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OpEd: Is it time to defund policing?
June 10, 2020

OpEd: Is it time to defund policing?

Much discussion has occurred as of late regarding the concept of taking money away from the rich (the police) and giving it to the poor (social services). Some so-called experts have argued that it’s time to that it's time to "disarm and defund the police" and for funds to be redistributed to other needy social services programs. In fact the city Council in Minneapolis just voted to disband their current policing model in favour of a yet unknown system. I don’t argue the need for more mental health and social services experts, but we can’t simply snap our fingers and cut police funding in favour of other programs. But the police are far from rich and disarming police in North America isn’t even an option in my view.


I won’t even get into the ridiculous notion of taking guns away from police. All I will say is that I’m glad the RCMP officers in Nova Scotia were armed on April 19th, 2020.

Although I agree that many solutions to community problems would be better addressed by entities other than the police, financial cuts to many of those agencies have resulted in police becoming the default response to many social issue challenges that they’d rather not be. They have been forced to do more with less for a number of years, and yes, that isn’t working.


Increasing salaries as well as rising costs for technology, vehicles and fuel have caused police and political leaders to closely examine how to get the best bang for their dwindling dollar, through a variety of service delivery model options. Most police chiefs and boards have been wrestling with this dilemma in excess of 10 years.


But even in the best of financial times, police leaders owe it to their constituents to ensure they are as efficient and cost effective as possible. They must continue to lead progressive change before it leads them. Police associations must have input into the change process and accept that there is no new money out there despite emerging crimes and additional responsibilities being dumped on police. Times are tough for everyone, but it will require the input of all if they ever hope to be successful.


Much work has been done and change is occurring across Canadian police services to be effective and efficient, not just because of financial pressures but because they want to be the very best for the people they serve in terms of preventing victimization, protecting property and reducing the carnage on highways, waterways and trails.


Many police positions have been converted to civilian positions, not always resulting in a salary cost savings but getting the best people doing some critical jobs, whether it be HR, IT, accounting, analysis, forensics and more.

Police have had to stop doing some of the things they once proudly did. Attending so-called minor occurrences – which was a service police proudly provided for decades, is no longer possible in many places. Citizen self-reporting of some property incidents through the internet, with telephone follow-up by police personnel is much more common now, freeing up officers to attend more serious calls for service.


Prevention programs are key. They still require time, people and funding but are more cost effective than responding to and investigating crime, however the more critical benefit is the prevention of victimization. Current prevention models including crime abatement strategies and the “community mobilization” or HUB concept which brings police, various social service agencies, mental health professionals, educators and community groups together to mitigate societal conditions that lead to crime, are having significant impacts in many municipalities. It will take time for those programs to justify a reduction in the need for police officers in some situations, but it is certainly heading in that direction.


A number of jurisdictions are teaming up mental health workers with police to try and defuse and de-escalate mental health crises. Others have developed programs to ensure victim assistance experts are responding with police to spousal abuse occurrences and then conducting effective follow-up in an attempt to prevent further victimization. Most don’t work 27/7, but such programs are working very well in areas where the workload is such to make this partnership cost effective. It is much more challenging to operationalize these programs in rural areas and in isolated communities, like in the northern regions of Canada.


In a perfect world, there would be no homelessness. No poverty. People wouldn’t be suicidal. There would be no addiction or alcoholism. People wouldn’t suffer from mental health challenges. Disenfranchised youth wouldn’t feel that joining a street gang is a better option than going to school and having a fulfilling career, or that school and employment aren’t even attainable for them. These tragic situations become significant drivers for police response. Undoubtedly more effort needs to be put into all of these systemic issues and more, long before they result in interaction with police. Sending an unarmed mental health worker to a chat with a suicidal addict who may have a knife at 3am – regardless of how brilliant and dedicated he or she may be, will at times result in violence. Then the police will respond to investigate the assault or murder and a family will be grieving. The key is to mitigate the underlying issues before the crisis erupts in violence.


In the meantime, police services still need a critical mass of armed officers to conduct many operational responsibilities that do require same. In utopia, mental health professionals could attend calls where people are in crisis without police support, but unfortunately we are not there yet. Who would make the decision that a counsellor would attend alone or police would go as well, and based on what criteria? Is the call-taker tasked with determining if “the caller seems nice”? Sending a counsellor to a call where a person is suffering from a mental health crisis sounds logical, at least until he or she pulls out a knife or jumps out a window. The reality is that these are potential life or death decisions at times.


Weapons calls; violent and destructive protests; tactical operations; robberies; assaults; theft investigations; traffic enforcement and collision investigation; homicides; trespassers; domestic disputes…and so much more, still require the police, who in many cases are already suffering from a shortage of resources. To cut them even further before an effective infrastructure of social services, counsellors and mental health professionals is in place and proven to be reducing police calls for service, will be a recipe for disaster. If some racist and or bully police officers causing a death by using excessive force while legally arresting a man for a crime is the cause for change in the structure of policing, we must remember that all the social services agencies in the world would not have prevented police from responding and making an arrest on that day. If these programs were all in place, police still would have attended and made an arrest. How and why they used deadly force and whether or not racism was the driver, is the issue in that case.


Getting policing from where it currently is to where it should be is undoubtedly the right thing to do. Overreacting and throwing the baby out with the bathwater because of a tragedy caused by some bad cops in Minneapolis is not the solution.

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Leadership involves risk, especially in policing

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Leadership is inundated with risk, every hour of every day, in all sectors. In policing, legislative authorities and established policy are the ever-present guideposts, but occasionally policy just doesn’t apply. At times someone has to just make a decision to do something, or not, or they will fail the public they serve and the personnel it is their duty to lead. If it goes bad, time to own up, do damage control, learn from it and move forward. It always frightened me when I saw some at the senior executive level in policing think that supervisors and managers operate in a pristine little bubble where nothing should ever go wrong. Then when it did because some supervisor tried their best to make something work for all the right reasons, they wanted to pigeon-hole the person that took the risk. There were times during my own career when executives were not encouraged to take any risk either. In fact, taking risk was career risk in itself. Despite the best of intentions, if it went bad, the one ‘responsible’ be forever labelled as having failed. Even if the gamble went well, the jaundiced eyes from above would still forever look at them as being a potential liability. It became the “Oh, him. He’s the one that...” At times the daily decision making of high-level commanders would be second-guessed by those in the executive suites – some of whom had never really commanded anything. My buddy retired Chief Wayne Frechette used to describe these folks as: “They’ve never been out after dark on company time.” I know this same concept was alive in many other police services. Some at executive levels actually did serve in operational roles at some point but they never took a risk. Somehow, they were fortunate to skate through difficult situations through sheer luck as opposed to good decision-making and never developed any scar tissue along the way. They didn’t learn from failure – they survived by luck. They also were viewed by weak executives above them as being golden because there was never a milli-second of negativity around them. They were Teflon. But those that worked under their “command” (for lack of a better word) had no respect for them. They simply watched them walk around with coffee in hand, never leaving the office or making a decision. It wasn’t leadership, but it did pave the way to stardom from on high, for some. True leaders do take risks at times. Many I worked with and for did it all and did it well. They did so in the best interests of those they served and those they led, because it wasn’t about themselves, but was done in the service of those that placed their trust in them. Policy simply doesn’t fit every situation. It is most often a guide that anticipates most circumstances that employees will face, particularly the more common (high-frequency) ones. But it cannot predict every possible scenario. When that happens in policing, it can occur in very unlikely situations (low-frequency) that are incredibly high-risk. Supervisors cannot say “Sorry folks, the book doesn’t cover this one” and run away crying. They also don’t have time to tell bad guys, “Hey big fella, sit tight. We need to take a pause here and get the whiteboard out so we can have a group-think about how to stop your murderous rampage.” I think that many pseudo-leaders – far too many, are afraid to make risky decisions out of fear that an error will jeopardize their career. Instead, they risk their careers by not making decisions. Or as I like to say: “their fear of career-risk, risks their careers.” This can be fatal in the policing world. When a police supervisor shirks their responsibilities or quivers, sucks their thumb, and prays for the situation to go away, thankfully constables will come forward and do their best to get their teammates through it. Sometimes that ends well and when the supervisor emerges from their fear-induced coma, they will more often than not take credit for the success. But when the situation goes to hell-in-a-handbasket – despite best efforts, the pseudo-leader will document the risk-taking employee and add another bullet-point to their list of things they’ve done to “hold people accountable.” The panel at their next promotional interview will likely hear the false rendition proudly told. I hear examples of this practise from serving police officers across North America on a much too frequent basis. True leaders develop a culture of trust among those they lead that their suggestions and feedback are encouraged and valued. Their confidence that the leader wants their input encourages them to constantly analyze situations and give thought to what policy says and the options available when policy says nothing. That is good for the employee’s development and may save the leader’s hind-end and the continuity of the team on occasion when an employee steps forward in a crisis. Having said that, there will clearly be situations where there isn’t time for the whiteboard, and a decision needs to be made by the responsible “leader.” When it doesn’t work out, the real leader will step forward and be accountable. But when it does go well, the true leader will allow the light to shine on the team they have the honour to lead. In my view, we’re not seeing enough of that in North American policing. We need more genuine leaders at all levels of law enforcement organizations. Developing and promoting real leaders that can manage risk effectively is a must. Anything less fails everyone.

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