting at the Regent Park community centre.

Against his staff’s warning, Blair decided to show up. The fluorescent-lit hall

was over-capacity, crammed with people exasperated by years of ill

treatment. When Blair entered the room, the din grew louder. “ People were

shouting and screaming, thumping their fists into their hands, ” McConnell

remembers. Blair took a chair and set it down in the centre of the linoleum

floor. With the residents standing around him, he said he would answer their

questions.

“ The first question was the toughest one, ” Blair [said]. “ They asked me,

‘Are there racists over at 51 Division?’ If you say no, everyone knows you’re

lying. And if you say yes, it’s kind of tough to go back to the station and

work with your people. ” His response is a kind of model in miniature of the

Blair approach to diplomacy. “ What I told them was that racism is a problem

in society and among all humans, ” Blair recalls. “ I recruit from the human

race and we’re as human over there as we are in this room” . . . . According to

people who were in the room, the speech was remarkably successful ….

When you talk to people from Regent Park today, they point to Blair’s time

there as a turning point.” (Hune-Brown, 2011)

42 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

Blair backed up his successful town hall appearance by making changes to how

Division 51 operated on a daily basis. He put many of the divisions’ plain clothes

officers back in uniform hoping to reduce the strong-arm style of policing and

reintroduce a degree of professionalism. He also declared that a working community

relationship and not arrests were to be the divisions’ top priority.

The rebel cops at 51 went on to pursue their grievances through the

Toronto police union. Blair, however, set to work normalizing

community relations with a hearts-and-minds campaign. He assigned a

couple of young beat cops to drop by that elementary school every day,

not just when trouble was brewing. Initially, they got a prickly reception.

But they persisted. “ Within five weeks, ” he recalls, “ those officers were

in the classrooms, reading to the kids. ” He took the same tactic with

local merchants and churches. At one, the pastor told him his

congregants were offering up prayers for the officers of 51 Division.

Blair made sure to relay that surprising piece of information back to his

squad; soon, some officers were attending services. As he says, “You

can’t police from the 50,000-foot perspective. ” (Lorinc, 2011)

When progressive candidate David Miller was elected mayor in 2003, he chose not to

renew the contract of the Police Chief Julian Fantino due to Fantino’s “ militaristic

approach to policing high-crime neighbourhoods” and his “supporters in the Mike

Harris government” (Lorinc, 2011). Instead Miller hired Blair and his community-

focused philosophy to supplement his own “ community safety drive in Toronto’s

neediest neighbourhood” and in 2005 Blair became the city’s youngest chief at 51-

years-old and the first one ever to have a university degree (Lorinc, 2011).

Blair began making the same type of changes to the Toronto Police Service as he had

done to Division 51 by “reorienting the force so it paid as much attention to community

safety and reducing the influence of gangs as to locking up criminals” (Lorinc, 2011).

To accomplish this Blair redeployed 200 desk officers to street patrol, hired another

250 officers for bike and foot patrol and focused on creating stronger links to

community groups. He also changed police hiring policies to reflect a city where almost

half the population was born outside Canada. His recruitment criteria emphasized

language and cultural competencies and half of the police college graduates since 2005

have been women or visible minorities and one-third speak at least three languages.

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 43

The Philosophy of Community Policing

Chief Blair’s method was the implementation of the community policing approach that

had been adopted by many North American policing services with varying degrees of

commitment and varying degrees of success. Community policing is a wide term

covering a diversity of policing methods—everything from foot patrols, to community

liaison programs, to neighbourhood watch programs—but the underlying philosophy is

to build stronger police ties with the community which allows police to do their job

more efficiently.

While it may seem new the idea of cultivating community contacts and popular

legitimacy to make policing more efficient has a long history and this is found at the

heart of the traditional Nine Principles of Policing that have existed since the 1800s

(sometimes incorrectly called Peel’s Principle of Policing).

Nine Principles of Policing:

1. The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.

2. The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon the public

approval of police actions.

3. Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observation

of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.

4. The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes

proportionately with the necessity of the use of physical force.

5. Police seek and preserve public favour not by catering to public opinion, but by

constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.

6. Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law

or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice, and warning is

found to be insufficient.

7. Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives

reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the

police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time

attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of

community welfare and existence.

44 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

8. Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions, and never

appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.

9. The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible

evidence of police action in dealing with it.

As can be seen from this list, public consent, public co-operation, minimal force and

the idea that ‘the police are the public and the public are the police’ have long been

ideals for policing.

Community Policing Methods

Modern approaches to community policing have centred on a handful of key ideas such

as using preventative proactive policing, zone policing, educated constable generalists

and media outreach. One common suggestion is to supplement the normal model of

reactive policing (only responding to crimes that have already occurred) with

preventative proactive policing that attempts to engage communities in situations other

than just crime responses. According to the community-based policing model,

officers should not simply circulate through the community awaiting a

call for help or the sight of an offence in progress, but they should work

actively with the community to respond to, and we hope, prevent crimes

from taking place. (Roberts, 2000)

In this model police departments should no longer act as ' motherships' which patrol

cars depart from, but instead police services should be decentralized and throughout the

community with neighbourhood or storefront police substations. By placing police

stations in high visibility areas the objective is to make it easier for the police to

communicate with the public.

Community policing also promotes zone policing that recognizes the heterogeneity

(diversity) of communities as a city can be subdivided into communities based on such

characteristics as race, sexual life style, language, religion, and the types of crime

committed there allowing for differing policing techniques in different areas (Stansfield,

1996). A form of zone policing can be seen in Chief Blair’s recruitment of academics to

do ' hot spot' analysis that uses computer models and crime data to predict where

criminal activity is likely to occur. Blair claims such modeling allows police “ to be

more intelligent in how we deploy our resources” (Lorinc, 2011).

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 45

Another community policing proposal is to use educated constable generalists instead of

officers who begin with little education and are then specialized according to their

assignment (like drug squad, homicide, or tactical). Constable generalists would be able

to handle the wider levels of discretion and autonomy that would allow them to be

involved in more aspects of the policing process including investigation. Toward this

goal Blair’s hiring criteria has seen the average age of police recruits rise to 28 and has

seen a sizable increase in the number of recruits with undergrad degrees, and “ during

graduation ceremonies, [Blair] presses the rookies on the importance of avoiding racial

biases” (Lorinc, 2011).

Community policing also emphasizes the use of the media outreach to communicate

with the public, such as Crime Stoppers programs that create dramatic reenactments of

a crime to play on television in hopes of prompting citizens to phone in new

information with the promise of anonymity and financial rewards. The organization

claims to have paid Canadian informants nearly thirteen million dollars during its

history (up to 2011). A Toronto police detective named Scott Mills started using the

Internet, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter to put out Crime Stopper appeals resulting

in a sevenfold jump in feedback. With Blair’s blessing, Mills also leveraged his

thousands of Twitter and Facebook followers to promote activities for Toronto youth,

such as legal graffiti art projects and BMX bike tournaments. A similar tactic of

recruiting the public as both paid and unpaid informants occurred after the 2011 riots in

Vancouver and Britain when police harnessed both the traditional corporate media and

internet-based social media outlets to distribute pictures of suspects.

Critiques of Community Policing

Despite community policing’s promises it has also garnered criticism. For example, the

model of proactive policing that puts more police out into communities on foot patrol

can be seen as intrusive by communities that distrust police. When in the wake of a

teenage shooting death Blair proposed to Toronto’s Boards of Education that a police

officer be stationed permanently in designated high schools it was met with some

community criticism and when Blair stressed that “ the cops in schools are carefully

selected, and their job is not to patrol the halls. . .rather [they will] help with coaching

and involve themselves with the life of the school” some parents and students were

suspicious of the police’s intention (Lorinc, 2011).

Others critics worry that involving the public in policing risks creating forms of

vigilantism and a society of informants. Normandeau and Leighton (1990) point out that

Neighbourhood Watch' s neighbourhood substations and zone policing are updated

versions of the ' watch and ward' vigilante police forms used in agricultural

communities to maintain order. They suggest that these forms of ' kin justice' and

46 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

' proto-state policing' are too dangerous to re-introduce into modern societies.

According to Stansfield (1996), many of the community policing programs “ are

informal, part-time, volunteer, surveillance networks” that encourage citizens to

provide police with additional information about each other’s habits and behaviours.

The most enduring critique of community policing offered by a variety of police

officers, criminologists, and lawyers is that community policing is more about public

relations than real reform policing. Thus while some sociologists interpret community

policing as increasing pluralism and rationalization, and liberal commentators often

highlight the ethnic sensitivity training police now receive, skeptics question whether

multicultural changes to policing—like allowing RCMP officers to wear Native braids

or Sikh turbans 20

—or setting diversity hiring quotas are necessarily products of genuine

police compromise and improved community understanding.

We should not be too quick to discount such changes in the dress of officers because

paramilitarism places a high value on traditional uniforms (and police cruiser paint

jobs) 21

and so such changes are improvements. Yet Hester and Eglin (1992) have also

noted that the popularity of community policing over the last 30 years has coincided

with a crisis of legitimacy for ruling classes. Since the 1970s many segments of North

America have felt an increasing distrust of the ruling classes’ political and economic

system. This has reduced the ruling classes’ ability to maintain its hegemony and Hester

and Elgin (1992) believe Anglo-American police, to help offset this loss of legitimacy,

have decided to implement community policing as a propaganda tool to rebuild public

support.

Similarly, Gordon (1987) believes that community policing help police deal with people

whose support for the ruling class appears to be weak and, therefore, needs boosting

and it is in the context of distrust and dislike of the ruling class that contemporary

community policing was developed. From his perspective community policing was a

grudging compromise to maintain the image of neutrality that a government needs to

ensure its legitimacy. Some academic criminologists have noted that even the ' Nine

Principals of Policing' are themselves closer to police propaganda than a reflection of

the realities of policing.

In the case of Chief Blair’s reform, University of Toronto professor and criminal

lawyer Peter Rosenthal, feels that Blair “ talks a much better game” than his

conservative predecessor Fantino but believes “ there’s been less change on the force

than Blair would care to admit” (Lorinc, 2011). “As far as I can tell, he hasn’t operated

20 Sikh turbans http://news. rediff. com/report/2010/may/12/baltej-dhillon-rcmp-on-20-years-in-the-

force. htm 21 paint jobs http://www. cbc. ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2007/01/18/cruisers. html

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 47

very differently than his predecessors, ” says Rosenthal noting that there are still many

incidents where police officers use firearms inappropriately and where homeless people

are arrested or harassed.

Perhaps the best illustration of the limits of Blair’s progressivism and community

policies were seen in the 2010 G20 protests.

15 years after that tense meeting in Regent Park, Blair was once again

asked to get up in front of an angry public and speak for the police. Just

like in 1995, Blair’s task was to acknowledge public anger while

remaining credible to the men and women in uniform who work beneath

him. But this time his public statements [about the G20] made an ugly

situation worse. (Lorinc, 2011)

Unlike the humanity Blair had showed in Regent Park, in the aftermath of the G20

protests Blair blandly “ continued repeating his collection of talking points” and refused

to explain why police removed name tags during the protest, why laws had been

purposefully misrepresented by the police department before the protest, and why he

refused to hold any officers responsible for their violent misconduct despite the

existence of videotapes showing the abuse.

Blair’s supporters have offered excuses for what happened during the G20:

the unfairness of holding an event like the G20 in downtown

Toronto. . . they hint darkly about the other police organizations involved,

like the ISU , which was formed for the G20 and then immediately

dissolved. . . they talk about the Police Association and the kind of

pressure the powerful union can bring to bear on a chief. (Lorinc, 2011)

Maybe an easier explanation is that police departments must now publicly renounce

racism, sexism, and sexual orientation discrimination because Canadian culture at large

has rejected such discrimination. But to show sympathy for anti-capitalist protesters,

even if they represent the views of part of the community he serves would place a

police chief in direct opposition to the true rulers of Canadian society. A position not

even the most progressive police chief could take and still keep their job.

48 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

SECTION 2. 4: Police Funerals

Police funerary rites and memorials are public events. The death of an on-duty officer

receives media coverage and the resultant funeral ceremonies can involve shutting down

roads and even whole towns as thousands of people, including police officers,

politicians, and military representatives converge on the event from across the

continent. When four RCMP officers in 2005 were killed in Alberta, the Queen of

England sent her condolences to the thousands of mourners (this is one of the benefits

of being a ' Royal' force), and even the death of a police horse 22

named Brigadier in

Toronto became a large public event:

A memorial service that was planned to be held in Scarborough was

delayed and moved to the Ricoh Coliseum at the Exhibition grounds so

that all the other police horses could attend. Toronto Mayor David Miller

issued a five paragraph communiqué on the tragic loss of Brigadier [. . . ]

Police officers from Ontario and neighbouring U. S. states attended. And

the service was attended by several dignitaries, including Ontario

Lieutenant Governor, Ontario Community Safety Minister, Mayor David

Miller and of course Toronto Police Chief, Bill Blair. (Weinreb, 2006)

Even after the funeral is over there are a number of permanent markers erected and

yearly memorials to remind Canadians of slain officers. Perhaps the strangest sign of

the increasingly public nature of police memorials is the growing industry of selling

refrigerator magnets 23

, t-shirts 24

, and personalized bumper stickers 25

with the names of

the dead officers. As with many aspects of an officer’s personal life even their deaths

are not considered private.

This section will examine the sociological significance of police funerary rituals to see

what they can tell us about police culture and the nature of overtly public funerals in

general. We will first look at these rites through a historical-political lens to place them

in their public context and then use a subjective-interpretive lens to see how they fulfill

emotional and existential needs.

22 horse

http://www. torontopolice. on. ca/modules. php?op= modload&name= News&file= article&sid= 2136 23 refrigerator magnets http://www. cafepress. ca/+ police-memorial+ magnets 24 t-shirts

https://secure3. convio. net/nleomf/site/Ecommerce/55870528?VIEW_PRODUCT= true&product_id= 85

82&store_id= 1201 25 bumper stickers http://www. emergencystuff. com/national-ems-memorial-service-custom-bumper-

sticker/

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 49

Display of Social Power

The documentary A Very British Gangster (2007) may seem like a strange place to start

a study of police funerals but it offers us a dark mirror image of the police funeral. This

documentary records the funeral of a crime boss’ brother—who also was a criminal—

and how the town was brought to a standstill to allow for a regal funeral procession,

complete with horse-drawn carriages and bag-pipe escort. During the funeral a

television announces that the town' s “ motor-ways, high-schools, and businesses are

closed for the day, out of respect. . . and safety. ” The decision to honour a criminal in

this manner was not popular with all locals but the sheer number of mourners—over

3, 000—and the crime boss’ social position in the town were too powerful to ignore or

disrespect. The documentary host comments that “ the funeral is a chance to mourn and

a chance to demonstrate their strength” and few people are unwise enough to disrespect

powerful organizations with the capacity for violence while they are in mourning.

Despite being on the other side of the law, police funerals are also displays of their

powerful position in their communities and especially their control of public roads.

A similar acknowledgment of the social power of funerals can be found in reports by

RCMP informants on labour movements during the 1930s and 1940s. The now

declassified intelligence reports detail how labour movements used work-place fatalities

as occasions to hold politically charged funeral marches. RCMP informants often

commented on how successful these funeral parades were based on their pageantry and

emotionally stirring eulogies. The ability to make people acknowledge the death of a

member of your organization is a display of social power.

Political Propaganda

If we accept that public funerals are often displays of social power then the growth of

public police funerals should be placed in the context of the growing political power of

police and police unions. In 1978 the first yearly tribute to slain officers began being

held on Parliament Hill and in 1994 a granite stone base displaying the names of 227

police officers killed in the line of duty since 1879 became part of the ceremony. The

reasons given for selecting Parliament Hill as the memorial site by the Canadian

Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) and the Canadian Police Association (CPA) is

revealing. The CACP website states that Parliament Hill was chosen because it is “ the

place where laws are made that directly impact on police officer safety” (CACP,

2007 26

), so there is a clear political element to the commemorative ceremonies.

26 CACP, 2007 http://cpoma. ca/welcome. html

50 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

The Ontario Police Memorial was spearheaded by a similar combination of police

unions (TPA, PAO, OPPA) and police chiefs (OACP) and is likewise built adjacent to

the Ontario Legislature at Queen’s Park. The funding for it came from a $700, 000

grant provided by the Ontario Government under Conservative Premier Michael Harris.

The politicization of Ontario police unions makes it difficult to separate this grant from

their endorsement of Michael Harris in two provincial elections and the PAO’s own

yearly lobby day 27

at Queen’s Park. Yet this blurring of politics and mourning is mild

compared to the use of slain officers by American police unions,

During a tense bargain round in a Texas town 10 years ago, for example,

[Police Labor Institute negotiator] Burpo boasted that the unions made a

slain officer the centre of the campaign. “ My husband’s life was worth

more than 3 percent, ” Burpo remembers the widow saying, referring to

the demanded pay hike. But the union got the pay increase it wanted.

“ That’s really up there on the edge. The city council folded. They

couldn’t take it, ” says Burpo. (Schmidt, 2000)

The propaganda value of police widows should not obscure the real suffering

underneath the hype and propaganda, but police widows have been used for political

purposes since 1833 when Constable Robert Culley left behind a widow after the Cold

Bath riots. Until the death benefit gains made by police unions in the 1970s most media

accounts’ focused on the very real plight of pension-less police widows left to struggle

on after their husband’s deaths.

The American ' on the edge' use of slain officers for political gain by police unions may

be coming north. According to “ one insider close to both the Tories and the police

union” in 1998 TPA president Craig Bromell was upset that the Harris government

failed to capitalize on the “ public outcry surrounding the funeral of a slain detective

constable” to weaken the SIU’s rules of high-speed police pursuits to the union’s liking

(Anderson, 1998 28

).

State Religion

In 1998 the Federal government proclaimed the last Sunday of every September as a

national police memorial day and the flags on all government buildings are at half-mast

to “give Canadians an opportunity each year to formally express appreciation for the

dedication of police and peace officers, who make the ultimate, tragic sacrifice to keep

communities safe. ” This national day of mourning not only represented the growing

political power of police but it also saw the extension of Canada’s ' religion of state' to

27 lobby day http://www. youtube. com/watch?v= MEi_i_QQjoI 28 Anderson, 1998 http://www. walnet. org/jane_doe/news/toronto_98/now-980820. html

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 51

police officers. Before the modern era the use of the phrase ' ultimate sacrifice' was

almost exclusively reserved for soldiers but the phrase is now commonly extended to

police officers.

The origins of this Canadian ' religion of state' are well-documented in Jonathan

Vance’s sociological examination of Canadian First World War memorials (1999).

Vance states that the purpose of WWI war memorials was not only to provide a site for

remembrance and to glorify those who had died “in service of state” but to craft a

mythology that situates the “ birth of the Canadian state at Vimy Ridge” and despite the

surface Christian trappings of many memorials and cenotaphs, “ Canadian clerics

complained about the absence of religious ceremonies in their unveiling” (Vance,

1999). In this new secular religion of statehood the myth of Christ’s suffering and

ultimate sacrifice on the cross was being replaced by the soldier’s suffering and ultimate

sacrifice in the trenches. The national flag was replacing the crucifix. This new state

mythology gave a ' purified' narrative of the Great War ' free of complexity' and re-cast

the trauma of the war in the larger mythology of democracy, Empire, and the birth of

the Canadian nation-state (Vance, 1999). This process would reoccur after the Second

World War and it was this ' religion of state' that would eventually extend to slain

police in recent decades.

The ' religion of state' experienced another large boost in the wake of 9-11 and with this

resurgence it would see police officers (and firefighters 29

to a lesser degree)

unequivocally join soldiers and federal politicians as government employees worthy of

full state honours. The post-911 equivalency of solider and police ultimate sacrifices

can be seen in the fact that the 401 Highway was officially renamed the Highway of

Heroes 30

in honour of military causalities in Afghanistan and Sudbury MPP Rick

Bartolucci’s private member’s bill Highway Memorials for Fallen Police Officers 31

gave

the Ministry of Transportation the power to rename local bridges after ' sacrificed' 32

officers. In fact, the desire of American and Canadian governments to downplay 33

military causalities has meant that, at least in terms of media coverage, police are now

the key martyrs in the North American religions of statehood.

Historically the most powerful users of funeral propaganda in this manner have always

been actual religions—from Islamic martyr processions to the Catholic Book of Saints.

Yet no matter which group holds the funeral procession, the message remains the same:

deaths in the service of that institution are morally justified sacrifices that bring glory to

the whole institution.

29 firefighters http://www. workers. org/ww/2001/fire1122. php 30 Highway of Heroes http://www. ctv. ca/CTVNews/CanadaAM/20070824/online_petition_070824/ 31 Highway Memorials… http://www. e-laws. gov. on. ca/html/statutes/english/elaws_statutes_02h26_e. htm 32 sacrificed http://www. sacred-texts. com/ame/cig/cig06. htm 33 downplay http://www. seanbruyea. com/2006/04/in-canada-an-uproar-over-army-casualties/

52 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

Emotional Displays and Existentialism

Thus far police funerals have been examined from the outside to see what messages

they give to an external audience and what socio-political (or socio-religious) context

they occur in. Now we examine police funerals from the inside and see how they

reinforce and reflect police occupational culture.

As discussed in earlier sections, police are trained to repress emotional reactions to any

traumatic situations they might witness and this prohibition frequently extends to the

display of any ' softer' emotions in general. This repression is necessary but difficult to

constantly maintain. Funerals provide a notable exception to this taboo on emotions as

does the police custom of heavy drinking sessions. In any other situation a crying

officer would bring the strong disapproval of their peers but it is a common sight to see

burly men openly weeping during police funerals—even if the officer never personally

knew the deceased. This emotional freedom also applies to the funerals of police dogs

and horses because they, like children, ' are not assumed to have somehow deserved

their victimization' .

Funerals are an occasion where ordinary people can reflect on deeper existential

questions such as the meaning of a human life. In the case of a large public funeral this

existential question is given a rare collective interpretation and the eulogies become not

just a chance to honour and remember the individual who died but an occasion to

reinforce communal values and mythologies. As Jonathan Vance (1999) observes a state

funeral and memorial,

. . . purifies things, makes them innocent, gives them a natural and eternal

justification, it gives them a clarity which is not that of an explanation

but a statement of fact. . . it abolishes the complexity of human acts, it

gives them the simplicity of essence. . . it organizes a world which is

without contradictions. . .by establishing a blissful clarity: things appear

to mean something.

In the case of police funerals this ' purifying' and meaningful interpretation is

channelled into the ideals of sacrifice, service, and nobility. That these values are found

in both middle-class and military cultures, reflects policing’s heritage as a

bureaucratically neutral paramilitary organization which defends bourgeoisie

conventionality. These are also values that orientate individuals to the larger

organization or community and when thousands of officers attend a funeral they do not

just provide comfort to the bereaved, they also communicate the value of life led in

such service to the ' higher good' . This ideology that some police believe situates police

culture in opposition to the stereotyped selfish lives led by criminals (and most citizens

in general) who do not live for anything beyond themselves. The internal and external

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 53

message is that police officers have chosen to live and die for the larger good of the

nation-state. Here are the thoughts of an American police officer serving on a UN

mission on the meaning of a police officer’s life:

Today I attended the funeral of Carlyle Schrank, an American officer

who died of a heart attack, far from his home and family. I knew Carl. I

first met him when we were preparing to leave the United States for

Kosovo. He was a friendly, warm human being. He lived most of his life

as a police officer. Somewhere in his past, he chose this profession as a

cause worthy of his life and he stayed with it despite every hardship,

despite every cost. The sacrifices of these officers, paid willingly for

their duty, is so much like the sacrifices of all my brother and sister

officers. And police around the world have all been diminished by their

deaths.

It is hard for me to imagine life as a police officer without the spectre of

death hanging over us. Police officers know that death can come any

day. The officers who came before me taught me that. It is part of our

job. Officers dream about their deaths. They dream the violent, painful,

grotesque deaths that police officers see every day. They dream about

their failures and their fears. And they live with those burdens every day

they wear that uniform.

For nine years I have defied death and hatred and cruelty and untold

violence to do my job honourably and justly because I believed it was the

right life for me to live. Even in the face of my own death, at the cost of

so many that are dear to me, I have persisted as stubbornly as I could

manage. Being a police officer has been my opportunity to be the best

man I could be, to serve a higher cause that was greater than myself.

It has been my pride and honour to have worked with so many valiant

souls over the years. I have lost some, but I carry on in their names. I

hope I make them proud of me. I hope I am worthy of them.

After losing friends in this job and confronting the worst aspects of

humanity, I have come to realize that it is not dying for a cause that

makes us righteous. No one becomes special by dying. Anyone can die

and everyone will. It is living for a cause that makes being a police

officer a truly noble profession. It is commitment and conviction that

gives us strength and makes it possible for us to continue on when we

have every reason to succumb to our grief and turn our backs to the

world. How we live our lives is far more important than how we die.

54 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

Police officers live this kind of life for everyone we know and care

about, so that they can have a better life. Truth and justice. That is a

cause worth living for. (Olsen, 2001 34

)

In such a powerful ideology even the death of a police horse which the horse’s rider

termed an “ ultimate sacrifice” , can bring out moving poetic odes. Here is Toronto Star

columnist Jim Coyle' s (2006) eulogy about Brigadier’s death:

It was nothing less—this memorial to one animal’s life and city’s

mourning of his loss—than a celebration of mankind’s higher

aspirations. . . It was a powerful reminder of the merits of selflessness and

humility. . . . Lest We Forget.

The ' blissful clarity' of this mythology ignores many ambiguities inherent in policing

and there is a danger that such state funerals send a message that the lives of those who

do not serve the state are less valuable than those who do—but it is a powerful

mythology that few humans are not emotionally touched by. It situates the life of a

police officer in the eternal wars between egotism and service, duty and self-interest,

and ultimately, meaning and meaninglessness. In the increasingly secular nation of

Canada where the comforts of religion are accepted by fewer and fewer, the comforts

offered by the religion of state are strong.

34 Olsen, 2001 http://www. unmikonline. org/civpol/articles/legacy. htm

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 55

SECTION 2. 5: Cultural Depictions of Policing

It is impossible to discuss policing without discussing media portrayals of police

because these fictional examples have greatly affected how the public view police and

how police view themselves. The media’s interest in policing has been an enduring one

and it is said that since the invention of television there has never been a year without at

least one police drama on air and long before television there were novels, movies, and

comic strips ready to do the same.

The idea of uniformed officers constantly patrolling the streets of London was not an

initially popular one but due to “ the rapid incorporation of the police constable into

Victorian popular culture he became a normalized presence” (McLaughlin, 2007). In

Victorian England the police had many “ cultural patrons” willing to use the power of

the arts to “ advertise” the new force but most successful among these was Punch

magazine. Punch was a popular satirical magazine but its conservative political views

meant it,

was resolutely pro-police and played a pivotal role in popularizing and

traditionalizing ‘the bobby. ’ This was done by smothering him in

representations of ‘Englishness’ and constituting him as the embodiment

of the national temperament, periodically reminding readers that his

creator, Robert Peel, was the epitome of English genius. (McLaughlin,

2007)

A commentator on police affairs noted that

if fear of the police is, in England, less acute than it might be and there

is culpability in the matter, Mr Punch’s artists are to blame . . . Punch has

been busy in delineating the Force with kindliness . . . geniality and

tolerance. (Pulling, 1964)

The secret of Punch’s success was two-fold. First, they “ concentrated not on the

organization but on the character of the individual constable” (Kift, 1986) avoiding the

tricky sociological and political issues that swirled around the new force. Second, they

took the individual constable out of his urban origins, with its intonations of class

conflict and poverty, and portrayed him as a friendly ' village bobby' . This allowed

Punch readers to consume a steady stream of cartoons and stories about police officers

without having to encounter the reality of what they represented.

56 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

Punch’s focus was almost exclusively on rank-and-file officers but it was police

detectives that most firmly captured the public’s imagination and later the imagination

of novelists and film-makers. Previously “ crime stories had tended to bestow criminals

(operating outside the law and on their own terms) with heroic status,” but the growing

popularity of mystery novels made detectives into the protagonist (McLaughlin, 2007).

The public admired detectives but their ambivalence about the new police force was still

there. For instance, the detective in the first English detective novel, The Moonstone

from1868 is

professionally competent but socially unacceptable to the novel’s upper

class characters. The local police are represented as socially acceptable

but incompetent. The author’s intention may have been to accommodate

middle-class fears of creating a too effective police force that does not

know ‘its place. ’ (McLaughlin, 2007)

This may explain why it is an amateur civilian detective, Sherlock Holmes, and not a

police detective that has become the enduring symbol of the ultimate detective.

After the First World War there were many changes in society that altered the media’s

depictions of policing. The British government started producing their own media

through the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and BBC radio broadcasts and

cinema newsreels “ edited incidents of police violence heavily and went to remarkable

lengths to cast the police as ‘the thin blue line’ or caught in the middle of extremists”

(McLaughlin, 2007). Police departments and police unions also become more media

conscious during this era and funded full-time press offices to sponsor weekly radio

talks by chiefs of police and publish ' official' police histories. This new media

suaveness by the British state,

constructed a historical narrative that idealized the identity of the

constable by reproducing the ‘best’ of the popular cultural

representations, available histories, and political statements which

emphasized that England had the finest police force in the world.

(McLaughlin, 2007)

In comparison, the United States media portrayals of police of the post-world war era

were less flattering as this reflected both the American experience of police forces as

‘gangs’ loyal to politicians and ethnic communities rather than the government, and a

broader American ' irreverence for authority' . Most famous of these comical American

portrayals were the popular slapstick films of the Keystone Kops. In these silent-film

comedies, the police were,

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 57

insanely incompetent, dressed in ill-fitting, unkempt uniforms. . . what

the Kops lacked in sense they made up for in zeal, as they dashed off to

the chase on foot or drove off in a tin lizzie 35

(one accommodated the

entire force), in jerky, speeded-up tempo. Whether they collided with

one another around corners or became entangled in clotheslines,

ladders, or folding tents, their facial expressions of dour dignity never

changed. (Encyclopaedia Britannica)

Despite, or maybe because, of their insane incompetence the Keystone Kops have

“ became enshrined in American film history as genuine folk-art creations” whose

comic appeal can still be seen in the Police Academy films and Chief Wiggum in The

Simpsons.

Even though the American public loved to mock their own police, the British ideal of

police as noble, trust-worthy state officers also strongly appealed to them. It would

have been disloyal for Americans to admire the Bobbies of the very country they had

fought a revolutionary war against but Canada’s RCMP contained many aspects of

British policing without the historical baggage. Consequently an “ enduring, passionate,

love affair” developed between Hollywood and the RCMP. Of the 575 motion pictures

that Hollywood has made about Canada by 2006, 256 have starred Canada’s federal

police agency or as one movie reviewer proclaimed “ All Canadian heroes belong to the

Royal Mounted. ”

This situation was parodied in the 1970s cartoon character of Dudley Do-Right 36

and

Pierre Berton’s The Americanization of Our National Image (1975) gives the following

summary of the Hollywood depiction of an RCMP constable,

The movie Mountie was almost invariably brave, noble, honourable,

courteous, kind and trustworthy—all the standard boy scout qualities, to

go with the hat. He is the quintessential hero and always wins. He gets

his man and he gets the girl (or nobly gives her to another).

It was not just Americans who were obsessed by this idealized image of a police

officer, it was Canadians too and even the RCMP “ for all their reluctance were sucked

in” to the Hollywood mythos that was being created. Yet the RCMP’s role was not just

as an audience, as RCMP management “ maintained pressure on Hollywood through the

early censor boards” to ensure that “respect due to such a body as the Royal North

West Mounted Police” was given (Berton, 1975). When Hollywood came north to film

pictures in the 1950s “ the RCMP as a result of government pressure were able to read

35 dashed off to the chase on foot or drove off in a … http://www. youtube. com/watch?v= mZBdxvego1E 36 Dudley Do-Right http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Dudley_Do-Right

58 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

and comment on any scripts” involving them (and they are not the only police agency to

make such a request 37

). The RCMP’s desire to control their image reached an ironic

climax in 1997 when the RCMP gave the Disney Corporation licensing rights to all

products bearing the image of the ‘Mountie. ’ This guaranteed that all official Mountie

merchandise and souvenirs would need copyright approval from a special licensing

body (Gittings, 1998) but it also generated accusations that the Canadian government

was supporting the ‘Disney-fication’ of the RCMP. This public sensitivity to a

copyright agreement reflected how strongly the image of the red serge 38

-wearing RCMP

officer meant to the Canadian psyche and self-image. No other country in the world,

not even Britain and their Bobbies, is so globally identifiable by their police force.

Following the Second World War the American portrayal of their own police changed

from slapstick bunglers to cool, hard-working professionals reflecting the increased

respect for the government due to war-time patriotism. The most influential police

depiction of the 1950s on both radio and television was Dragnet. Dragnet was based on

the fictional exploits of a LAPD detective named Joe Friday. So popular was Joe Friday

that when the actor who portrayed him died he was buried with full police honours. The

catchphrase “ Just the facts, ma’am” associated with the Friday character encapsulates

the more realistic style of police dramas of this era.

By 1971 the Cold War conformity was waning and America’s most popular police icon

would transform from the straight-shooting Joe Friday to his near opposite, a rogue cop

named ' Dirty' Harry Callahan played by Clint Eastwood. Dirty Harry became the

template for a new kind of ' loose-cannon' movie cop “ who does not hesitate to cross

professional and ethical boundaries in pursuit of his own vision of justice, especially

when the law is poorly served by an inept bureaucracy” (Wikipedia). The Dirty Harry

archetype does not shy away from killing and Callahan kills 45 suspects over five

movies—including his main opponent a ' psychologically unbalanced hippie' serial

killer. Joe Friday’s professional “Just the facts” was replaced by Callhan’s

threateningly sarcastic “Make my day” and “Do you feel lucky, punk?” Despite Dirty

Harry’s brutal nature his rationale for killing criminals remained the greater good of

protecting society.

The film resonated with an American public that had become weary and

frustrated with the increasing violent urban crime that was characteristic of

the time. The film was released at a time when there were prevalent

reports of police brutality and police overstepping their authority through

37 request http://earthnews. net/ciaoncbs. htm 38 serge http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Serge

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 59

entrapment and obstruction of justice. Author McGilligan [1999] argued

that "America needed a hero, a winner at a time when the authorities were

losing the battle against crime". (Smith, 2012)

This new violent policing icon was not met with universal approval. Critics have called

the films “ a right-wing fantasy” and a “ single-minded attack against liberal values” that

glorified sexism, racism and violence—but Dirty Harry remains an enduring and

influential depiction of the modern American cop.

While right-wing, Dirty Harry clones dominated the film screens of 1970s and 1980s,

the television shows of the same era offered a more humanistic and liberal version of

policing. The sitcom Barney Miller gained “a devoted following among real-life police

officers” through its “ low-key portrayal of cops going about their jobs” (Wikipedia).

The cops of Barney Miller were ethnically and politically diverse, ranging from flashy

capitalists to officers with anti-war beliefs but the true focus of the show was on the

“ believably quirky” criminals and citizens they had to deal with. A similar liberal

attitude was seen in Hill Street Blues, a police drama that focused on “ overlapping plots

and examinations of moral conundrums such as police corruption, racism, alcoholism,

and both interpersonal and institutional forgiveness” (Wikipedia). The concept of liberal

' cop shows' did not survive past the 1980s and since then the competing cop models

have largely been the cool professional Joe Friday model and the maverick-conservative

Dirty Harry model.

Representing the Joe Friday model are shows like Law & Order and CSI. Novelist J. G

Ballard (2005) sees CSI’s Gil Grissom as a modern day Joe Friday and the whole show

as representing the police ideals of machine-like efficiency and emotional detachment:

Every viewer knows that the only people who show emotion in C. S. I.

are about to be dead. This lack of emotion extends to the cast, who never

display a flicker of anger or revulsion. None of the team have

relationships with each other, and there are few rivalries and no affairs.

We never see where they live and know nothing about them. Gil

Grissom, the head of the C. S. I. team played by William Petersen, is a

likeable but hermetic figure who will throw out a Shakespeare quote or a

tag from Rousseau as he peers into his microscope, but he remains

sealed inside his quest for the truth.

The Dirty Harry model is seen in NYPD Blue’s character Andy Sipowicz described as

the “ drunken, racist goon with a heart of gold” whose ' blue-collar conservatism' was

the ' the moral core' of the show or in 24’s Jack Bauer. Played by Canadian Keifer

Sutherland, Bauer is the head of a fictional Counter-Terrorism unit in Los Angles, and

embodies the Dirty Harry willingness to break the law, including engaging in torture,

60 Police: Inside the Blue Wall MODULE TWO

to serve the greater good. Like Dirty Harry before him, Bauer’s moral example has not

been without controversy. At a legal conference in Ottawa, American Supreme Court

Justice Antonin Scalia 39

, a conservative Roman Catholic, took offense at a Canadian

judge’s remark that “ Canada did not consider what Jack Bauer would do when setting

policy” (Lattman, 2007). Justice Scalia shot back:

Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. . . He saved hundreds of thousands of

lives. . . Are you going to convict Jack Bauer? Say that criminal law is

against him? ‘You have the right to a jury trial?’ Is any jury going to

convict Jack Bauer? I don’t think so. (Lattman, 2007)

More grimly, self-described ' American army torturer' specialist Tony Lagouranis has

stated that Jack Bauer was a role model for “ inexperienced young interrogators [who]

copied what they saw in Hollywood and on television programmes such as 24” leading

to the brutality seen in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison (Shipman, 2007 40

). Reminding us the

television has a powerful influence on not just how the public views a profession but on

how those in a profession view themselves.

Perhaps the grimmest insight into the modern media’s depiction of police is Ballard’s

(2005) insight into the emotion-less CSI cast which leads him to believe that in the age

of forensic police drama it is no longer even police who are the stars of the show—it is

the corpses they autopsy.

Given that there are no interesting characters, no car chases or shoot-

outs, no violently stirred emotions and no dramatic action, why is the

C. S. I. series so riveting? What is it that grips us to the end of the

episode, which is scarcely more than an elaborate crossword puzzle with

human tissues in the place of clues? My guess is that the answer lies in

the inner sanctum at the heart of all three series—the autopsy room. Here

the victims surrender all that is left of their unique identities, revealing

the wounds and medical anomalies that led to their demise. Once they

have been dissected—their ribcages opened like suitcases, brains lifted

from their craniums, tissues analysed into their basic components—they

have nothing left, not even the faintest claim on existence.

39 Antonin Scalia http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Antonin_Scalia 40 Shipman, 2007 http://www. telegraph. co. uk/news/worldnews/1554137/I-blame-myself-for-our-

downfall-in-Iraq. html

MODULE TWO Police: Inside the Blue Wall 61

I suspect that the cadavers waiting their turn on the tables are surrogates

for ourselves, the viewers. The real crime the C. S. I. team is

investigating, weighing every tear, every drop of blood, every smear of

semen, is the crime of being alive. I fear that we watch, entranced,

because we feel an almost holy pity for ourselves and the oblivion

patiently waiting for us.

How such a show will influence a new generation of police officers is an open question.

SOCI 2087 Module 3.pdf