杏吧原创

New Neighbourhood Response Teams

In fall 2019, long before the COVID-19 lockdown and the May 2020 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the OPS, under acting Chief Steve Bell, quietly heeded calls from residents in high crime areas such as Vanier/Overbrook and assembled neighbourhood response teams (NRTs).

These teams consist of community-specific officers in schools, on the street, in frontline enforcement and in traffic control. The OPS had eliminated community officers in 2017 because, although neighbourhoods liked them, concrete impacts had never been established. This time around, the OPS is gathering facts to help it assess the value of such programs, with help from Duxbury, Bennell and a team of graduate students.

鈥淚f you knew how much money is being spent on policing in Canada, why shouldn鈥檛 business schools do research that looks at how officers spend their time?鈥� says Duxbury.

鈥淎t Sprott, we want to make a difference in the community.鈥�

Duxbury, who has conducted studies on change management, work-life balance and the impact of technology in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors, recently completed an with Bennell. Impressed with those results, the OPS asked them to conduct an audit of its three NRT pilots.

With $350,000 in funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and MITACS, the multi-year study was launched in fall 2019, starting in Vanier/Overbrook. The researchers managed to complete a baseline round of stakeholder interviews, neighbourhood focus groups and an online survey before the pandemic ground our lives to a halt.

But while COVID-19 has forced the team to shift consultations to an online format, it also offers a unique opportunity to examine how the pandemic is impacting police officers, crime and community wellness. Last April, Duxbury launched a separate research project, in collaboration with the Canadian Police Association and also supported by MITACS, to .

In simple terms, Duxbury鈥檚 community policing group is hoping to define what an ideal relationship would look like between NRT officers and the neighbourhoods they patrol and then offer recommendations on how to achieve that. But there鈥檚 nothing simple about the work.

Synthesizing elements such as public expectations, crime prevention, feelings of safety and trust, police interactions, community anecdotes and experiences, court diversion and the quality of communication is tricky. To do that, researchers are measuring the Social Return on Investment, or SROI, a progressive tool for evaluating not just a policy鈥檚 cost and statistical outcomes but also its social value: the impacts a policy might have on a community鈥檚 health and well-being.

For instance, familiar neighbourhood cops might make people feel safer, but how does that translate into actual benefits for the community? You map out the impacts using SROI indicators over time and then attach dollar figures to the outcomes. 鈥淵ou also talk to people and listen to their stories,鈥� says Duxbury. 鈥淎n SROI analysis goes beyond numbers to the stories that help illustrate or explain them.鈥�

What is challenging for police, and what people have to understand, is that there鈥檚 no one view of what a positive relationship looks like between members of the community and police. 鈥淭his process doesn鈥檛 work,鈥� says Duxbury, 鈥渋f the community doesn鈥檛 work cohesively and with the police to get a common view of what it wants.鈥�

So, what do the people of Vanier/Overbrook want?

Depends on who you ask. Sources say they welcome the reinstatement of community policing, but they鈥檙e still unclear about what the officers should be doing and whether they鈥檒l be effective in meeting their diverse needs.

Mutual Respect Key to Bridging Divide

Rob Ireland, operations manager for the on Montreal Road, has a long history of distrusting police and knows that many Indigenous people, like him, share that unease.

Higher rates of homelessness, poverty, food insecurity and addiction mean Indigenous citizens tend to have more encounters with law enforcement. First Nations, Inuit and M茅tis people in Canada are like African-Americans in the U.S., he says 鈥� historically, they have been singled out by racist cops for harassment, surveillance and discrimination. Or their needs have been ignored.

During our conversation, he forwarded an OPS notice about a missing Indigenous woman. He gets several every month. 鈥淚t鈥檚 happening all the time,鈥� says Ireland. 鈥淒o police take it seriously? It鈥檚 hard to know. I think they鈥檙e starting to. It鈥檚 better than it was years ago, but do we need more resources looking for these girls or more resources to find out why those girls are missing?鈥�

Ireland does see hope in the community policing model, though. Building face-to-face relationships based on mutual respect is a promising way to bridge the divide between police and Indigenous people. That, and hiring more people of colour.

鈥淵ou鈥檝e got to really put a dent into that mindset of white superiority on the force,鈥� he says.

鈥淚f you put in 60 per cent coloured people 鈥� Indigenous, Black, whatever 鈥� you get rid of the white majority, then they would have a better sense of what鈥檚 going on.鈥�

Lauren Touchant would probably agree. She is president of the (VCA) and helped petition the OPS to bring back community policing. But considering the high numbers of Inuit and First Nations residents living in Vanier/Overbrook, she was surprised not to see an Indigenous member when the local NRT was created. (According to Statistics Canada, four per cent of police officers across the country in 2018 self-identified as Indigenous, a group that comprised five per cent of the national population.)

鈥淭his is an issue because we already know the complicated relationship that the Indigenous community has with police, particularly the RCMP,鈥� says Touchant. 鈥淣ot having an Indigenous officer in a significantly Indigenous area is a problem.鈥�

She also questions the team鈥檚 vague roles and priorities and a lack of communication thus far. The VCA would like to see more crime prevention, more data sharing and more co-ordination of efforts toward safety. She acknowledges the pandemic is impacting progress and that the NRT is still new, but she鈥檚 anxious for results and is looking forward to working with Sprott scholars to improve the quality of life in Vanier.

鈥淥ur hope is to see systemic change,鈥� says Touchant. 鈥淭his evaluation is great. We鈥檙e looking forward to the results and learning from the work that Dr. Duxbury is doing. Now what I want to see are assurances that the police are going to take into consideration the recommendations and apply the proper changes. It will take a lot of courage.鈥�

Finding a Way to Be Better

OPS Inspector Ken Bryden is looking for this kind of input. A one-time ByWard Market beat cop and now the officer in charge of the OPS community policing unit, he is a staunch proponent of the neighbourhood policing model and wants to see it succeed this time. 鈥淥ur organization has the drive, the motivation, the humility and the authenticity to find a way to be better,鈥� says Bryden.

One need only look at how community policing was handled for proof, he says: it was cut, neighbourhoods wanted it back, it was reinstated and now, with help from 杏吧原创, they are conducting a comprehensive review. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a large organization and there are a lot of moving parts 鈥� the skills of officers, the expectations, the agendas of certain officers,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he organization鈥檚 culture is very diverse and can be competing at times. Any large organization continually needs to work on its culture, its unified vision.鈥�

Inspector Ken Bryden

Trust in police ebbs and flows depending on what鈥檚 going on in the world, according to Bryden, and right now, public trust is understandably low. Egregious examples of police misconduct, both in the U.S. and Canada, must be addressed, he says, and offending officers must face consequences.

But he also feels that the juggernaut of social media has amplified these examples to such a degree that it鈥檚 nearly impossible to have a respectful conversation about facts. Which is why he too welcomes this study from Duxbury and her team 鈥� because he wants to find value in what his officers do and he wants them to have an impact on crime and safety. Beat cops, as the front-line public faces of the OPS, have a unique opportunity, he says, to show the human side of policing.

Tom Scholberg

Tom Scholberg doesn鈥檛 live in Vanier but as manager of the 鈥檚 youth diversion program, he鈥檚 had clients from the neighbourhood thanks to the police. If an officer arrests a youth for a criminal act, they have the discretion to divert that young offender to Scholberg鈥檚 program.

From there, caseworkers refer them to agencies that offer educational, mental health, employment and other services. Most of those diversions come from school resource officers and community police 鈥� trusted officers who know the kids and the neighbourhood.

鈥淭here are definitely situations where police relationships are sour and it has an impact on individuals, families and community,鈥� says Scholberg.

鈥淏ut I鈥檝e also seen some great successes where an officer has a real impact on a youth and on their family. So we鈥檙e always trying to move that needle, where the negative impact of policing is reduced and mitigated and the potential for positive is increased.鈥�

Moving the Needle on Change

Duxbury and Bennell鈥檚 study is basically focusing on that needle and what鈥檚 pushing it one way or the other. When she hears people say 鈥渄efund the police,鈥� what she believes they鈥檙e trying to say is, 鈥渨e want a new model of policing.鈥� And greater investment in community policing might be a key component.

Few would disagree that law enforcement is a necessary part of policing. If you鈥檝e been assaulted, robbed, harassed or defrauded, you call police and you expect them to find the perpetrators. But nearly 40 per cent of calls to police now are considered 鈥渕ental health calls鈥� involving someone in distress. These calls are unpredictable and can take hours 鈥� sometimes entire days 鈥� to resolve.

So how do you justify beat cops walking the neighbourhood with other more acute demands? You start, says Duxbury, by proving that proactive policing, youth diversion, crime prevention and the unique, intimate knowledge that neighbourhood officers gain on the job can actually make areas safer and potentially save enforcement costs down the road.

But you need facts to make reasoned arguments, and you need engaged research participants. 鈥淵ou have to prove value and they鈥檝e never done it,鈥� says Duxbury.

鈥淲hy? It鈥檚 really hard. You have to have a partner like the OPS and you have to have partners like the neighbourhood groups who know if they can鈥檛 demonstrate that the officers are making a difference, they鈥檒l be yanked again.鈥�

, a Sprott PhD student working with Duxbury on this project, is interested in policing because crime is a tug of war between perpetrator and victim and police officers are stuck in the middle, trying to balance fairness and equality for both sides using the tools they鈥檙e given: laws, weapons, experience and training. And, as Scholberg says, policing is constantly being shaped by social, cultural and technological forces and police agencies must remain malleable in order to maintain legitimacy.

Sean Campeau

Movements such as Defund the Police and Black Lives Matter, for example, are healthy in a democracy, Campeau says, because they destabilize the status quo and, when necessary, move that needle of social change quickly. But any meaningful discussion around the role of police should acknowledge a few things: officers are not all experts in mental health; they are dutybound to enforce laws; and they cannot be all things to all people.

鈥淚t鈥檚 about expectations,鈥� says Campeau. 鈥淧eople understand that in society police have a responsibility for dealing with crime and ensuring public safety. And then there鈥檚 the reality of it. There鈥檚 the OPS with officers assigned to their roles, whether patrolling or community policing or criminal investigations, and they have to deal with actual situations every day. There鈥檚 that disconnect.

鈥淎 big part of our research,鈥� he continues, 鈥渋s to understand what activities the neighbourhood police officers are engaging in. We want to understand how they relate to the community’s expectations of what police should be doing and how those activities will relate to the outcomes that both the community and the police want to achieve. Getting a better understanding of the process of neighbourhood policing from the community鈥檚 perspective is important to the research.鈥�

So far, Campeau has been inspired by the passion and commitment shown by both OPS members and residents in Vanier/Overbrook. The police want to reduce crime and make people feel safer, and they want to build positive relationships with residents. This is particularly impressive in the midst of a pandemic when crime trends are changing 鈥� increasing rates of domestic violence, mental health calls, break and-enters 鈥� and people are feeling stressed, fearful and isolated.

鈥淓verything that comes out in the media about policing 鈥� those issues are real and need to come out 鈥� but in the day-to-day, it feels really good to hear all the ideas people have, and how much people care,鈥� says Campeau. 鈥淢embers of the community and police are working really hard to find answers. They鈥檙e all in.鈥�

This fall, Duxbury鈥檚 team is doing a second round of surveys and consultations with various Vanier/Overbrook racialized, municipal, business and faith groups, and is continuing preliminary work in the ByWard Market and Bayshore areas. This will all include new questions about how communities are being impacted by COVID-19. In the end, Duxbury is hoping to have a large data set that offers a roadmap on how urban policing can effectively evolve.

鈥淎 lot of the things people are asking for are not huge or complicated,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 an issue of mutual respect. And the hope has to be that if the police start responding to this, treating people with respect, the community will meet them halfway.鈥�

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Raven Magazine

Monday, November 23, 2020 in Features - Fall 2020
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