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9 May 2013

Canadian Association of Police Boards 157 Gilmour Street, Suite 302 Ottawa, Ontario K2P 0N8 Tel: 613|235|2272 Fax: 613|235|2275 www.capb.ca

BRITISH COLUMBIA ...... 4 New approach to mental health calls ...... 4 Victoria police to comply with results of excessive-force hearing, police board says ...... 7 Port Moody welcomes a new police chief ...... 8 Former Port Moody Police Chief McCabe died Friday ...... 9 ALBERTA ...... 10 Alberta death review committee to examine family violence cases ...... 10 Police chief seeks protections for undercover officers ...... 11 RCMP changes allow Mounties to be more ‘nimble’ ...... 13 New bill to allow Alberta police, schools to share information to aid children ...... 15 SASKATCHEWAN ...... 15 Regina Police gets $4.2 million from province ...... 15 MANITOBA ...... 17 Budget 2013: Providing New Provincial Funding For Winnipeg Police Service ...... 17 Province To Have New Tool For Police To Locate Missing People More Quickly ...... 18 Province Introduces New Legislation That Would Modernize Process For Provincial Offences, Municipal Bylaws ...... 19 ONTARIO ...... 20 Hamilton police budget finalized with a 3.52-per cent increase ...... 20 Guelph officers in tears after fallen colleague honoured at police memorial ...... 22 Mayor Bratina, police budget process under the gun at city council meeting ...... 23 Editorial: Give us a better arbitration law ...... 24 Toronto police issuing ‘positive tickets’ ...... 25 Police Association boss leaves for provincial job ...... 26 Police start collecting race data ...... 28 Documents shed new light in Toronto police-SIU spat ...... 29 Police asked to justify project costs ...... 33 City, OPP in budget standoff ...... 35 QUEBEC ...... 36 SPVM explains overruns in OT budget ...... 36 Reserves: Law and order in a challenging setting ...... 37 NEW BRUNSWICK ...... 40 Fredericton police seek volunteer traffic 'cops' ...... 40 NOVA SCOTIA ...... 41 Trauma Training for Front-line Staff Will Help Victims of Sexual Violence ...... 41 PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND ...... 42 NEWFOUNDLAND ...... 42 NATIONAL ...... 42 Firearms advisory committee still lacks diversity of voices, Public Safety memo suggests ...... 42 NDP, police association decry lack of oversight in changes to RCMP Act ...... 44 RCMP report details 51 cases of disciplinary action ...... 46 THE NEW UPPER CLASS ...... 48 Mountie challenges recall from post over affair with co-worker ...... 52

2 Harper Government acknowledges the National Day to End Bullying ...... 54 Senator wants RCMP found in contempt ...... 55 Cross-border smuggling epidemic exposes Canada, U.S. to security threats, new MLI study warns ...... 56 Editorial: The gatekeeping we don’t need ...... 58 Are private security firms the answer to rising police costs? ...... 59 Michael Kempa: The RCMP still struggles to break its old bad habits ...... 61 INTERNATIONAL NEWS ...... 63 A Senator’s Search for an Ally Keeps a Gun Bill Alive ...... 63 Mexico's vigilante law enforcers ...... 66 SB 747: Portland police arbitration on the line ...... 69 St. Paul police to add interpreters for deaf ...... 70 Council agrees to pension bump for retired cops ...... 71 U.S. Is Weighing Wide Overhaul of Wiretap Laws ...... 72 Empowered Civilian Review Board Advances ...... 74 Make police review panel's recommendations public ...... 76 State Senate bill on arbitration awards for public safety employees is long overdue ...... 78 East Hartford Council Rejects Arbitrated Police Pension Agreement ...... 79 Oakland mayor calls for increased police training, civilian oversight to reduce shootings ...... 81 Harrisburg chief: 52 percent boost needed for ideal police presence ...... 82 New officers roll in as violent city of Camden phases out force ...... 84 In Its Defense, Police Dept. Cites Laziness of Its Officers ...... 86 Criminalizing Children at School ...... 88 Scott: Gun bounty drive requires cash and anonymity ...... 89 Report: Child Welfare Investment Could Slow 'Prison Pipeline' ...... 91 Can a Police "Nudge" Stop Repeat Criminality? ...... 91 California: Oakland Police Chief Quits ...... 93 Crime-fighting, Twitter and the Boston Bombing ...... 93 From ‘Boom’ to Bust: 10 Years of Criminal Justice Change ...... 96

3 BRITISH COLUMBIA

New approach to mental health calls

By Wanda Chow - Burnaby NewsLeader Published: May 02, 2013 10:00 AM For years, the residents of an apartment building have been terrorized by one of their own, an owner of one of the units with obvious mental health issues.

The man has caused repeated noise disturbances in his suite, from bashing his walls and destroying his belongings to yelling and screaming.

Neighbours have complained to police and other agencies numerous times, to no avail. He'd even be charged with offences but then released.

"Nothing was ever really getting accomplished," said Burnaby RCMP Const. James Grandy.

That is, until the file came under the purview of a new Burnaby RCMP effort to deal with calls involving mental health issues. Since January 2012, Grandy has been designated the detachment's mental health intervention coordinator.

He volunteered to create the program after seeing how Burnaby RCMP receives more than 1,400 calls a year involving people with mental health issues and yet, police are limited in what they can do with such cases.

Unless a person is deemed a threat to themselves or a threat to someone else, police can't force them to undergo a psychiatric assessment under the Mental Health Act if they're not willing, explained Burnaby RCMP media liaison Cpl. Dave Reid. And police, simply put, are not trained to treat mental illnesses.

It appears the solution through this program—which they stress is still an evolving work in progress—is for police to actively partner with Fraser Health through its Burnaby Mental Health and Substance Use Services division.

Gindy Bir, a registered psychiatric nurse with Burnaby Mental Health, worked with Grandy to create a model whereby the two were in constant communication. He would refer cases to her department, and she'd give him a heads up when a client had the potential to cause problems on the policing front.

Throughout it all, the focus is on monitoring and keeping tabs on people with mental health issues and trying to get them the help they need.

"The biggest part about the partnership is the communication gap has been filled," Grandy said. "A lot of them are difficult cases but they'd be a lot more difficult if we were not communicating."

4 Reid added, "Silos are disappearing and everybody benefits from that."

While Grandy is usually not the first officer to respond to a call, he's the one that follows up later and tries to solve the underlying problems, something that didn't happen at all previously, Reid added.

And if someone declines to receive psychiatric treatment, the team keeps them on their radar and pays them a visit if they start causing more calls to police, Bir said.

In one case, a woman called police about 50 times over two months. BC Housing had provided her with temporary housing after she had been evicted from her previous home but she began causing repeated disturbances, Grandy recalled.

She was calling city and senior police officials with various complaints before her case landed on Grandy's desk. He met with her several times and eventually built up a rapport so that she directed all her calls to him.

"Most of what she was saying was not making a whole lot of sense," he said, adding it got to the point she was facing eviction and would have ended up on the street. But eventually, with the help of Bir, they were able to determine the source of her distress was a need for a more permanent housing situation.

The team sat down together with BC Housing and eventually worked out a solution, finding the woman a more suitable home in Vancouver.

Grandy has occasionally received referrals from Bir's office about hoarders. In one case he was able to pay the woman a visit with a fire inspector in tow to explain the safety hazards of her piles of clutter. The visit made enough of an impression that while the stuff isn't all gone, he said she's made significant progress in getting rid of some of it.

In one of their first cases a man had a crush on a woman but became despondent when she told him she wasn't interested. She called police out of concern he might harm himself and Bir and Grandy paid him a lengthy visit, spending a couple hours talking with him. They eventually learned he had a history of depression and was at risk of having a relapse.

Bir offered to refer him to medical help and he was receptive. "He was quite tearful," she said, clearly pleased at the impact such outreach can have.

Then there are cases that turn out to be false alarms but are examples of the lengths to which the team will go.

Grandy said police received a call from a man concerned about a neighbour who became quite angry while insisting he put his dog on a leash while out for a walk.

"She carried a bat," he added.

5 With little to go on as to the woman's identity and where she lived, they managed to track her down to speak with her.

Turns out, she carried the bat for protection as she'd been bitten by a dog in the past, and so was particularly sensitive to off-leash dogs. They did manage to impress upon her the concerns she'd raised in the neighbourhood with her behaviour, Grandy said.

Last year, Grandy had Burnaby RCMP crime analysts develop a list of the 10 most chronic sources of calls related to mental health issues. By focusing on those individuals, the calls they generated have dropped by 85 per cent.

One of those was the condo owner.

As an owner, he couldn't be evicted. He repeatedly refused psychiatric treatment and community resources, and had a criminal record.

"The strata and neighbours were not only disturbed by this they were fearful he might harm somebody in the building as well," Grandy said.

The Mountie began paying the man regular visits asking him to stop causing disturbances, made sure he kept appointments with his probation officer, and eventually became so well known that the building's residents knew to call him directly when there was a problem.

Grandy knew the man's history and residents didn't have to explain it all to yet another officer new to the case as they had done for years.

Finally, with nothing else working, "the only way to go with him was to charge him criminally," he said. "My major tool is the Criminal Code."

The man was charged and convicted of mischief over $5,000 and uttering threats, and is currently serving time in prison where Grandy hopes he can get the help he needs.

"Hopefully when he does return he'll be more stable."

In the meantime, his neighbours get some peace. And when the man is released, Grandy and his mental health partners will be there to keep tabs on him.

"The people in the building now don't feel as if they're being ignored by police and feel as if somebody is listening to their concerns and that something is getting done."

Anyone wanting to refer someone with mental health issues to get the help they need can call Burnaby Mental Health and Substance Use Services at 604-453- 1960.

6 Victoria police to comply with results of excessive-force hearing, police board says TIMES COLONIST APRIL 10, 2013

Images from video posted to YouTube from downtown Victoria showing Const. Chris Bowser kicking a suspect. Photograph by: YouTube Victoria’s police board says it takes seriously the findings of an excessive-force complaint against two officers and has accepted an apology by its deputy chief, who criticized the decision.

Chairman Dean Fortin said the civilian oversight board recognizes the concerns raised by retired judge Ben Casson, who found police constables Chris Bowser and Brendan Robinson used excessive force when they arrested Tyler Archer on March 21, 2010, during a brawl outside a bar on Store Street.

A video of the incident, showing Robinson delivering foot and knee strikes to Archer’s body, was posted to YouTube and drew national media attention.

Casson, who presided over the public hearing ordered by the Police Complaint Commissioner, found Robinson, who was in his first year on the job, made mistakes, but did not abuse his authority.

However, he found Bowser abused his authority by not intervening when Robinson rushed in and tackled Archer and by delivering foot and knee strikes to Archer’s body.

Bowser will find out what discipline he faces on April 19.

Immediately after the decision, John Ducker, in his role as acting police chief, said: “These are some of the best officers we have in the department. I don’t feel they were acting unreasonably.”

A statement posted on the Victoria police website said: “It’s unfortunate that this was the decision reached.”

Casson criticized Ducker’s remarks — made before the hearing had concluded — calling them outrageous and inappropriate.

On Wednesday, the Victoria Police Board accepted an apology from Ducker.

“The Victoria Police Board takes the findings from the Casson hearing very seriously and we have been assured by the chief of police that the department also takes the findings seriously,” Fortin said. “We fully expect our officers to comply.”

7 Last week, Casson said he would recommend the police board look into the police policy of commenting to media in the middle of a public hearing.

The matter should also be referred to the B.C. Chiefs of Police to “issue some guidance to the chiefs about such outrageous comments before we even get to the disciplinary hearing,” Casson said. Port Moody welcomes a new police chief

BY JEREMY DEUTSCH, COQUITLAM NOW MAY 8, 2013

After a search across the nation, the Port Moody police board didn't stray too far to find the city's new top cop. On Monday, the board announced Chris Rattenbury as new chief constable for the 100-year-old department.

The long-time officer has been with the force for 23 years, after starting his career in 1982 with the Vancouver Police Department.

Rattenbury said policing has changed in recent years and he wants the force to be a leader in the transformation.

"I have a real vision [for] where I'd like to go in policing," he told the Tri-Cities NOW, after a swearing-in ceremony Monday at the police station. More specifically, he said he wants to make the department more operationally and fiscally efficient.

On the operational side, he sees a future where certain parts of the department will integrate with specialty sections of other police forces, leaving the core patrol police work with the home agency.

Rattenbury has already knocked one item off his to-do list. The department recently signed on to the RCMP's emergency response team (ERT). The force had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) at the beginning of the year with the VPD to join its ERT.

However, shortly after, the VPD informed the Port Moody Police Department the MOU would expire at the end of June.

"I just really feel we can make the city of Port Moody a safe livable community for the future," Rattenbury said.

The search for a new chief took the board across the country, as it received about 30 resumes from qualified candidates.

But the head of the board and Port Moody Mayor Mike Clay explained the police board first decided what it wanted in a candidate.

8 That profile meant surveying 30 stakeholders, from the police union to city council.

Clay said all indicators pointed back to Rattenbury, whom he described as having "amazing morals," knowledge of the budget process, a deep understanding of the challenges facing police, and excellent labour relations with members.

"I don't think you'll find anyone in this building who doesn't think that we absolutely made the exact right choice for the department," he said.

As for the kinds of changes the mayor expects Rattenbury to bring to the department, Clay said police forces are moving away from the top-down management style of the past. He suggested the new chief is tuned in to being more collaborative and less authoritative, adding there are a lot of young people on the force who want to be included.

"This is Chris Rattenbury's time . he's the right person today," Clay said.

Rattenbury had been serving as acting chief constable for chief Brad Parker, after he announced his retirement last fall.

Former Port Moody Police Chief McCabe died Friday By Sarah Payne - The Tri-City News

Published: May 07, 2013 12:00 PM

Former Port Moody police chief Len McCabe, who served on the force from 1959 to 1987, passed away on Friday just shy of his 88th birthday.

Born in Ireland on May 11, 1925, McCabe became an officer in the Royal Ulster Constabulary from 1949 to 1953, when the family emigrated to Canada. He served with the Edmonton Police Service from 1953 to 1956 before moving to B.C.

McCabe settled in Port Moody and joined the police force here in 1959, rising through the ranks until he was appointed chief in 1969.

"He was the only one to ever rise through the ranks and become chief there," said Doug Macdonell, McCabe's son-in-law and a former police officer.

One of the most significant points in McCabe's career came in 1976, when Donald Hay was caught coming out of a trap door in the floor of his garage; below the trap door was a dungeon and 13-year-old Abby Drover, who he had kept imprisoned for six months.

9 "It affected him a lot," Macdonell said of the Drover case. "Going down into the dungeon to see where Hay had held her, to see the degradation and the filth he kept her in for so long. And especially at the time, she was the exact same age as his daughter. After that, he used to drive her to school."

Having been part of the family for the past 25 years, Macdonell described McCabe as "the greatest grandfather."

"I credit Len so much with the fact that the family is such a close family," he said. "He was a big deal to all the grandchildren, and myself as well. I went to him with the big decisions in my life."

And while his relaxed Irish nature never had McCabe sweating the small stuff, Macdonell said, it was a different story for those who ran afoul of the law.

"Port Moody was a very safe place for people who stayed on the right side of the law but if one of those people stepped on the wrong side, Port Moody was renowned in those days for its adherence to law and order."

McCabe leaves behind his wife of 59 years, Marlene, as well as five children and 12 grandchildren.

ALBERTA

Alberta death review committee to examine family violence cases Beacon Reporter AB | May 8, 2013

The Alberta death review committee will examine family violence cases in the hopes of preventing similar incidences in the future.

The Alberta government will form a panel that reviews family violence deaths.

The Family Violence Death Review Committee will examine and learn from family violence cases to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Alberta has the second-highest rate of self-reported spousal violence in the country. “We have an unacceptably high rate of family violence in Alberta and we know family violence has long lasting effects for victims, children and families,” said Dave Hancock, Minister of Human Services.

10

“This new committee will help us see what changes we need to make, what is working and how we can improve the safety of vulnerable Albertans.”

The Alberta death review committee will include several experts who report their findings each year.

Officials decided to establish the committee after consultation with community and government groups that work in justice and victims services.

Alberta residents, tell us what you think of the Canadian oil sands by filling out this brief survey.

The committee was established as part of several changes proposed under the Children First Act introduced Tuesday.

The Children First Act would also amend the Protection Against Family Violence Act to recognize protection orders issued from other Canadian jurisdictions.

Individuals would no longer need to go back to court to file for another protection order when they come to Alberta.

“Family violence is one of the most prevalent and tragic issues that we are dealing with as a community and as a province,” says Rod Knecht, president of the Alberta Association of Chiefs of Police.

“A committee would provide important information that we need to reduce the number of violent incidents and senseless loss of life.”

Police chief seeks protections for undercover officers Rick Hanson says police working with Crown to keep identities secret Meghan Grant/CBC CBC News Posted: May 6, 2013 10:41 AM MT

Calgary's police chief says the service is looking for new ways to keep undercover police officers safe after photos of an officer and members of his family were found in the hands of someone with ties to an organized crime group.

"Police officers' lives are difficult enough, they're dangerous enough out on the street without having to worry about the safety of your family," Police Chief Rick Hanson said.

"That organized crime groups have information about our officers is something to be deeply concerned about,” he adds.

Hanson says it may seem like the stuff movies are made of, but organized crime in Calgary is a very real problem.

11 "Anybody that thinks that Canada doesn't have dangerous, dangerous organized crime groups — complete with people who are killers, people who will do contract hits, people who basically don't care about rules in society — ... it is in Canada, it is in Calgary,” Hanson says.

The Calgary Police Service (CPS) recently began working with the Crown prosecutor's office to request stricter publication bans to protect the undercover officers working to infiltrate the world of organized crime.

Last month a judge granted one such application, agreeing to ban the publication of all undercover officers' real names — unprecedented in Calgary.

Officers face danger Hanson says the better protection is necessary because the undercover police, who work closely in and around organized crime groups, can easily become the target of criminals who fear the intelligence gathered by an operative will be harmful to them or their associates.

In other cases, undercover officers get targeted for acts of revenge, says Hanson.

"They're putting themselves at risk not just while they're on duty but because sometimes they're creating evidence which these organized crime groups know could put them away," says Hanson.

"It's occasionally in their best interests to try to do anything they can to remove that threat and in the case of that threat being a police officer, it's a high risk."

As a former undercover officer with the RCMP, Chris Mathers says it's troubling to hear that the identity of an officer was compromised.

"The threat of violence is probably the thing that is the most debilitating for undercover operators. There's always the chance they'll be exposed," says Mathers.

"It's not the kind of work that you get into if you're faint of heart.”

Mathers supports the push for broader publication bans, but cautions against sweeping applications that could be seen by a judge as too ambitious.

"The danger here is if you attempt to cast too wide a net with your publication ban the judge may not grant it," Mathers says.

"I think you have to be very circumspect when you're deciding what information can be released and what cannot be."

The evidence gathered during undercover operations is often crucial laying charges and nailing down a conviction once matters make it to court, Hanson says.

12 Several recent major crime convictions in Calgary involved undercover operations — a point of pride for the police chief but also a frustration, he says.

"Every time there's a conviction in court for a serious offense, people just go, 'Well that's what we expect the police to do,' instead of understanding the immense amount of work and the incredible effort that went into that to ensure that one more person has been taken off the street and that society is protected from that person at least for a little while," Hanson says.

Bar set high for convictions In Canada, the threshold to get a conviction on a serious crime is among the highest in the world. That means police here have to work even harder to gather evidence, Hanson says.

"It takes a lot of effort on the part of police officers working within the system that is now, after many years designed to protect the rights of the murderer, the rapist, the serial killer as opposed to society’s, need to be protected," Hanson says.

"We've accepted that challenge but what that has done is put our police officers at a far higher level of risk,” he says.

CPS already educates its officers about who they provide personal information, such as phone numbers and addresses, but social media poses a new problem.

As junior officers coming up the ranks express interest in joining an undercover unit, Hanson says police have to recruit carefully, since it has become so rare for a young person to have a clean slate in cyberspace.

That online history can become a danger once an undercover operation is finished and the officer gives testimony in open court, Hanson says. RCMP changes allow Mounties to be more ‘nimble’

Organizational revamp underway

BY JASON VAN RASSEL, CALGARY HERALD APRIL 29, 2013

RCMP investigators in Alberta and across the country are part of a nationwide revamp of the force’s federal policing operations.

The changes are happening behind the scenes, but a senior officer said they will allow the RCMP to better respond to organized and serious crime.

“We’re doing it to be a little more nimble,” said Supt. Roger Miller from RCMP’s K Division headquarters in Edmonton.

13 Although uniformed Mounties are a common sight in rural Canada, those officers work under contracts to provide local policing to provinces, territories and municipalities.

Less visible is the RCMP’s federal policing component, made up of specialized, usually plainclothes members investigating areas such as drug trafficking, financial crimes, national security and protection for Canadian VIPs and foreign dignitaries visiting Canada.

In Alberta, about 325 RCMP members work in federal policing, based mainly in Calgary and Edmonton. Until now, they were organized in specialized units tasked with investigating a particular area: commercial crime, drugs, proceeds of crime, financial market integrity.

However, the RCMP decided the model was too rigid and didn’t allow them to change and respond if crime trends changed.

“The silos were inefficient,” Miller said.

At the beginning of April, the RCMP began dismantling those specialized units. Instead, it is grouping together officers in multidisciplinary teams capable of investigating any kind of case under the RCMP’s federal policing mandate.

“It’ll be in and around what the intelligence tells us. In the past, it has been around a commodity,” Miller said.

“It’s a better way to address the higher priorities of the nation.”

Miller estimated it will take up to 18 months to fully implement the plan.

Although it’s an internal move, the RCMP redeployment affects other law enforcement agencies that have officers assigned to joint units that will disappear under the new plan.

The Integrated Proceeds of Crime Unit based in Calgary, for example, had municipal police members, as well as a Canada Revenue Agency employee and an assigned Crown prosecutor.

Although the RCMP has decided to change its internal workings, Miller said investigators from other agencies will remain in the new federal policing teams.

“As professionals we agree an integrated model is the way to go. Those positions are there, the doors are open,” he said.

The Calgary Police Service confirmed officers assigned to RCMP federal policing functions are staying put.

In 2004, the Calgary police undertook a reorganization similar to the RCMP, combining several specialty units in to larger squads: the homicide and robbery units became a unified “violent crime” team.

14

Calgary police returned to a model closer to the original one after four years, reinstating the homicide unit and other specialty teams.

However, Supt. Guy Slater said the experiment gave Calgary police more flexibility and said city police will support the RCMP’s move.

“From our perspective, we want to do everything we can to make their new model work as much as they do,” he said.

New bill to allow Alberta police, schools to share information to aid children

BY THE CANADIAN PRESS, CP MAY 6, 2013

EDMONTON — Alberta is proposing new legislation that would encourage police, social agencies and schools to share information as a way to help struggling children.

Human Services Minister Dave Hancock says they can already share details in most cases, but they tend not to for fear they might violate privacy laws.

Hancock says everyone needs to work together to help children whose difficult home lives may be causing problems in classrooms or with the law.

The bill also proposes changes to other legislation to assist agencies helping kids in need.

Those changes would affect family violence prevention, maintenance enforcement and the work of the child and youth advocate.

The bill is to be introduced this week.

SASKATCHEWAN Regina Police gets $4.2 million from province

BY TERRENCE MCEACHERN, LEADER-POST APRIL 29, 2013

15 REGINA — In order to help keep Regina safe, the province is giving the city and the Regina Police Service $4.2 million for specific programs aimed at community policing.

“It’s incredibly important. When you look at the units and the activity that’s involved, it’s almost vital that we receive these investments so that we can continue this work. It’s very focused and deliberate and it’s having very positive outcomes,” said Regina Police Chief Troy Hagen at Monday’s funding announcement.

Since 2007-08, the Targeted Police Initiatives program has grown from $6.78 million to $13.55 million this year. Regina has received funding under the program since 1998, which has previously helped in areas such as the city’s auto theft program.

In total, 10 Saskatchewan communities will receive funding this year. So far, the province has announced funding for Saskatoon ($4.3 million), Estevan ($300,000), Moose Jaw ($300,000) and North Battleford ($700,000). Minister of Corrections and Policing Christine Tell said the funding is contributing to the reduction of crime in the province.

“Saskatchewan’s crime rate dropped three per cent and our youth crime rate is four per cent lower than 10 years ago,” she said.

“We’re seeing success. We’re seeing reduction. That’s what we’re about. So, as long as we’re seeing that, I can say we’re likely going to continue with our support of these initiatives.”

Regina’s $4.2 million is directed toward funding 39 positions within RPS as well as programs such as Enhanced Community Policing ($1.9 million), Serious Habitual Offender Comprehensive Action Program (SHOCAP, $600,000), Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit (CFSEU, $550,000), Missing Persons ($100,000), Enhanced Investigative Policing ($500,000) and Internet Child Exploitation Unit ($330,000).

“Within our units, we’re monitoring and when necessary, taking enforcement action against some of our most serious habitual offenders that reside within our community,” said Hagen.

Since 2011-12, Regina has seen an eight-per-cent decrease in crime, he said, including a reduction in crime against persons by five per cent, 15 per cent fewer robberies and property crime lowered by 10 per cent.

Even with Regina’s population increases, Hagen said the funding was sufficient to cover costs.

“We have ongoing discussions with the minister every year in terms of looking at either enhancing the program or how the program is working. So, certainly, we’re very satisfied with the $4.2 million currently.”

16 Decisions about how the funding is used within the police service is a “blended approach” with local police chiefs having some flexibility in the process, Hagen said.

“There are a few that are directed — but it’s always done in consultation with the chiefs of police … Each community has different challenges and different areas of focus.”

RPS has an overall net operating budget of $61.4 million as well as $7.8 million in revenue, bringing the total operating budget to $69.2 million. The net operating budget is a 5.2-per-cent increase from 2012.

MANITOBA May 8, 2013

Budget 2013: Providing New Provincial Funding For Winnipeg Police Service - - - 10 New Positions to Focus on Community Policing, Intelligence Gathering: Premier

The Winnipeg Police Service (WPS) will receive provincial funding for 10 new positions, Premier Greg Selinger announced today.

Six new officers will be focused on street patrols, enhancing the visible presence of officers in the areas of Winnipeg where it is needed most, said Selinger.

"Everyone has the right to feel safe in their community and that's why we're giving more tools to the Winnipeg Police Service to keep our streets safe. Having more beat cops who know their neighbourhoods and are engaged with the community is a positive step towards reducing crime in Winnipeg."

In addition, the province will provide funding to the WPS for four criminal analysts to support the new Criminal Intelligence Unit.

Winnipeg Police Service Chief Devon Clunis said he is very pleased with the ongoing partnership with the Province of Manitoba.

"Working and supporting each other is the key element to combating crime, building safer communities and creating a culture of safety through social development," said Clunis. "The funding announcement of four crime analysts will play a vital role in identifying crime patterns and hot spots for our front-line

17 officers. The additional police officers and cadets will assist in the service's vision in creating healthy, safe and productive neighborhoods and communities."

Both the community officers and criminal analysts will support a new crime- reduction project centred on the William Whyte neighbourhood, aimed at taking a comprehensive approach to fighting crime by connecting police, community groups and neighbourhood residents.

"We all have a part to play in reducing crime. The more we know about patterns of crime, the better we can crack down on illegal activity," said Justice Minister Andrew Swan. "We're involving people in the community who know their neighbourhood best to improve safety and reduce crime."

Ten new cadet positions will also be funded as part of Budget 2013. These cadet positions will enhance public safety by supporting members of the Winnipeg Police Service and offering practical assistance to both private citizens and law enforcement, said Swan.

In the 2011 Speech from the Throne, the province committed to funding 50 new police personnel. With today's announcement, 20 of these positions have now been filled, Selinger noted.

Since 1999, the province has provided funding for 133 Winnipeg Police Service positions.

May 8, 2013

Province To Have New Tool For Police To Locate Missing People More Quickly - - - Province Proclaims May 5 to 11 Missing Persons Week

Manitoba police will soon be able to access vital information more quickly in their search for missing people as a result of proclamation of the Missing Persons Act, Justice Minister Andrew Swan announced today.

"In a missing persons case, time is always a critical factor," said Swan. "This new act gives police the information they need to search more quickly and effectively with the goal of reuniting missing people and their loved ones as soon as possible."

The act, which comes into effect on May 29, allows police to access store surveillance footage as well as telephone, Internet or banking information linked to the missing person. There is currently no other way for police to collect this information without evidence a crime has been committed.

18 The act and supporting regulations contain safeguards limiting the use of the information collected and comply with Manitoba privacy laws. Police will also be required to report annually on how they have used certain information obtained under the act to ensure transparency and accountability to Manitobans.

Manitoba and Alberta will be the only provinces in Canada with this type of legislation in place to help find missing people more quickly, Swan said.

He also noted that Manitoba has joined other western provinces to proclaim May 5 to 11 as Missing Persons Week.

"Education about the issue of missing persons is a key aspect of prevention," said Swan. "Promoting awareness will strengthen prevention and our ability to reunite missing people with their families and loved ones."

To report a missing person, or to share information about a missing person with police, Manitobans should contact their local law enforcement agency.

May 6, 2013

Province Introduces New Legislation That Would Modernize Process For Provincial Offences, Municipal Bylaws - - - Manitobans Would Now Have Option to Pay Fines Without Going to Court: Swan

The province has introduced legislation that would replace the 50-year-old Summary Convictions Act with clear and effective processes to prosecute provincial offences and would modernize the way municipal bylaws are enforced, Justice Minister Andrew Swan announced today.

"Our priority is to ensure legislation dealing with provincial regulatory offences remains clear and relevant and today we are taking an important step forward," said Swan. "Manitoba has set high standards for public welfare, health and safety that will be better protected through a modernized approach to enforcement."

Swan today introduced Bill 38, the provincial offences act, which would replace the Summary Convictions Act. This legislation would deal with regulatory offences including items such as speeding tickets, hunting and fishing offences, and Liquor Act violations. Under the proposed act, the majority of regulatory offences would result in tickets with pre-set fines. This would give people the option of paying their fines without having to go to a court office or make a court appearance, Swan said, adding individuals who would wish to speak to a justice or have a hearing would continue to have these options available.

19 Another change would allow police officers and equipment testers to submit documents to court, called certificate evidence, to prove technical or routine matters. For example, this could be used to show speed-timing devices were operating properly at the time a ticket was issued. Police officers and testers currently have to be in court to present this evidence. This more-efficient system would allow police officers to spend more time on the street protecting Manitobans, the minister said, adding the use of certificate evidence would be allowed only in matters with a pre-set fine. The courts would still have the authority to require a police officer or tester to attend in person if necessary.

Today, the minister also introduced complementary legislation, the municipal by- law enforcement act. It would create a new, standardized administrative approach to adjudicate municipal parking bylaw infractions, and could be used for other bylaw infractions where municipalities elect to do so. Municipalities would appoint municipal screening officers to hear disputes with a right of review by an adjudicator.

"Almost 200,000 provincial regulatory offences are processed in Manitoba courts every year," Swan said. "This legislation is a further reform to ensure a modern and efficient justice system."

ONTARIO

Hamilton police budget finalized with a 3.52- per cent increase Chief says his budget saves hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs By Samantha Craggs, CBC News Posted: Apr 15, 2013

It's official: Hamilton Police Service will move ahead with a budget that is a 3.52- per cent increase over last year.

But the end of the five-month stalemate doesn't satisfy everyone on the Hamilton's police services board.

Hamilton's police services board approved the 2013 budget after a tense debate Monday afternoon. The vote spares a trip to the Ontario Civilian Police Commission for arbitration, a move that would have cost taxpayers about $300,000 just for police lawyers alone, police chief Glenn De Caire said.

“We remain committed to spending public dollars on policing and not on legal costs,” De Caire told the board.

Coun. Bernie Morelli says the budget process has been a failure. "We have failed," he told board members. (Samantha Craggs/CBC)

20 The police budget has been contentious since De Caire presented a budget that represented a more than five per cent increase over last year.

The budget went before city council for approval as a 3.71-per cent increase over 2012. Councillors rejected it and passed a motion asking for a 3.52 per cent, which could have sent it to binding arbitration. The percentage represents a difference of $261,000 on a budget of about $139 million.

Councillors wanted De Caire's team to eliminate a planned hire of 20 new officers and one new civilian staff member. The final version proposed 15 new officers and one civilian staff member.

Chair Nancy DiGregorio says hiring more officers is "a priority for this service that we can no longer ignore." (Samantha Craggs/CBC) Those officers will go “directly to the front line where their presence will be felt,” the chief said.

Coun. Terry Whitehead wasn't satisfied. The budget still contains too many “legacy costs” — including the salaries of the 15 new officers — that taxpayers will have to deal with next year.

With this process, “the line was drawn and there was no room for compromise,” he said.

“This puts additional burden in 2014 on the taxpayers of this community, one that may be over four per cent.”

Coun. Bernie Morelli, who also voted against the budget, deemed the process “a failure” because it doesn't satisfy the needs of the city or the police service.

“We have failed. I accept responsibility for that failure,” he said.

“There are a number of ways to skin a cat and we haven't found a way to satisfy both sides of the equation, and therefore, we have failed.”

But De Caire told reporters after the meeting that he doesn't see it as a failure.

“This budget is providing us the ability to provide excellence in service for the entire community, so this is a success,” he said.

Three of the five board members — Mayor Bob Bratina, chair Nancy DiGregorio and Irene Stayshyn — voted in favour of the budget.

“The chief has presented a sound business case supported by extensive data,” DiGregorio said. “We as a board should be proud of our process.”

CBC Hamilton is trying something new with the meeting's agenda. In the box below, we've opened the document up for your comments. Scroll through and at any points of interest you find, click the annotate button. Now you can click on

21 comment, click on the portion of the document and add your own comments or points of view.

Other people will see what you've written and be able to add to it, creating a crowd-sourced document analyzing the meeting agenda.

Guelph officers in tears after fallen colleague honoured at police memorial

Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press

TORONTO — Colleagues of a young Guelph constable who died in the line of duty this year wiped away tears Sunday as her sacrifice and dedication were remembered in the annual tribute to the province’s fallen police officers.

Friends and relatives of Const. Jennifer Kovach comforted each other following the ceremony, which drew officers from across Ontario and as far away as the U.S.

Kovach, 26, died on March 14 when her cruiser crashed into a bus while she was responding to a colleague’s call for assistance. She had joined the force four years before, fulfilling what relatives said was her lifelong dream.

Hers was one of two names added to the memorial wall of honour in Toronto. The other was that of Cobourg Const. William Rourke, 64, who died in 1915 after suffering a massive heart attack while making an arrest.

“The loss of Jennifer is a terrible tragedy but this ceremony will ensure that her service is never forgotten,” Mike Abbott, president of the Ontario Police Memorial Foundation, told the solemn crowd.

“Her name is now forever engraved in these granite walls alongside 252 other heroes. Jennifer truly was a hero in life,” he said.

Each name was read aloud before the ceremony as police pipe bands led a march around Queen’s Park toward the monument.

Premier Kathleen Wynne was among those who laid a wreath by the wall. She said Kovach, like all officers who risk their lives for the safety of others, was “passionate about protecting her community.”

“For that, I — along with the people of Ontario — will be eternally grateful,” she said during the memorial.

Gratitude was shown as well to the families and friends of police officers, who must also bear the dangers and consequences of their loved ones’ job.

22 “As we honour those who have fallen in the line of duty, we also honour their families, many of whom are here today,” Lt.-Gov. David C. Onley said.

“For you, the risks of service have been great and you have paid a high price in the loss of your loved ones,” he said.

A spokesperson for Toronto police said Kovach’s family asked for privacy as they grieved Sunday.

Many at the ceremony laid flowers by the wall, and several roses rested where the names of Kovach and Rourke were inscribed.

Though almost a century has passed since Rourke’s death, Wynne said the Irish- born father of seven’s memory deserves to live on.

“His service should never be dimmed by the passage of time and we will not forget everything he did to make our province a safer place,” she said.

It’s not unusual for the names of long-deceased officers to be added to the memorial as researchers uncover details of the deaths.

Flowers were also placed at a nearby spot bearing the name of York Region police Const. Garrett Styles. The 34-year-old died in June 2011, crushed under a van he had tried to pull over.

Mayor Bratina, police budget process under the gun at city council meeting

The Spec.com May 8, 2013 Councillor Sam Merulla is introducing a notice of motion at tonight's council meeting to forward a complaint about Bratina's behaviour to ethical watchdog Earl Basse. City Hall sources say Merulla has council's support.

The complaint stems back to the last council meeting, when Bratina left his chair and spoke aggressively to City Manager Chris Murray during a heated debate about Light Rail Transit. The move was condemned by councillors as bullying.

Merulla initially intended to have a closed-door session to discuss the mayor's conduct. However, under the Municipal Act, councillors are only able to discuss personnel issues to protect an identifiable individual. Since Bratina's conflict with Murray took place during a public meeting, it couldn't legally be discussed behind closed doors.

Bratina said at the beginning of the meeting that he will leave council chambers during the discussion.

23

If council agrees to forward the complaint to the integrity commissioner, it will be the second time Bratina's conduct has been examined. He was found guilty of breaking council's code of conduct during the 2012 "Peggygate" scandal, when Bratina lied about who gave his chief of staff Peggy Chapman a raise.

At that time, Basse delivered an official reprimand to the mayor.

Merulla will also be introducing a notice of motion seeking more control over the police budget for city councillors.

Editorial: Give us a better arbitration law The Record Sat Apr 13 2013 00:01:00

The defeat of a bill that would have overhauled Ontario’s broken arbitration system is a defeat for the ordinary working people of this province.

Alarmed by lavish arbitrated settlements for public sector workers — especially police and firefighters — the Progressive Conservatives tried to enact change that would place a premium on a community’s ability to pay.

There was broad support for this necessary initiative from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario as well as countless local governments across the province. Kitchener Mayor Carl Zehr has damned “the current arbitration system and levels of arbitrated compensation” as “simply not sustainable for municipalities.”

Regrettably for taxpayers, this mattered nothing to the provincial Liberals and New Democrats who teamed up to kill the Conservative bill on Thursday. This is a huge disservice to the general public.

The issue must not die. It comes down to social justice. Millions of private sector workers across Ontario are still reeling from the aftershocks of the 2008-09 recession. BlackBerry, the struggling maker of smartphones, laid off 3,000 workers in this community over the last two-and-a-half years.

Hundreds of people at Kitchener’s Schneiders plant will lose their jobs when it closes in 2014. Last week, a water heater manufacturing plant in the town of Fergus axed 350 jobs. This week, you could practically hear the howls of outrage across Canada when it seemed that 45 Royal Bank of Canada staff would lose their jobs to workers from India. And on it goes.

Layoffs, wage freezes, stripped benefits, downsizing, outsourcing, automation: These are the harsh realities for many of the private sector folk who learn to live with less as they watch their tax bills spiral endlessly upward to pay overly generous public sector wages. Some of these wages are arbitrated. In other

24 cases, municipalities pay more than they want to or can afford to avoid arbitration. This simply isn’t fair.

Consider that an arbitrator recently awarded Waterloo Regional Police an 8.6- per-cent pay raise over three years. That follows a negotiated settlement that jacked up local police pay by 17 per cent over four years. And some of that increase happened during the recessionary years in which so many local workers suffered.

No wonder a third of the department’s police officers now earn more than $100,000 a year. Nor is this an isolated case. An arbitrator gave Stratford firefighters an astonishing 20 per cent pay increase at the end of 2011 — in addition to the automatic annual retention pay bonuses that have become a staple for police and firefighters across the province.

To be blunt, the current arbitration law stacks the deck in the unions’ favour. They hold veto power over who gets to arbitrate a case. The provisions for considering a community’s ability to afford the deal are poorly defined.

Don Drummond, the renowned economist appointed by the Ontario Liberals to end the fiscal crisis we are in, urged drastic reforms to the arbitration system. The Conservatives wove his ideas into their legislation. Had the Capacity to Pay Act passed, arbitrators would, for the first time, have been required to take into account the economic conditions in a community — its unemployment rate as well as recent private sector awards. Unions would not be allowed to shop for arbitrators with a record of generosity toward organized labour. And a written record explaining the decision would be mandatory.

We know private member’s bills of this kind, especially from an opposition party, seldom pass. And considering the Conservatives last year opposed a far more modest attempt by the minority Liberals to reform arbitration, it is not be surprising that the Liberals quashed the Tory initiative this week.

Yet such petty politics are galling. If the two biggest parties in the legislature agree that the arbitration law must be rewritten, they should find a way to co- operate to do it.

Toronto police issuing ‘positive tickets’ Police in Scarborough’s 42 Division formally launch a project whereby citizens get small, on-the-spot rewards for pitching in

By TIMOTHY APPLEBY Globe & Mail

A side of fries to go with that good deed? Or a gift card? How about a movie pass?

25 Adding a fresh incentive to the notion that law enforcement can’t do its job effectively without public help, police in Scarborough’s 42 Division will this morning formally launch a project whereby citizens get small, on-the-spot rewards for pitching in.

That could mean a voucher for a Mac’s Convenience store item, a burger at McDonald’s, a slice from Pizza Pizza or something slightly more valuable, depending on events.

Numerous police agencies acknowledge the assistance they get from the public, and twice a year Toronto police hand out awards for particularly useful contributions.

But this modest operation – the cost is picked up by the sponsoring companies – looks to be the first of its kind, says Inspector David Saunders, who came up with the “Positive Ticketing” idea.

It grew out of a successful summer-safety program last year which in turn was borne out of two notorious double murders – the multiple shootings on Danzig Street, just up the road from 42 Division, and the killings at the Eaton Centre.

So far 5,000 of the special tickets have been printed. And like the fast-food rewards they bring, they are instant, given out immediately by the officer. With its demographic mix, encompassing numerous people from countries where police are perceived as the enemy, 42 Division seems like a good place for such “an icebreaker,” Insp. Saunders said.

Contributions of all kinds will qualify: Sticking around after witnessing a traffic accident; aiding a criminal investigation; or just helping out a stranger. Tickets already handed out since the operation began a few weeks ago have been given to Good Samaritans who rendered first aid to an unconscious man, comforted a robbery victim and aided a 90-year-old dementia patient wandering around in the cold.

“Every time you go out there something needs to be sorted out,” Insp. Saunders said.

“But officers also see people at their best – stepping up, doing what’s right. So this is a kind of small thank you,”

Details can be found at http://www.positiveticketing.ca/

Police Association boss leaves for provincial job

By Dan Dakin, St. Catharines Standard Wednesday, April 10, 2013 5:35:28 EDT PM

26 After more than seven years of handling the issues of police officers in Niagara, Paul Di Simoni is now taking on a similar role at the provincial level.

The 34-year veteran of the Niagara Regional Police Service retired Feb. 28, which also ended his 7.5-year tenure as president of the service's union. His final day of work fell on the day he turned 53.

But his retirement didn't last long.

Di Simoni left his post at the Niagara Region Police Association to become the chief administrative officer of the Police Association of Ontario, which represents more than 33,000 employees from 57 police associations across the province.

“It was an opportunity to bring my policing experience and association experience to a different level,” he said.

Di Simoni is on a two-year contract with the PAO, working full-time out of its Mississauga office.

He said he's looking forward to working closely with provincial politicians.

“That really is where many of the significant changes to policing have occurred at the protocol level,” he said. “It's an exciting opportunity and a great opportunity to get involved with all of the issues that are there and to be part of the discussions at the provincial level.”

Of the issues facing police services these days, balancing increasing costs with stricter budgets is the biggest one, he said.

“The cost of policing is not a new issue, but there are many aspects to policing that aren't considered when there's attention being drawn to the overall cost of it,” said Di Simoni.

He specifically pointed out the arbitration system, which is often blamed for driving up budgets, and said the public doesn't always hear both sides.

“We believe we provide a service across Ontario that is really second to none,” he said. “While we're not perfect – and nothing ever is – we're always willing to have the discussion to find improvements and efficiencies, but a lot of that work has been done over time.”

Taking over from Di Simoni at the head of the Niagara Region Police Association is Det. Sgt. Cliff Priest, who has been with the NRP since 1991 and spent 14 years prior to that with the Metro Police in London, England. Priest had been the vice-president of the NRPA since 2009.

He steps straight into the role of overseeing contract negotiations – first awaiting an arbitrator's decision over the 2012 contract, and then starting negotiations on the 2013 contract next week.

27 Beyond that, Priest said some work needs to be done improving morale in the service.

“We've had some morale issues, both with uniform officers and civilian (employees),” he said. “There are a lot of uncertainties with the new facilities coming – how will it affect them? Will there be job cuts?

“We want to make sure the new facilities are good for our members and that they're safe, workable environments,” he said.

Quick Facts

Paul Di Simoni

34-year veteran of the Niagara Regional Police

Former president of NRPA

New CAO of Police Association of Ontario

Det. Sgt. Cliff Priest

37-year veteran of policing

Acting president of NRPA

Police start collecting race data Ontario Human Rights Commission and the Ottawa Police Services Board agreed that police would begin to track race data. CBC News Posted: May 6, 2013 6:26 PM ET Ottawa police have launched a controversial three week pilot project that has officers keeping track of the perceived race of the motorists that they pull over.

The Traffic Stop Race Data Collection Project is designed to find out how much race influences the decisions police make when they pull someone over.

Patrick Flanagan said forty officers are involved in the project. (CBC) Forty officers are involved in the project and the data will be analyzed with help from York University.

The project is the result of a settlement in the case of Chad Aiken, a young black man who was stopped in May 2005 while driving his mother's Mercedes and who recorded an officer being abusive.

28 Ontario Human Rights Commission and the Ottawa Police Services Board agreed that police would begin to track race data.

Chad Aiken, pictured here at 18, sparked a human rights complaint against Ottawa police claiming he was racially profiled at a traffic stop in 2005. (CBC) "The people that we stop will not notice any difference whatsoever," said Inspector Patrick Flanagan, who is in charge of the project for Ottawa police.

He said the Ottawa community has raised the issue of race bias and police are responding.

"As a police service we have a responsibility to listen to those concerns," he said.

The pilot project expands to a full launch in June, when all officers authorized to pull motorists over will have to collect race data.

Documents shed new light in Toronto police- SIU spat Documents reveal the Toronto police provided an OIPRD complaint directly to the SIU on three previous occasions, despite their claim they did not have the right to provide a document. The Toronto Star By: Wendy Gillis News reporter, Published on Fri May 03 2013 It was a baffling bureaucratic catch-22 that cut short a police brutality investigation, and prompted a heated public spat between Toronto police and the force’s watchdog. Police were “refusing” to provide a document vital to a Special Investigations Unit probe into an allegation that Malton man Tyrone Phillips was beaten unconscious by police, SIU director Ian Scott said in a January statement announcing he had to close the case. Toronto police fired back, saying the document was not theirs to provide — it belonged to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, a provincial agency that probes grievances against police. But documents obtained through a Freedom of Information request reveal that, on three previous occasions, Toronto police did directly provide OIPRD complaint material to the SIU. The most recent occurrence was just four months before police spokesman Mark Pugash said the force did not have the right. “Thank you for the OIPRD material received by the SIU today,” SIU investigator Allan Eaton wrote to Toronto police Insp. Scott Gilbert and Det. Sgt. Stephen Morse in a September 2012 email regarding a sexual assault complaint. In June 2010, Toronto police faxed an OIPRD complaint, which also alleged sexual assault, to the SIU’s executive officer, Bill Curtis. Another complaint, alleging a custody injury, was sent by Toronto police to the SIU in early 2011. Pugash told the Star this week that in two of the cases, the OIPRD documents were sent to the SIU in error. “It should not have been provided,” he said. “Those were mistakes on our part.”

29 But he said police have no records that show a third complaint — the 2011 grievance alleging custody injury — was sent to the SIU. “I can’t say absolutely that it wasn’t, but we have no record in that case of it being disclosed,” Pugash said. The documents obtained by the Star concerning that case, however, include an email from Eaton confirming the SIU “did receive the entire (Toronto Police Service) OIPRD file materials.” An SIU spokesperson also said in an email that the agency’s records indicate police provided the police watchdog with the OIPRD report in question. The details of the three OIPRD complaints passed from police to the SIU — including the names of the complainants and specifics of the allegations — were kept secret because publication “could constitute unjustified invasion of personal privacy” under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. No charges were laid against officers in any of the cases. In a statement this week, Scott accused police of flip-flopping. “I haven’t a clue why the Toronto Police Service changed its position and refused to provide the SIU with the Phillips’ complaint statement,” Scott said. Pugash denied the force had altered its position, reiterating that mistakes had been made. Police will not be providing the document to the SIU, he said. “It’s a third-party record, and we are not in a position, unless compelled by judicial process, to release that.” The problems with Phillips’ complaint began in January, when Scott issued a harshly worded statement announcing closure of the investigation into Phillips’ allegation that police beat him unconscious when he was arrested outside a Toronto nightclub in July 2012. (Phillips was charged with one count of assaulting a peace officer and one count of obstructing a peace officer. Both matters remain before the courts.) His grievance had landed on the desk of SIU investigators — who probe police- civilian altercations involving serious injury or death — after Phillips filed a complaint with the OIPRD, a separate police watchdog that, unlike the SIU, does not have the ability to lay criminal charges. As per protocol, the OIPRD sent the complaint to Toronto police to investigate. Deeming the allegations serious enough to warrant an SIU probe, police forwarded the file to that agency. But when SIU investigators requested Phillips’ original complaint, Toronto police claimed they did not have the authority, which lay with the OIPRD. That agency, meanwhile, only shares information with the police force involved. The SIU ultimately reopened the case after Phillips personally obtained a copy of his OIPRD complaint, then handed it to SIU investigators, who picked it up at the aircraft parts supplier where Phillips is employed. Days later, the SIU ruled there were no reasonable grounds to charge police in the case. Reached at his workplace near Pearson airport this week, Phillips said he was “disgusted” to learn police had shared an OIPRD complaint with the SIU three previous times prior to the dispute over his case. “That’s really disturbing,” he said. “How is the public supposed to trust them?” Pugash said the two officers who provided the OIPRD documents to the SIU in error have not been disciplined.

30 Hiring freezes at Ontario’s two largest -police forces hit home at the -Aylmer police college

By Jennifer O'Brien, The London Free Press Tuesday, May 7, 2013 12:57:32 EDT PM

Hiring freezes at Ontario’s two largest -police forces are hitting home at the -Aylmer police college. Reporter Jennifer O’Brien explains why the college cancelled a basic training course for the first time and what’s ahead for people trying to get into policing

- - -

Just-hired Ontario constables will have to hold their fire — there aren’t enough of them to go to police school this spring.

Without enough students, the Ontario Police College in Aylmer has cancelled its basic training course for the first time.

But don’t confuse a lack of rookie police for a lack of interest, a spokesperson for the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police said. The situation is largely caused by hiring freezes at the province's largest city police force: Toronto.

“They are the big boys and without them, the college felt there wouldn’t be enough bodies there.”

With a staff of about 5,000, the Toronto police department often sends between 100 and 150 new hires to the college, which typically runs three basic training sessions a year, Couto said.

“Everything is budget-driven,” he said. “Because we’re in some tough economic times, police services are being asked to make sure the budget is kept under control.”

Once the hiring freeze is over, the police college expects to see more typical classes of 500 to 600 students, Couto said.

“In a normal year, they’ll be hiring 1,200 police officers in Ontario,” said Jon Mills, president of Applicant Testing Services Inc. (ATS), which administers tests for police applicants. “It’s just budgetary restraints.”

Numbers have been down for basic training courses during the past two years, but things will turn around, said Andrew Morrison of the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services.

“It’s difficult to describe it as normal, but (it’s) not anything to be alarmed about.”

31 Each year the college schedules basic training courses in January, May and September. As well, it runs continuing education and specialized training courses for officers across the province.

January’s basic training course had 203 recruits, including six from London police.

But only 100 students were lined up for the May course.

“It didn’t make sense,” Morrison said. “There are 150 instructors.”

Certainly, people want policing jobs.

More than 800 applied to London police last year — for 29 openings.

“When you go for testing with people who want to get into policing, there are hundreds of people there. I have a degree, I have a diploma, I volunteer and I’ve been applying to London for a few years,” said a Londoner who hopes to be hired one day for the city police force.

“I work in the criminal justice field and still . . . it’s a waiting game.”

- - -

BY THE NUMBERS

The Ontario Police College teaches full-time officers and new recruits. Basic constable recruits enrolled:

2012-13: 632

2011-12: 544

2010-11: 910

HOW TO GET IN TO OPC

You apply to a police service You get hired The service sends you to the Ontario Police College in Aylmer WHAT YOU NEED (OFFICIALLY)

To be hired as a police officer under the Police Services Act, you must be:

A Canadian citizen or permanent resident 18 or older

32 A person with good moral character WHO'S GETTING HIRED

“The average age we are seeing for recruitment now is 29 . . . and more than 80% of them have post-secondary education,” said John Mills, president of Applicant Testing Services Inc. (ATS), a company that administers standardized tests for applicants to law enforcement and emergency services careers. “Recruiters want people with life experience.”

CAN YOU DO THIS?

To complete the obstacle course, part of the police prep test administered by ATS, you must:

Be able to hop a 1.3-metre fence Manoeuvre a 31.5-kilogram weight Pull a 67.5-kg mannequin from one point to another within a set time Do a shuttle run back and forth for more than six minutes — Applicant Testing Services

LONDON POLICE SALARIES

Cadet: $38,038 Cadet Recruit: (while attending Ontario Police College) $38,038 Constable: Between $53,206 and $94,614 (depending on experience and education)

Police asked to justify project costs

The police station at Regional Road 57 in Clarington is being replaced with a new large police complex that is being constructed in two phases and is comprised of four buildings.

By Lindsey Cole/The Oshawa Express

When it comes to the new Clarington Police Complex it’s important to make every square foot count.

This is the sentiment of some members of Regional council and the Police Services Board who asked Durham police to explain where the project was heading and what it was going to cost.

The Clarington Police Complex will be replacing the Regional Road 57 station and is being constructed in phases. It will be made up of four buildings on approximately 32 acres of land (27 acres have been bought so far) on Hwy. 2, Bloor Street and Maple Grove Road in Clarington, a report from the police board states. The buildings will be a new East Division police office, a forensic investigation facility, a warehouse and the Centre for Investigative Excellence.

33

Phase one includes the East Division Building, the Forensic Investigation Facility and site development. It is supposed to be substantially complete by summer 2015.

Phase two includes the Regional Support Centre Warehouse and the Centre of Investigative Excellence. The support centre is slated to be 86,000 square feet and will include space for tactical support, K-9 units, fleet and evidence storage. Vaults will be constructed for alcohol, drugs, money, valuables, firearms and ammunition as part of the sectionalized storage for evidence.

The centre for excellence will be 86,700 square feet and will be made up of many units, appearing like a multi-floor office that is highly secure, the report reads.

The preliminary estimate has each structure costing about $25 million. All in, with the cost of land, site development, and other fees this phase is estimated to cost $73.4 million.

The Police Services Board wanted to ensure this cost was reasonable and asked a variety of questions, says Regional Chair Roger Anderson.

“We want to make sure that what we’re building is what we need,” he says. “The board had a lot of questions. We’re asking the police to come back with some more information.”

This comes despite reassurances in the report that suggest research has been done and the estimates are fair.

“The cost estimates prepared in 2011 for the Regional Support Centre Warehouse and the Centre for Investigative Excellence were reasonable, appropriate and comparable in cost to similar facilities,” the report reads. In October 2012 the Region’s Works Department obtained cost information pertaining to several police buildings constructed in Southern Ontario.

According to the report, costs for 16 buildings were provided. The range in cost per square foot of building and site development costs was a low of $162 to a high of $383. “For Clarington Phase 2 the cost per square foot figure for building plus site development is $331($290 building plus $40 site development),” it states. “This comparison shows that the cost estimate for Clarington phase 2 is reasonable.”

Chair Anderson doesn’t argue the need for the new complex, stating police services needed to improve in the Region, but he adds it needs to be cost effective as well.

“We’ve gone a long time without paying attention to a lot of the police facilities,” he explains. “You want to make sure what you’re doing is correct. We’re just going to make sure we’re not building an estate executive home when a townhouse will do.”

34 Both the police service and the board will be reviewing the plans and estimated costs in more detail over the next two months, the report concludes. City, OPP in budget standoff

By Sara Ross, Orillia Packet & Times Monday, May 6, 2013 10:12:00 EDT PM

ORILLIA - Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) isn’t budging in budget negotiations with the City of Orillia, says the city’s CAO.

“... We expect not to be able to achieve the savings we thought we could achieve,” Roman Martiuk told budget committee Monday.

During 2013 budget discussions in November, OPP submitted an $8.4-million budget to the city. That is a $1.08-million increase over the $7.3-million budget in 2012.

At the time, Martiuk told city politicians the OPP budget recommended $540,000 in “enhancements.” He recommended council consider eliminating $225,000 worth of enhancements. Because of this the budget included a $225,000 savings for 2013.

“In the budget, we made some assumptions about how we might negotiate the contract,” Martiuk said.

The enhancements were provisions within the city’s existing Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services contract for OPP, which expired Jan. 1.

The city entered into negotiations with OPP and discussed reducing the budget.

“The OPP have indicated those enhancements, as far as they’re concerned, are not enhancements,” Martiuk said, “(that) they are base-budget items and that their staffing numbers should be higher than our view of the world.”

A detailed report about the OPP negotiations will be given to city politicians May 13.

“... We have received the proposals from the other side and the numbers that they’re talking (about) are higher than what we had anticipated last fall,” Martiuk said.

As well, the 2014 OPP increase is expected to be in the $1-million range and, by itself, generate a tax increase of more than 2%, states a staff report.

At Monday’s budget committee meeting, city staff recommended an increase in assessment growth be used towards the cost of enhancements.

35 The city has an increased revenue of $257,000 from an increase in assessment growth.

During budget deliberations, council arrived at a budgetary levy increase of 3.8%. This levy change incorporated an assumed assessment growth of $317,000, states a staff report. The actual assessment growth is $574,000.

“More properties are participating in paying than we had forecast,” Martiuk said. “This will help lessen the blow for the 2014 budget.”

While city politicians could reopen the 2013 budget and use the additional assessment growth to reduce taxes, staff recommended the increase cover the rising OPP costs.

“We believe it’s prudent to solve that problem with the windfall that we just received,” Martiuk said. “The two issues mirror each other and we felt it was a reasonable solution to put the two pieces of new information together.”

Coun. Paul Spears spoke in favour of using the additional revenues to cover OPP costs.

“We’re just lucky we have the increase in revenue,” he said.

QUEBEC SPVM explains overruns in OT budget

BY RENÉ BRUEMMER, GAZETTE CIVIC AFFAIRS REPORTER MAY 2, 2013

The Gazette MONTREAL — Montreal police repudiated a news report Thursday that the force blew the budget on overtime expenses by $85 million over the last seven years, saying the cost overruns were created by chronic underfunding and policing expenses that were in fact reimbursed.

The force more than doubled its overtime budget every year but one between 2006 and 2012, while issuing far fewer traffic and parking tickets than expected, Radio-Canada reported Wednesday, based on information gleaned through an access to information request.

In 2008, the police force almost quadrupled its $5.4-million overtime budget. Officers filed for more than $145 million in overtime between 2006 and 2012, $85 million more than the city had anticipated.

36 Much of the disparity, however, was due to the fact the city underfunded police overtime expenses in its budget by $8 million a year between 2006 and 2010, said Bruno Pasquini, deputy director of the Montreal police force, who came into power along with police chief Marc Parent in 2010.

“We saw that the budgeted amount did not reflect the normal needs of a city of Montreal’s size,” Pasquini said. Parent alerted city council, which increased the amount allotted to police overtime from $6.6 million a year to $14.6 million.

Montreal police were conscripted to bolster security at events like the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, at a cost of $4 million in overtime, which was reimbursed, but not reflected in the news report, Pasquini said. Neither was $13 million reimbursed by the Quebec government to cover OT related to the student protests of 2012. Unforeseen events, like Stanley Cup playoff rioting in 2008 and 2010, and the 2008 protests in Montreal North surrounding the police shooting of Fredy Villanueva, also played a factor. With all those elements taken into account, the overtime expenses were generally a few million dollars over budget, but not $85 million, Pasquini said.

City hall spokesman Gonzalo Nunez said the city paid any extra expenses year after year because “public security is a priority” and the unique nature of police work makes it difficult to control overtime costs. “That being said, we are monitoring the situation closely with the directors of the Montreal police force to ensure a proper management of costs,” Nunez said.

Montreal police are also studying ways to cut overtime costs, Pasquini said.

Police also issued less in traffic and parking tickets between 2008 and 2012 than budgeted for by the city, Radio-Canada reported. Officers issued $217 million in tickets in that time, $92 million less than the $309 million the city had anticipated. Pasquini said officers were not expected to hit quotas.

Reserves: Law and order in a challenging setting

BY CHRISTOPHER CURTIS, THE GAZETTE APRIL 10, 2013 MONTREAL - Poverty, overcrowding and an abundance of hunting rifles add up to a difficult task for police officers in remote aboriginal reserves

During his short stint as a police sergeant, Randy Weizineau saw the ugliest side of his hometown.

Weizineau had to talk his own brother out of killing himself. He discovered the corpse of a childhood friend who had just committed suicide. Sometimes he’d find himself breaking up a fight that involved members of his family.

37 The things Weizineau saw ground away at him, they made it tough to feel normal even when he got home and took his uniform off.

“You know everyone, everyone knows you, it’s strange,” Weizineau told The Gazette. “You can’t say: ‘No.’ you can’t say: ‘I won’t do it today,’ because it’s too painful to see your people at their worst. But in the end, someone needs to be there, and I was proud to be that person.”

No longer a sergeant, Weizineau is now one of the two people who oversee the local police force in his hometown of Opitciwan — a remote Atikamekw reserve of about 2,100 residents.

And as challenging as policing on the reserve can be, things have recently become even more difficult for the aboriginal cops in Opitciwan.

All 17 officers in the Haute Mauricie logging community were temporarily suspended April 1 at midnight after the federal and provincial governments failed to renew a funding agreement that paid their salaries and the salaries of police in 25 other Quebec aboriginal communities.

None of the other reserves has disbanded their police departments. But Opitciwan suspended its police force because the band council doesn’t have the money to pay its cops while funding negotiations are stalled.

As a result, 16 officers from the Sûreté du Québec were brought in to patrol the community until a new deal can be reached. So far, four aboriginal cops have resigned out of frustration and taken jobs in nearby James Bay Cree communities.

“It’s a thankless job and I can understand their frustration; we’re all very tired, just emotionally wiped,” said band council chief Christian Awashish. “The SQ is doing what they can, but there’s obviously a cultural gap they’re having a hard time bridging. And they’re clearly dealing with something they’ve never dealt with before.”

Awashish said crime in Opitciwan is nearing crisis levels. Last year, police on the territory handled more than 2,200 cases — most of which were violent crimes or drug-related offences. Rampant poverty, overcrowding in houses and substance abuse have created a caustic situation on the reserve.

Then there’s Opitciwan’s long-standing tradition of hunting moose and caribou. Because Opitciwan is buried deep within Quebec’s boreal forest, most families in town own at least one hunting rifle — which only complicates matters for police.

“Weapons are so common on the reserve that every time you respond to a domestic dispute, you have to assume there could be a gun involved,” Weizineau said. “Last year, we were fired on before we could even arrive at the scene of a 911 call. You have this profoundly intoxicated man handling a telescopic rifle designed to take down moose from hundreds of yards away. Imagine what one

38 of those bullets can do to a man. It doesn’t matter that you’re wearing a flak jacket, you’re naked out there.”

Every time Weizineau responded to a domestic dispute, he would imagine a high-powered gun lurking somewhere in the house. Maybe it was behind a door, tucked under the bed or stashed away in a closet. Whatever the case would be, it kept Weizineau’s mind razor-sharp when he was on the job.

“You’d walk into these situations and your heart is pounding, you can feel the adrenalin throughout your body,” he said. “In the back of your mind, you think of the worst possible outcome.”

Even in a small, isolated community, the worst possible outcome isn’t so far- fetched.

At the beginning of March, an aboriginal cop in Kuujjuaq was shot to death while responding to a domestic dispute call. SQ spokesperson Daniel Thibodeau said the officer was fired on just as he got out of his police cruiser.

“He never stood a chance,” Thibodeau said.

After 27-year-old Steve Dery was fatally gunned down, his presumed killer barricaded himself in his home while police tried to talk him down.

A 17-hour standoff ended when the man turned his rifle on himself and pulled the trigger. The murder-suicide shocked the Inuit village, with townspeople expressing shock that the suspect could have ever killed anyone.

Despite the attention Kuujjuaq brought to the challenges aboriginal police forces face, Weizineau said he doesn’t believe most Quebecers could understand the situation without witnessing it first hand.

“I think what’s happening with the SQ in Opitciwan right now is they’re starting to understand how hard it is,” he said. “There was one situation where a mother and her schizophrenic daughter were arguing and things were getting heated fast. So I had to personally intervene and act as a kind of translator as the SQ officers did what they could. It wasn’t easy.”

It may be easy to look at the situation in Opitciwan as being beyond redemption. But Weizineau stands behind the work of his officers, insisting the force had made inroads with the community’s youth before the funding agreement expired.

“It used to be, when you rolled past kids you’d be greeted with a fistful of rocks or an ‘Up your ass, officer’ from some of the boldest young ones,” he said. “We changed that culture. There’s still a deeply ingrained distrust of law enforcement among the older generation but we visit schools, we buy kids ice cream, we let them know we’re only here to help.”

Still, Weizineau says he would like to see his force’s numbers bumped from 17 police to 28.

39

“There was a week in March where our officers had to testify in court 21 times,” he said. “That’s a 300-kilometre trip east, through the bush and into Roberval. It sidelines the officer for an entire day. The bottom line is we just don’t have the resources right now to do our work effectively. If we ever do get them, I think we can start to make some real progress.”

NEW BRUNSWICK Fredericton police seek volunteer traffic 'cops' Citizens will watch for speeders, red light runners and report back to police CBC News Posted: May 8, 2013 3:50 PM AT Last Updated: May 8, 2013 5:14 Fredericton police are enlisting the help of civilians to help make city streets safer for motorists and pedestrians.

The police department is going to start using volunteers to keep an eye on suspected hot spots for problems such as speeding and running red lights, said Staff Sgt. Brian Ford.

"'Cause currently what we're doing is we’re sending a police officer over there to do that very thing and sometimes it’s more public perception — there really isn’t a problem," he said.

"So what we’re hoping to do by implementing this program is to use our resources more efficiently, put our police officers where they should be and utilize volunteers to monitor those problem spots for us."

A volunteer will be asked to monitor a designated area for a few hours and then report back to police, said Ford.

If the volunteer observes a high number of infractions, an officer will be sent to the area, he said.

"If we looked at it and there was one car ran a red light over three hours let’s say, we probably don’t have a problem there," said Ford.

"But if they came back and said, 'You had 15 cars running that red light,' well we'd want to get an officer up there and get some enforcement."

The department is also exploring the idea of sending a letter to the registered owner of any vehicle spotted breaking any rules, said Ford.

The technique has proven effective in other jurisdictions, he said.

40 NOVA SCOTIA Trauma Training for Front-line Staff Will Help Victims of Sexual Violence Premier's Office May 7, 2013 2:40 PM People working directly with survivors of sexual violence can better respond to their needs after participating in the two-day workshop Beyond Trauma.

"The approach generates hope for healing. Women feel they are not alone," said participant Brenda Wood, a transition house worker at Chrysalis House in Kentville. "The training is respectful, helps remove stigma and empowers staff and the women we are working with."

The Coverdale Courtwork Society hosted workshop, which finished today, May 7, during Sexual Assault Awareness Month with partners Halifax Regional School Board, SchoolsPlus, the Nova Scotia Restorative Justice program and the Department of Justice.

"So often people have been hurt and have not had the opportunity to heal from trauma," said Janet Briggs, a member of the Coverdale board and manager of the province's restorative justice program. "Trauma such as sexual violence is at the heart of many issues for women and girls, and can affect our ability to recover, whether we get in trouble with the law, mental illness and addictions, our future health and well-being."

Beyond Trauma is based on a woman-centred treatment for outpatient, residential and criminal justice settings. The presenter, Stephanie Covington, is a clinician, lecturer and consultant recognized internationally for her work at the Institute for Relational Development and the Centre for Gender and Justice in California.

"Coverdale has brought in an international expert to help front-line staff across the province learn about trauma and how to identify it," said Status of Women Minister Marilyn More, who is co-ordinating provincial actions to better protect girls, women and all Nova Scotians from sexual violence. "Collaborations such as this one are going to make a difference for women and youth who have been hurt by sexual violence."

More than 100 people from across government and community, health care, education, and policing and corrections organizations attended the workshop at Mount Saint Vincent University.

"This interagency partnership will build capacity within our organizations by equipping more professionals with the skills to provide trauma-specific services to women," said Marlene Ruck Simmonds, SchoolsPlus leader, Halifax Regional School Board. "Staff will be better positioned to recognize the systemic changes

41 that need to occur within their organizations and society, to promote a culture that heals and empowers girls and young women."

Participating organizations included Adsum House, Antigonish Women's Resource Centre, the Colchester Sexual Assault Centre, Elizabeth Fry Society, Mi'kmaw Family Healing Centre, Nova Scotia Native Women's Association, Phoenix Centre for Youth, Stepping Stone, Tri-County Women's Centre and Veith House.

"So many people are struggling, especially women and children," said Shelley Robinson, community outreach co-ordinator for Bryony House in Halifax, who attended the workshop. "We will be able to take this training back to women so that they can move forward in their lives."

The province provided funding so organizations could send a representative.

The province recently announced a $1.1-million investment to expand services provincewide for victims of sexual violence and their families. The funding will go to collaborations among groups to help more victims, especially where services are limited, seed money to help organizations expand their reach for more treatment and prevention, and emergency funding to meet increased demand for front-line services.

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

NEWFOUNDLAND

NATIONAL Firearms advisory committee still lacks diversity of voices, Public Safety memo suggests

BY DOUGLAS QUAN, POSTMEDIA NEWS APRIL 10, 2013

The Harper government’s recent decision to dump three civilian gun enthusiasts from its firearms advisory committee and replace them with law enforcement officials didn’t go far enough to diversify the voices on the panel, suggests an internal memo.

42

In March, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews announced that the new appointees — drawn from police organizations in B.C., Alberta and Manitoba — would “provide important suggestions and input” to firearms legislation.

But weeks before that announcement, Public Safety Canada staff sent Toews a memo suggesting that “while the changes to membership … will provide a greater voice for law enforcement on the committee, the changes will still not reflect the full spectrum of the firearms control debate.”

The Feb. 12 memo, signed by Francois Guimont, the deputy minister of public safety, was obtained under access-to-information laws.

Toews’ spokeswoman, Julie Carmichael, said in an email Wednesday that the new appointees “further strengthened the membership of (the committee) to ensure the advice that is given is representative of all sides of the debate.”

“As a government, we believe in an effective firearms program, appropriate laws and effective law enforcement, all of which are essential to protecting public safety and combating the criminal use of firearms,” she added.

Toews’ decision to shuffle the committee’s membership was spurred by remarks made by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in December on the anniversary of the mass shooting at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique.

Asked by the opposition about documents showing that the firearms advisory committee — heavily weighted with sports shooting enthusiasts — was advocating for the reclassification of certain prohibited weapons, Harper told the House that he had “absolutely no intention” of accommodating those recommendations and agreed that the committee’s membership needed some “re-examination.”

Toews subsequently sent letters to three members of the committee thanking them for their service, particularly in helping to end the long-gun registry, but advising them that their tenure was ending “effective immediately.”

Those cut from the committee were co-chair Linda Baggaley, a Red Deer gun auctioneer and vice-president of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association; Gerry Gamble, president of the Sporting Clubs of Niagara and a director of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association; and Kerry Higgins, a gunsmith from Saskatchewan.

They were replaced by Rick Hanson, chief of the Calgary Police Service; Bob Rich, chief of the Abbotsford Police Department; and Mike Sutherland, president of the Winnipeg Police Association.

The Abbotsford police chief made international headlines in December when he appeared in a Christmas greeting card decked out in a Santa Claus outfit toting a rifle used by his emergency response team. The card was sent to gang members

43 and prolific offenders advising them that it’s never too late to make better choices.

Rich has stated publicly that he believes Canada has taken the “wrong approach” on handguns and that they should be prohibited “in all cases.” Appearing before a House of Commons committee in 2010, Rich also stated that “assault rifles should never be in the hands of any private person. There’s just no reason for that.”

Rich said he supported scrapping the long-gun registry because it was filled with inaccurate information.

Hanson told the same committee that he wasn’t opposed to a properly administered registry but said he opposed criminalizing people for owning unregistered sporting weapons.

In an interview with The Canadian Press following his ouster, Gamble complained that the new appointees were “not friends of gun owners” and were chosen “purely for public relations purposes.”

Those who remain on the committee include the executive director and president of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, a police firearms trainer, a member of the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, a police sergeant and firearms master instructor, a criminologist, and an Olympic gold medallist in pistol shooting.

Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae last month decried the committee’s lack of mental health professionals and domestic violence experts.

“Given that 72 per cent of firearms-related deaths are by suicide, how does the prime minister feel that the firearms advisory committee can appropriately advise the government on these matters without the input of mental health experts?” Rae said in a statement.

NDP, police association decry lack of oversight in changes to RCMP Act

CTV News Channel: Critics slam RCMP bill CTVNews.ca Staff Published Monday, May 6, 2013 3:46PM EDT

New legislation to overhaul the RCMP Act does not adequately address how to deal with harassment in the force despite government claims to the contrary, members of the force and NDP MPs said Monday.

44 Bill C-42, which amends the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act, has made its way through the House of Commons and is now before the Senate National Security and Defence committee.

Civilian and regular members of the force addressed the media to convey their objections about the legislation before speaking at the committee’s latest meeting on the bill Monday evening.

The main objection is that the bill does not include a provision for the creation of a civilian review body, which members have been demanding for years, and gives the force’s commissioner greater powers to dismiss or demote members. Rae Banwarie, president of the Mounted Police Professional Association of Canada, said the bill “does not address core issues of harassment in the force.” “What it will do is give the commissioner even more power -- or his delegates -- in terms of dismissal, demotion, (and) a whole host of things,” Banwarie told reporters in Ottawa. RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson has argued that some of the amendments in the legislation are needed so he can dismiss a member more swiftly in a case of sexual harassment. In recent months, the force has been rocked by harassment accusations by both current and former members. However, Banwarie said while members are able to make use of an appeal process, demotion or dismissal decisions still rest with the commissioner. “There is no independent oversight in any of the processes in this bill, at all. It is all run or controlled…by the commissioner or his delegates,” Banwarie said. “That is very problematic. In a modern day policing environment in Canada…in every modern police association organization, they have a police union or association with a collective agreement which assists with a whole host of myriad issues that happen in their various departments. We still have not obtained that goal.” NDP Public Safety Critic Randall Garrison said his party proposed a number of amendments to the legislation when it was before the House, including the creation of a “fully independent civilian review body,” which would not only help to restore morale among Mounties, but also public confidence in the force. Garrison said his party also wanted to address harassment in the bill’s language, and make it the commissioner’s responsibility to not only deal with, but also to prevent, sexual harassment. “We are here to highlight that this Conservative bill remains deeply flawed and fails to address the central problems of the RCMP,” Garrison said. The federal government said it is willing to work with the RCMP commissioner “to restore pride in Canada’s National Police Force.” However, the NDP’s proposals “would create significant redundancy in jurisdictions where a civilian investigative body already exists,” Julie Carmichael, director of communications for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, said in a statement provided to CTV News. “Additionally, this would create jurisdictional issues, consume copious resources and be impractical and bureaucratic when dealing with rapidly evolving incidents. The Enhancing RCMP Accountability Act provides for significant independent oversight. It is unfortunate that the NDP opposes these common sense measures.”

45 When asked specifically whether the commissioner needs the new powers in order to quickly dismiss someone in a case of sexual harassment, Gaetan Delisle, president of the Association des membres de la police montee du Quebec, said the current RCMP Act gives the commissioner enough power. What’s needed, Delisle said, is an independent body through which members can file a grievance in order to make that process more transparent. “He has all that power in (the Act), right now, if you look at it closely,” Delisle said, adding that the changes will allow the commissioner to “do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and not be accountable for it.”

RCMP report details 51 cases of disciplinary action Officers reprimanded for incidents of harassment, drunkeness and destruction of documents By Kathleen Harris, CBC News Posted: May 2, 2013 5:46 PM ET RCMP officers have faced disciplinary action for acts of bad behaviour ranging from driving a cruiser drunk, to surfing porn on the office computer, to carelessly firing a gun.

According to the latest annual report on bad behaviour in the RCMP ranks, an Alberta sergeant was also disciplined for deliberately deleting portions of a document that led to a stay of proceedings in a "major criminal case."

In all, there were 51 cases adjudicated in the 2011-2012 period in which Mounties were reprimanded, docked pay or demoted for code of conduct violations under the RCMP Act.

There were only two cases where the officer was forced to resign or be fired. Another 24 cases were resolved by resignations, and 14 were withdrawn, according to the report.

Some of the cases outlined in the report include:

• A staff sergeant posted at RCMP headquarters was reprimanded and lost 10 days' pay for using an RCMP computer to access pornographic websites and using the computer to capture and send explicit images. • A staff sergeant in Alberta was reprimanded, lost 10 days' pay, was demoted to rank of sergeant, recommended for transfer and recommended for continued professional counselling for drinking at work, using RCMP resources for sexual encounters, having sex in a public place, inappropriate comments and touching of a subordinate, inappropriate and unprofessional contact with prospective employees and altering data on a prospective employee’s security clearance form. • A sergeant received a reprimand and lost eight days' pay for having an inappropriate personal relationship with a subordinate and making inappropriate advances toward a subordinate.

46 • A constable was reprimanded and lost eight days' pay for harassment and for possessing a prohibited weapon with a lapsed registration. • A constable was reprimanded and lost 12 days' pay for using an RCMP badge and identification in an intimidating manner, being intoxicated in a public place and being unco-operative and confrontational with other members of the RCMP • A corporal was reprimanded, lost five days' pay and recommended for professional counselling for a criminal offence of assault causing bodily harm. Of the 51 cases, 14 involved drunk driving, drinking while on duty or intoxicated behaviour.

According to the report, stoppage of pay and allowances is an administrative process created to protect the integrity of the RCMP in cases "where the allegations of misconduct are so outrageous that they require a greater response than suspension alone, and is only invoked when it would be inappropriate to pay a member pending the outcome of the disciplinary hearing."

There were also another 210 informal disciplinary cases in the annual period.

The report notes that the incidents of breach of the RCMP's code of conduct are relatively low in number compared to the size of the federal police force and the number of interactions with the public. The members who have received formal discipline has decreased over the last three years, and last year was slightly below the 10-year average of 0.26 per cent.

"While any finding of misconduct is not satisfactory from an organizational and public perspective, in terms of serious acts of misbehaviour requiring formal discipline….as a percentage of the total number of members, the rate of formal discipline is less than half a percent, and for 2011-2012, was .20 percent," the report concludes.

The report also notes that Commissioner Bob Paulson has raised expectations on how the RCMP handles disciplinary action, and has provided extra support and resources to address "a complex area that has challenged the organization for many years."

'Institutional problem' Appearing on CBC News Network's Power & Politics with Evan Solomon, Chris Alexander, the parliamentary secretary to the minister of national defence, called the incidents in the report "disturbing and unacceptable."

"There is an institutional problem in terms of discipline. It was not possible in the RCMP to delegate disciplinary authority to the units that should have been taking rapid action to dock pay and to ensure that RCMP did not return to work for longer periods of time because of their bad behavior," he told host Solomon.

47 Alexander said Bill C-42, which is now in the Senate, will help tighten up disciplinary regime by giving the commissioner new powers and more disciplinary authority to units across the country.

But NDP MP Nikki Ashton slammed C-42 for failing to specifically mention sexual harassment, and said the bill won't fix the problems of "pretty disturbing" wrongdoing in the RCMP ranks.

"It's clearly the case of the punishment not fitting the crime," she said.

Liberal MP Wayne Easter said because the RCMP is the symbol of law enforcement in Canada, officers must uphold the highest standards of behaviour — and be punished harshly when they don't.

"Penalties imposed on wrongdoing have to be seen at least as equivalent to the punishment that's applied to any other member of society, or in some cases probably greater," he said. "So it's really worrisome." THE NEW UPPER CLASS Firefighters, police officers and teachers often earn more these days than engineers and lawyers. Who’s really in the top 10 per cent, and what that means for the country. NANCY MACDONALD Macleans Magazine April 15, 2013

Eddie Francis, the mayor of Windsor, Ont., can count the number of murders his city has seen in recent years on one hand. Windsor recorded a single homicide in 2011, after famously going more than two years without one. But the border city is currently making headlines for another reason, and it’s hardly a source of civic pride. The number of Windsor police and staff who took home six-figure incomes came close to doubling in 2012. In January, an arbitrator awarded the police a hefty 12 per cent pay hike over four years, retroactive to 2011. As a result, 40 per cent of the force took home more than $100,000 last year. Crime may not pay. But in Windsor, fighting it sure does.

Across the river, Detroit’s highest-paid police officer—aside from the chief—took home US$53,000 last year, and probably had a much tougher job. With a violent crime rate five times the national average, Detroit in 2012 retained—for a fourth year running—its dubious title as America’s most dangerous city. Detroit’s chief of police earned $97,697, or less than half the $205,000 pocketed by Windsor chief Albert Frederick (which was about the same as Raymond Kelly earned as the police commissioner of New York City, one of the largest and busiest police forces in the world).

Jason DeJong, president of the Windsor Police Association, sees nothing wrong with a well-paid police department. Wage gains are deserved, he says, because they create parity with the province’s other large police forces. But with crime in

48 steady decline, and police strength and wages going the opposite direction, it could also be that too many officers are policing too little crime in Windsor, and they’re being paid too much to do it.

Windsor’s police aren’t the only city workers earning big money, and the situation in the Ontario city is hardly unique. Civil servants in Europe and the United States have seen their pay slashed and jobs eliminated in recent years, but in Canada, government payrolls continue to grow, far outpacing inflation and their private sector equivalents.

In the past three years alone, the total number of provincially paid public sector workers earning six-figure incomes jumped a staggering 39 per cent in Ontario and 32 per cent in British Columbia—the two provinces that release so-called “sunshine lists” detailing the earnings of the highest-paid public sector workers. That number is inevitably growing as the years go by, and it’s true, of course, that a six-figure income is not the milestone it was 15 years ago. Nevertheless, hefty raises and generous pensions and benefits have public sector workers earning, on average, 12 per cent more than their private sector counterparts nationally, according to new research by the Fraser Institute. Canadians working in the private sector are not seeing their incomes keep pace. By some measures, their wages have fallen 30 per cent. The result is an unprecedented shift among those who earn the most money in Canada, where the average income is $38,000, and a $100,000 income puts you in the richest six per cent of the population.

With an average income of $83,500, schoolteachers in Ontario now earn the same as the average lawyer in that province, according to the treasurer of the Law Society of Upper Canada. Canada’s teachers are the best-paid in the world after only Germany’s. As Ontario’s sunshine list shows, it’s not uncommon for teachers to make more than $100,000 (88 in Hamilton alone in 2012, up from 21 the year before). And while lawyers have to fund their own retirement, teachers in Ontario have one of the country’s richest pension plans. It pays 70 per cent of their top earnings, and some begin claiming it as young as 53.

In B.C. last year, police out-earned engineers, whose 2012 median income was $87,500, according to the Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of B.C. The median income for a police officer in Abbotsford was $107,000. Province-wide, the median income for municipal police officers was roughly $95,000.

In Canada, the good life no longer belongs only to those who graduated from competitive professional programs, or built their own businesses, or came into family money. It now belongs to those who take stable and well-protected government jobs. But, as in Europe, where bloated public sector payrolls have brought down governments, in Canada, too, these trends are coming home to roost.

Francis, the Windsor mayor, is a lawyer whose Lebanese parents opened one of Ontario’s first pita-bread factories after immigrating to the city in the early ’70s. He had a tough time swallowing the police raise, but it’s a looming firefighter raise that’s keeping the three-term mayor “awake at night.” Windsor’s firefighters have been without a contract for eight years, while an arbitrator decides their fate.

49 Francis knows he’ll walk into his office one morning to be dealt a bill for several million in back pay alone. He just doesn’t know how Windsor will pay it.

Other Canadian municipalities are sinking under unmanageable new payroll obligations. Firefighters in cash-strapped Saint John, N.B., recently received a 12 per cent pay hike. Last month, firefighters in tiny Scugog, Ont., were awarded a 27 per cent pay hike, making them better paid than firefighters in Toronto.

Since police, firefighters and paramedics—so-called essential workers—aren’t allowed to strike, the task falls to an arbitrator when municipalities can’t arrive at a new agreement. By now, says Alberta labour expert Bob Barnetson, arbitration has become a reliable political trick, giving politicians an out—“someone to blame for costly pay hikes.” But police and firefighters in Windsor won’t even sit down at the bargaining table anymore, says Francis: their unions know an arbitrator will award a far more generous settlement than council.

Windsor, the epicentre of Ontario’s manufacturing crisis, had presented the arbitrator evidence showing a decline in local property values, high unemployment and poor fiscal health—all of it affecting the city’s ability to shoulder a costly police raise. But “the most important of all the governing criteria,” the arbitrator ruled, was giving local police what cops in Toronto and Ottawa were making. Whether Windsor could actually foot the bill was irrelevant.

This reasoning ensures an unending cycle of wage increases. A few years ago, Saskatoon’s firefighters were given an 18 per cent raise. They got the raise because Regina’s firefighters were making 12 per cent more. On that basis, an arbitrator awarded firefighters in nearby Moose Jaw a 17 per cent raise. By then, firefighters in Regina had become the provincial paupers. So last September, an arbitrator bumped up their pay by 14 per cent.

Firefighters in Leduc, Alta., recently won a 15 per cent wage increase. There, a first-class firefighter with three years’ experience now earns $92,303 per year. Meanwhile, in Ontario, 24 of Owen Sound’s 29 firefighters earned more than $100,000 last year. So did 53 of Belleville, Ont.’s 62 firefighters.

Labour experts such as the University of Western Ontario’s Michael Lynk says municipalities “have choices,” including hiking property taxes to offset growing wage bills. Indeed, Scugog Mayor Chuck Mercier is being forced to raise taxes by two per cent to cover the firefighters’ raise. The town’s median income, meanwhile, is less than half what firefighters now earn. Mercier says he doesn’t have a choice. Services can’t be cut any further. The town was faulted in a recent civil case. Its roads, the court ruled, aren’t up to standard.

For the past three decades, organized labour has actually been in retreat. In Canada’s private sector, the percentage of workers in labour unions has dropped to just 15.9 per cent, from 33 per cent in the ’80s. In the U.S., it’s down to 6.6 per cent. But public sector unions have never been bigger or stronger, particularly in Canada. Union density among Canadian public sector workers has soared to more than 75 per cent, from just 12 per cent in 1960.

50 Their power is rising in step with membership. With 618,000 members and an annual budget topping $169 million, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) has the ability to shut down major Canadian cities. David Miller and Sam Sullivan, the former mayors of Toronto and Vancouver, were both chased from office after being blamed for crippling municipal strikes.

The strength of public sector unions has clearly helped fuel outsized wage gains. In Hamilton in the last decade, wage increases for unionized emergency workers have almost doubled those for non-union city staff, increasing by 38 per cent, versus 21.9 per cent for non-union workers. Incomes in the unionized public sector have grown so quickly, they can no longer be considered “remotely middle-class,” says Wilfrid Laurier economist David Johnson. Consider teachers. By the time an Ontario teacher hits his mid-30s, he is nearing the 90th percentile for wages, says Johnson—roughly $91,000 per year.

Even the most cursory analysis of B.C.’s recently released data on government employees earning more than $75,000 illustrates the growth both in incomes and the size of the government workforce. Four years ago, Abbotsford listed 69 employees (including police and school officials) with incomes topping $100,000. The number has since grown to 306. Some city workers have also seen huge pay hikes in that period. In 2008, Abbotsford’s chief constable, Bob Rich, earned $156,000. Last year, he took home $206,000.

At this point, landing one of these jobs is “like winning a lottery,” says Jason Clemens, executive vice-president of the Fraser Institute. The role of government, he adds, is providing services, not comfortable jobs with high pay. The gap between public and private sector wages may be even higher than the 12 per cent cited by the institute. When pensions are considered, it could be 20 per cent, says Bill Robson, president and CEO of the C.D. Howe Institute. Government workers, he adds, are accumulating “eye-popping wealth” through pension plans alone.

CUPE’s president, Paul Moist, argues those figures are flawed and don’t consider actual wages in similar occupations. Moist says there is only a small gap “largely based on more equitable pay for women working in the public sector.” Other critics note that the real problem is a failure of private sector wages to keep pace.

Still, what’s undeniable is the terrific strain now being put on public finances. From 2000 to 2010, Alberta’s public sector wage bill grew by 119 per cent, according to a recent study by the University of Calgary School of Public Policy. And it accounted for 95 per cent of the increase in provincial revenues. In Ontario, which is more indebted than even California, more than half of government’s costs now go to incomes and benefits.

The view of many labour experts that taxpayers can cover any budget shortfalls is muting the urgency of the problem. Across the country, payroll and pension obligations are set to continue rising at a stunning clip. The unfunded liability of the federal public service pension plan alone is slated to hit $300 billion this budget year.

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Eventually, something will have to give: either it’s the relentless demands of government workers, or the solvency of many Canadian jurisdictions.

Mountie challenges recall from post over affair with co-worker

BY GLEN MCGREGOR, OTTAWA CITIZEN APRIL 30, 2013

OTTAWA — In a case that threatens to expose the RCMP to new sexual harassment allegations, a senior Mountie has gone to court to challenge orders recalling from his post in New York after being sanctioned for having an affair with a female co-worker.

Superintendent Paul Young is actively fighting his repatriation to Ottawa, arguing in court that it is a disproportionately punitive penalty and out of line with other sexual misconduct cases involving RCMP officers.

In a letter to the RCMP filed in court, Young’s lawyer alleges that top officials in the RCMP have had sex with other employees without sanction.

“I could easily name quite a few serving senior officers of the RCMP who have engaged in intimate sexual relationships with co-workers and/or colleagues from other Federal departments and who were never subjected to a Code of Conduct investigation, let alone a suspension,” Ottawa lawyer Louise Morel wrote.

In the letter to Superintendent Barbara Fleury, the director general of international policing, Morel also listed several RCMP members disciplined for sexual misconduct who faced lesser penalties than Young.

Young has taken the unusual step of asking the Federal Court of Canada to intervene and issue an injunction to stop his recall from the consulate in New York, where he works as a liaison with U.S. law enforcement authorities.

The case comes as the force attempts to overcome a series of highly public sexual-harassment allegations by female officers that triggered internal reviews and a public-relations campaign by Commissioner Bob Paulson to repair the RCMP’s image.

Last fall, Young was disciplined for having an affair with a civilian co-worker in Ottawa in 2008 and was suspended from duty.

Young claims in legal documents that, at the time of the affair, he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result several incidents during his deployment as police advisor in Afghanistan in 2008, including a bomb blast outside his Kabul office. The PTSD made reintegration with his family difficult, he

52 claims, and he was estranged from his wife. He says he has an unblemished record over a 31-year career with the force.

The five-month affair, Young says, was entirely consensual and ended on good terms. The woman was also not a subordinate, he says.

None of the allegations Young makes has been proven in court. The RCMP has not yet filed a response to Young’s motion and the force does not typically comment on cases before the courts.

Oral arguments on the motion will be heard in May, Morel said Friday. She declined to comment further on the case.

The woman involved works as a criminal intelligence analyst.

In documents filed to support his case, Young says he was served with his suspension in September 2012, while on training course in London, England, more than three years after the relationship ended. The suspension, his lawyer wrote, was a “deliberate, blatant, vindictive and punitive measure” intended to embarrass and defame him.

“Since when are consensual intimate relationships between two adults conduct that is ‘so reprehensible that the member must be removed from duty’?”

Morel listed a series of other disciplinary decisions against RCMP officers for sexual harassment or misconduct last year:

(Although she names the officers, the Citizen has elected to withhold them because the descriptions of the cases could not be verified).

* In one case in the RCMP’s “K” Division (Alberta), an RCMP member was driving a civilian female and “unbuttoned his shirt and displayed his nipple rings. He then engaged in inappropriate conduct and sexual touching with the female,” according to Morel’s summary of the case. The member also forwarded 12 photos of himself to the woman, including some with full-frontal nudity, Morel wrote, yet he was merely reprimanded and forfeited ten days of pay.

* Also in Alberta, an RCMP member engaged in sexual acts with another member while in uniform and in a marked police vehicle, Morel says. The member was reprimanded and forfeited four days of pay.

* In “E” Division (British Columbia), an RCMP member who was found to have had an intimate sexual relationship with someone who later became “a coded human source” was reprimanded with a forfeiture of seven days of pay, Morel said.

* In “H” Division (Nova Scotia), Morel said a member began a romantic relationship with a witness he was assigned to protect. “The member and protected source had to testify in relation to their intimate sexual touching during

53 the preliminary enquiry of the criminal the protected source was testifying against.”

In a written statement submitted in the disciplinary process in his case, Young admitted to a casual affair with a co-worker who had been a “friendly ear” when he was experiencing family problems after returning from Kabul. They both worked on the Afghanistan desk at RCMP headquarters in Ottawa. The affair was limited to four encounters. He said she didn’t report to him and he had no control over her work. She pursued the relationship “while I was trying to concentrate on repairing a broken 25-year marriage,” he wrote.

But last year, the woman’s complaint against Young triggered a code of conduct investigation. Young was suspended from duty. In March, he says, he was told in writing that he had to return to Canada because of the severity of the allegations and the high profile nature of his position in New York.

It is unclear why the woman filed a complaint if, as Young claims, the relationship ended on good terms.

In an affidavit supporting his motion in Federal Court, Young says he had agreed to a three-year posting in New York and moved his wife and teenaged son there in 2011. Moving them back now, he says, would be disruptive because his wife has a job in New York and his son is finishing his last year of high school.

Harper Government acknowledges the National Day to End Bullying

OTTAWA, May 1, 2013 — The Honourable Vic Toews, Minister of Public Safety, the Honourable Rob Nicholson, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, and the Honourable Rona Ambrose, Minister of Public Works and Government Services and Minister for Status of Women made the following statement on the National Day to End Bullying. In order to increase public awareness of this growing problem, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada, in partnership with CIBC, has declared May 1st as Belonging – National Day to End Bullying.

“Our Government recognizes that bullying is a serious concern for many Canadian families and communities,” said Minister Toews. “Through our Government’s investments in the National Crime Prevention Centre and education and awareness-raising activities, we are taking steps to address the problems of cyberbullying and bullying. On May 1st, I encourage Canadians to get informed and to speak out against bullying, so that together we can protect our young people.”

“We all have a stake in keeping children safe online,” said Minister Nicholson. “We are working with our provincial and territorial partners to review the Criminal Code to ensure that we have the means to protect our children.”

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“Bullying is a very serious issue and we all have a role to play to protect Canada's youth against becoming victims,” says Minister Ambrose. “Our Government will remain vigilant when it comes to protecting Canada's most vulnerable individuals - our children.”

Under the National Crime Prevention Strategy, in the fall of 2012, the Government of Canada committed up to $10 million towards new crime prevention projects, including the prevention of school-based bullying, focused on children and youth.

GetCyberSafe, the Government of Canada’s public awareness campaign on online safety, has information about cyberbullying that includes how to talk to youth about it, and how to respond to this type of incident.

NeedHelpNow.ca is a new resource designed to help youth who have made the mistake of sending sexual images of themselves to peers, which can lead to cyberbullying. The site offers youth tips on removing content, strategies for addressing peers and moving forward, as well as information on possible related Criminal Code violations.

For more information on the “Belonging – National Day to End Bullying” campaign, please visit: www.belonging.ca.

Senator wants RCMP found in contempt May 8, 2013 - 6:52am PAUL MCLEOD OTTAWA BUREAU The Chronicle Herald OTTAWA - Nova Scotia senator James Cowan is trying to find the RCMP in contempt of the Senate for allegedly intimidating an officer out of testifying before Parliament.

Cpl. Roland Beaulieu, a British Columbia Mountie, was invited to appear before a Senate committee Monday to testify about abuse within the RCMP ranks. Beaulieu is on stress leave and says he was harassed by his supervisors.

Beaulieu says the RCMP told him if he was well enough to travel to Ottawa to appear before the Senate, then he was well enough to work and his sick leave would be cancelled.

Beaulieu then bowed out of his Monday appearance. Cowan, leader of the Liberal caucus in the Senate, says the rights of the upper house of Parliament have been breached.

“Parliament and parliamentary committees are like courts of law. You can’t intimidate witnesses or prevent them from testifying in a court of law any more than you can in the Senate,” Cowan said in an interview Tuesday.

55 Cowan claimed a point of privilege against the RCMP on Tuesday evening. Speaker Noel Kinsella is expected to rule Wednesday.

If Kinsella agrees there is a prima facie case that the Senate’s privileges have been breached, the issue will be sent to the Senate’s committee on Privileges, Standing Rules and Orders. The committee could ultimately find the RCMP in contempt of Parliament.

“I think any reasonable person in his position, certainly someone who was off on sick leave, would treat it as intimidation,” Cowan said. “This policy isn’t a long- standing policy. It’s a policy that they brought in last Friday.”

Earlier Tuesday in the House of Commons, the NDP accused Public Safety Minister Vic Toews of muzzling Beaulieu.

Toews responded that the officer was “making this up” and there was nothing blocking him from testifying before the Senate.

Beaulieu was supposed to appear before a committee studying Bill C-42, which would give senior RCMP officials new power to discipline members.

The government bill has already passed through the House of Commons and needs only to be passed by the Senate to receive royal assent and become law.

The committee has already sent the bill back to the Senate for third and final reading.

Cross-border smuggling epidemic exposes Canada, U.S. to security threats, new MLI study warns

Perpetuating the status quo is both irresponsible and dangerous; it would effectively surrender control of a wide swath of the Canada-U.S. border to organized crime factions that control the contraband trade in tobacco. MEDIA RELEASE OTTAWA, March 27, 2013 – Far from a victimless crime or a local police problem, cross-border smuggling is an epidemic that renders both Canada and the United States vulnerable to external security threats, a study released by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) warned today. Smugglers threaten the safety and integrity of local populations, as well as the viability of future Canada-U.S. economic and security co-operation along the border, the study’s authors warn. The Ottawa-Montreal corridor bordering the states of New York and Vermont is one of the worst regions for cross-border contraband and human smuggling on the Canada-U.S. border. Although the contraband trade is active in many border

56 regions, including in the Pacific Northwest and along the East Coast, it is endemic in the Cornwall, Ontario, region between Montreal and Kingston and upstate New York. The unique geographic and legal characteristics of this corridor create the conditions in which the illegal movement of narcotics, weapons, humans, tobacco and counterfeit goods can thrive. The study’s authors found that policing on both sides of the border appears to have reduced the flow of non-tobacco contraband for the moment, but it is by no means eliminated. As for the tobacco trade, it continues unabated. Turning a blind eye is no longer an option, they said. Perpetuating the status quo would be both irresponsible and dangerous. At worst it could effectively abdicate control of a wide swath of the Canada-U.S. border to the organized crime factions that control the contraband trade. Because the smuggling is controlled by organized crime, there is no guarantee that it will not expand again in the future, or that it will not expand into more damaging activities. This leaves both Canadian and American citizens vulnerable to security threats and diminishes the integrity of our shared border. “Since much of the illicit trade takes place around and across the border between Canada and the United States, it potentially threatens Canada’s relations with the U.S. by raising U.S. insecurities about its northern border,” said Carleton University professor Jean Daudelin, whose team included post-graduate students Stephanie Soiffer and Jeff Willows. “U.S. measures taken to stem contraband could impair the free flow of merchandise and people between the two countries, creating a direct cost to Canada’s economy.” Prof. Daudelin said the smuggling pipeline in the Cornwall region while chiefly devoted to tobacco, is already used to transport other forms of contraband and these activities could all too easily be expanded. “The smuggling infrastructure established to sustain the tobacco trade is used for other ‘goods’ and the amount of money involved has developed into a major law enforcement and security conundrum,” he said. “The profits generated by the various smuggling activities constitute a large amount of money whose use escapes all control. They can be used to seed other criminal activities or finance terrorist organizations.” The extent of smuggling activity at the border is not really known. Government estimates suggest that $2.5 billion is lost every year in Canada in tax revenue from contraband cigarettes. Most of this revenue (between $1 billion and $1.5 billion) is lost in Ontario and Quebec. In 2009, more than 2 million units of ecstasy and nearly 80,000 pounds of marijuana and were seized in this region. Illicit weapons are regularly seized at the Cornwall border. Despite the magnitude of the problem in economic terms, it is still framed in Canada as a local crime issue. However, implicated in this trade are groups involved in international organized crime and terrorist activities. Criminal organizations are exploiting traditional First Nations legal and territorial rights in this region. In the Cornwall area, the boundaries of seven jurisdictions (two countries, two Aboriginal groups, two provinces and one state) come together. This makes it an ideal route for high-value illicit trade that is extremely difficult to monitor and control.

57 For most of the region, the Seaway is the dividing line between Canada and the United States and the Aboriginal lands of Mohawk Council of the Akwesasne (Canada) and the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe (United States). The study said federal authorities on both sides of the border appear to tolerate the illicit tobacco trade in favour of containing the broader criminal and security dangers that smuggling and its repression represent. On that count, current efforts have been successful. “Tensions with the Mohawk community have been rare, confrontations largely avoided, and a fluid and effective relationship with the Mohawk police on everything but tobacco on reserve has been built,” Prof. Daudelin said. The study said a solution is possible, but will require a co-ordinated, comprehensive approach at the federal, state, provincial, municipal and First Nations level. Any roadmap for change must take into account the framework for tobacco control and taxation, the relationship between Aboriginal and non- Aboriginal communities and the security and commercial relationship between Canada and the United States. The goal would be to reduce the incentives for illegal trade, increase the effectiveness of seizure and prosecution efforts, and help generate viable and legitimate economic options for the Mohawk community. The study was based on data from U.S. and Canadian government sources, academic research and media reports. Data also came from a comprehensive analysis of seizures by the Canadian Border Services Agency in the 401 corridor over the past five years, and a review of Canadian judicial cases referencing illicit tobacco, trans-border crime, drugs, weapons or human smuggling. The authors also conducted several interviews with consumers and buyers of illicit products and with current and former Canadian law enforcement officers, whose identities remain confidential. Jean Daudelin is associate professor at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (NPSIA).

Editorial: The gatekeeping we don’t need The Globe and Mail Published Wednesday, May. 01 2013, 5:13 PM EDT

A directive from RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson that meetings between senior RCMP officers and parliamentarians be first cleared with his office is not on the face of it an unreasonable restriction, in that it insulates the Mounties from political machinations and reinforces the chain of command.

Unfortunately, because the approvals must go through a liaison office shared with the Minister of Public Safety, Vic Toews too has a say. CBC television news obtained an e-mail that cancelled a planned lunch between a senior Mountie and a parliamentarian, explaining that such meetings “have to first be approved by the Minister’s office.”

When asked about the requirement to notify his office, Mr. Toews responded, “I’m responsible for the RCMP. I need to know exactly what the RCMP is doing and saying because if I go into the House of Commons and I have no idea what

58 is being said, I’m at a distinct situation where it appears that I’m not carrying out my responsibilities to the House of Commons.”

In the directive, the Commissioner explained that meetings between senior officers and senators or MPs “can have unintended and/or negative consequences for the organization and the government.” His responsibility to protect the RCMP from negative consequences is obvious, his duty to the government in that regard is less so. As their motto states, the RCMP are responsible for defending the law. It says nothing about defending the Minister.

Try to imagine a similar scenario involving a major municipal police force, such as in Toronto. Imagine if Mayor Rob Ford had the power to approve all meetings between senior Toronto police officers and councillors, and used it to prevent meetings with some of his political opponents. There would be justified concerns about politicization of the police.

The involvement of Mr. Toews presents the directive in an entirely different light. The Minister may have political responsibility for the RCMP at the policy level and, yes, there are times when he is held accountable for the RCMP in the House of Commons, but he has no place acting as a gatekeeper for the national police force. Commissioner Paulson needs to clarify his directive to make that explicit.

Are private security firms the answer to rising police costs?

BY DOUGLAS QUAN, POSTMEDIA NEWS MAY 7, 2013

As police agencies across Canada look for ways to control spiraling costs, could farming out certain work to private security firms be part of the solution?

Executives from national security company Canadian Corps of Commissionaires told a parliamentary committee Tuesday that many “less-demanding” duties currently performed by sworn officers — crime scene security, offender transportation, front desk management — could easily be performed by private guards, freeing up officers to tackle more important tasks.

“We certainly can help ease the work burden — never mind the financial burden — that police agencies are under,” Paul Guindon, CEO of Commissionaires Ottawa, told the House of Commons public safety committee.

But Tom Stamatakis, president of the Canadian Police Association, said in an interview that while police agencies recognize they need to find ways to be more efficient, “I’m not sure the solution is simply to hand (certain duties) over to private interests that are focused on the bottom line.”

59 The debate over expanding the role of private security guards is certain to heat up as public safety officials across the country grapple with how to rein in police spending while keeping communities safe.

At an “economics of policing” summit earlier this year hosted by the federal government, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews told delegates that spending on policing in this country has soared past $12 billion annually, even though the volume and severity of crime has declined over the past decade.

Julie Carmichael, Toews’ spokeswoman, said Tuesday while the government believes “core” police functions should remain the domain of Crown employees, it is open to making better use of civilian staff and partnering with community organizations and the private sector.

Guindon said Tuesday that he sees no reason why, at the scene of crime, there sometimes needs to be officers manning the yellow police tape.

The officers would much rather be doing something else, and they’re getting paid “premium dollars” to be there, he said.

“This fits perfectly with private security. That’s what we do, that’s one of our core expertise,” Guindon said.

Guindon said his company has identified several dozen “non-core” policing duties that private guards could take over, including evidence custody, photo radar operation, non-criminal fingerprinting, traffic control, and prisoner monitoring and transportation.

According to background materials provided by Commissionaires staff, the Halifax Regional Police employs about 38 Commissionaires full-time to do criminal record checks, transcribe and enter offender information into a police database, and perform fingerprint services.

In several municipalities, Commissionaires are working as parking or bylaw enforcement officers.

Stamatakis acknowledged that there are certain lower-level tasks that fully- trained officers could probably pass off to lesser-trained officers or civilian employees within a police agency.

But he expressed concerns about handing off those duties to outsiders who have limited training, who may not have a history with the agency and who are often transient.

Stamatakis suggested private security representatives were “misleading” MPs Tuesday in their characterization of “non-core” policing duties.

Officers securing a crime scene aren’t just guarding the yellow tape, they’re protecting the investigators who are working within the crime scene’s boundaries, he said.

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Those who work the front desks similarly carry heavy responsibilities since they are often the first point of contact for a member of the public who wants to lodge a complaint or provide information about a crime.

Stamatakis also said there is currently no universal oversight of private security companies, and regulations over training and licensing vary from province to province.

Guindon acknowledged Tuesday in his testimony that oversight of the private security industry is “not as comprehensive as I’d like,” but he said there have been a number of improvements, and those changes have produced better guards.

“We have changed, we have evolved,” he said.

Guindon noted that his company currently employs about 8,000 military and RCMP veterans whose skills are a “strong fit” with the needs of police agencies, though he stressed that they’re not looking to replace frontline officers.

“Another barrier, I’ll be very honest with you, is certainly police associations who will see us as a threat because instead of thinking of us being a complement to the police service agencies, they see us as taking jobs away from them. This is not the intention at all of private security,” Guindon said.

“We’re not police officers. We will never be police officers.”

Michael Kempa: The RCMP still struggles to break its old bad habits

Michael Kempa, Special to National Post | 13/04/30 9:54 AM ET Meetings between RCMP officers and members of parliament will now have to be cleared by Commissioner Bob Paulson and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews. This might be the product of good intentions, but it’s the wrong way forward.

The RCMP has always struggled to avoid undue political interference in its affairs. And the organization has suffered for it. Constantly at the centre of controversy, public confidence in the Mounties has taken hit after hit over the last few years.

The problem always seems to come back to the question of too much political control over how the RCMP does its business. For example, when we are talking about the role of the RCMP in directing security for economic summits — APEC in Vancouver in 1997 or the G20 in Toronto in 2010 — it is hard to disspell the notion that the RCMP serves the government, not the public. Either because government has cowed the RCMP, or out of institutional complicity.

The nerve centres of the nation’s federal agencies are located in Canada’s close- knit capital — people tend to know one another around the Hill. They meet for

61 coffees and meals, to discuss the strategic priorities of their organizations, trends and developments in budgetary constraints and management styles, and how they might forge useful partnerships with one another to achieve objectives in the interests of the Canadian public.

None of this is improper. But the line separating the useful discussion of policy priorities and directions from meddling in the operational and investigative affairs of the police is a fine one. And in the context of growing problems with the RCMP’s public image, it is likely the Commissioner Paulson and Minister Toews are seeking to clear the air.

It makes sense that someone would review the reasons for politicians and police breaking bread, to make sure that no politician is applying pressure, official or otherwise, on the force.

But, putting this power in the hands of the Commissioner and the Minister — funnelled through the body of liaison offices under both of their direct control – is yet another makeshift solution to paper over the decades-old problem of balancing police openness with independence that is inadequate to the task.

The Opposition parties have already called this initiative a power-grab, where the government of the day — and especially its cabinet — will be able to control access to Canada’s largest police service and security agency. Indignation from the backbenches was in abundant supply in parliament, with members condemning a “control-freak” government for seeking to spin security messages.

If guilty of such underhandedness, the Conservatives would not be exceptional. Governments going back to the first Trudeau Liberals have all ignored the recommendations of commissions of inquiry for empowering a form of arms- length civilian-oversight body to temper the authority of the Commissioner and Ministers over the RCMP. Whether styled as an independent civilian review board or a board of directors, the idea for a powerful third party has been the same and consistently ignored.

The public is left to ask why.

It’s a safe assumption that most Canadian politicians are not seeking to directly control the RCMP’s daily operations. The problem runs deeper than this, and relates to the historical legacy of the RCMP. The very birth of the organization was tied to an explicitly political project. The Northwestern Mounted Police — predecessor organization to the RCMP — was sent out West for the political purpose of “civilizing” Western populations and bringing those territories into the fold of Confederation.

The legacy of that historical purpose — moralizing populations for hard work and docile citizenship — echoes in the structure of the RCMP today. When push comes to shove, politicians have proven extraordinarily reluctant to release their privileged position in influencing the decision-making process of the RCMP. Many RCMP commissioners have failed to push back with adequate force.

62 This is a problem of institutional habit — grounded in the past — which ought to be broken.

A proper arms-length board of governors would likely be Commission Paulson’s best bet to help him reclaim the public esteem and morale of his organization.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

A Senator’s Search for an Ally Keeps a Gun Bill Alive

. By JENNIFER STEINHAUER The New York Times Published: April 10, 2013 WASHINGTON — Senator Joe Manchin III so craved a pro-gun-rights Republican as a partner for a bill to expand background checks on gun buyers that he took to buttonholing senators on the in-house subway that ferries them from their offices to the Capitol, making his pitch while his colleagues were trapped with him in the tiny car. TimesCast

Repeatedly rebuffed, Mr. Manchin, a conservative West Virginia Democrat, decided to call on his friend Senator Patrick J. Toomey, the Pennsylvania Republican known almost exclusively for his conservative fiscal positions. On a recent Amtrak trip from New York to Washington where they happened to intersect, Mr. Toomey agreed to listen.

On Wednesday the two gun owners, long favorites of the National Rifle Association, came together in a last-ditch effort on a background check compromise that opened the door to a rare Congressional consideration of gun law changes, beginning Thursday. While their agreement ensures only that the measure will reach the Senate floor for debate, it rescued gun law changes sought byPresident Obama and gun control groups from an early defeat.

Lawmakers who represent neighboring states, allies on energy issues and temperamentally aligned, Mr. Manchin and Mr. Toomey announced they had gingerly put together a bipartisan deal that would expand background checks to cover unlicensed dealers at gun shows as well as all online sales.

It would also maintain record-keeping provisions that law enforcement officials find essential in tracking guns used in crimes, but that some Republicans had balked at. Unlike the initial Democratic plan, it does not cover sales between family members and neighbors.

63 For Mr. Toomey, a Republican toiling in a swing state chock-full of suburban women who often favor gun safety legislation, a relatively modest measure to expand background checks seemed both politically viable and in need of a Republican imprimatur. Gun legislation was “not something I sought,” he said.

“I’ve got to tell you, candidly, I don’t consider criminal background checks gun control,” said Mr. Toomey, who led the conservative advocacy group Club for Growth after a stint in the House.

He acknowledged that it was hard to take heat from fellow conservatives over his reach across the aisle.

“There have been people who’ve called the office expressing disappointment,” he said in an interview. But some have expressed support, too, he said.

For Mr. Manchin, whose signature campaign ad in 2010 featured him shooting environmental legislation with a hunting rifle, Mr. Toomey represented his best hope of a credible Republican ally who may be able to bring along fellow conservatives to the bill.

“I wanted to make sure whoever I was with came from a gun culture such as mine,” Mr. Manchin, who opposes most gun control legislation but wants to close background check loopholes, said in an interview. “I just appreciate Pat so much for being able to get there.” Mr. Manchin, who wept during a meeting with family members of victims of the Newtown shooting, has been lauded by gun control advocates for his help.

The politics of the deal are so fragile that Mr. Toomey asked that one of the Democratic co-sponsors of the amendment, SenatorCharles E. Schumerof New York, not appear at a news conference Wednesday morning, Senate aides said. Mr. Schumer agreed, and told Mr. Manchin at the 50th-birthday party of the television hostJoe Scarboroughthat he would not be attending.

The details took so much fine tuning that on Tuesday, as the two senators negotiated, “around 4:00 I was concerned we couldn’t do it,” Mr. Manchin said.

“We took a half-hour break,” he said, and managed to put it over the line late Tuesday night.

The gun bill will receive its first procedural vote in the Senate on Thursday. The House leadership sounded cool on the measure but for now the fight is in the Senate.

The bill also enhances some gun rights. For instance, it would allow gun owners who have undergone background checks within the past five years for a concealed-carry permit to use the permit to buy guns in other states, and it would relax some of the restrictions on hunters traveling with their guns through states that do not permit them. It would also allow active members of the military to buy firearms in their home states, currently prohibited when they are stationed outside their state.

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The compromise, which two weeks ago seemed elusive, is intended to pull in as many members from both parties as possible, including Democrats running for re-election in Republican-leaning states.

“There was the danger that we might not accomplish anything,” Mr. Toomey said, adding that he and Mr. Manchin have consulted with the National Rifle Association. The group released a statement painting it as a defeat for the White House and MayorMichael R. Bloombergof New York but also saying the proposal was ultimately ineffective.

“While the overwhelming rejection of President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg’s ‘universal’ background check agenda is a positive development,” the group said, “we have a broken mental health system that is not going to be fixed with more background checks at gun shows. The sad truth is that no background check would have prevented the tragedy in Newtown, Aurora or Tucson.”

The compromise was met with cautious optimism by Mr. Obama, who has made new gun regulations a centerpiece of his second term, and gun control advocates."This is not my bill,” Mr. Obama said in a statement, “and there are aspects of the agreement that I might prefer to be stronger.”

The president said the Senate proposal “does represent welcome and significant bipartisan progress” and recognizes that some in both parties agree “we’ve got to do something to stem the tide of gun violence.”

Michelle Obamastepped into the gun debate on Wednesday as well, speaking before hundreds of business leaders in Chicago, her hometown. “Right now my husband is fighting as hard as he can and engaging as many people as he can to pass common-sense reforms to protect our children from gun violence,” Mrs. Obama said. “And these reforms deserve a vote in Congress.”

Many issues remain unresolved in the Senate proposal, chiefly how such new regulations would be enforced, and how law enforcement officials would be able to easily tell the provenance of some guns. But the measure would close many of the loopholes in gun laws.

On Wednesday families of the Newtown shooting victims continued to meet with senators to encourage them to support the bill, and Senator Christopher S. Murphy, a freshman Democrat from Connecticut, chose to focus his first speech on the Senate floor on gun violence, bringing large photographs of some of the 20 children killed in the massacre to the floor.

Mr. Toomey, who said he had long supported background checks, described Mr. Manchin as a great partner. “It’s going to be intense for the next few days,” he said.

65 Mexico's vigilante law enforcers By Linda Pressly BBC News, Ayutla 16 April 2013 Last updated at 20:12

Insecurity dominates the lives of millions of Mexicans. Caught between the murderous drug cartels and absent or corrupt law enforcement, communities are taking the law into their own hands. In the state of Guerrero, a fledgling vigilante force has grown into an organisation numbering thousands.

In the market town of Ayutla on a sweltering afternoon, two rusty old saloon cars pull up outside a furniture store on a street corner. Men with their rifles pointing skyward tumble out of the vehicles.

But one of them has no gun. Nor does he have any shoes. He is being detained, and is brought in roughly by the men with weapons - all volunteer members of Ayutla's self-defence force.

This street corner is the group's makeshift, unofficial headquarters. There are a few old chairs, a table, a barrel and some sandbags. Behind them, wardrobes embossed with Disney princesses jostle with chests of drawers. The young man with no shoes has his hands tied behind his back with nylon rope, and is told to sit down.

"We're not going to mistreat him, or be aggressive with him", explains Leonides Ramos Ortiz, a member of the self-defence force. "We're going to take care of him until the investigation begins."

Since they became a force to be reckoned with earlier this year, this is just one of dozens of arrests made by untrained, armed civilians from Ayutla and its surrounding pueblos. But they have no legal authority, and they should not be carrying their guns in the street.

This does not seem to be of concern to the steady stream of locals who come to the HQ to report crime. Dona Juana, a frail elderly woman, is having problems with a neighbour. He is trying to steal her land.

"He says he's going to tie my husband up and drag him behind a horse, he's going to kill me, and kidnap my daughter", she says.

Dona Juana has been to the police, the local council and the public affairs ministry, and nothing has been done.

Her friend, Carmela, believes Dona Juana's only hope is the "community police" as she calls the self-defence force.

66 "The regular police and the military are all being used by organised criminal groups to carry out their activities. They're not stopping crime. Now we have our own community police, everything is much quieter. In the last couple of months organised crime has begun to disappear."

Guerrero is what is called a hot state. It has some of the most violently disputed territory in Mexico, and produces more than half the country's heroin.

Drug cartels grow opium poppies and marijuana in the highlands of the Sierra Madre, and move cocaine towards the United States along the state's mountain passes. Acapulco on the Pacific coast is the Mexican city with the highest homicide rate.

And murder is a regular occurrence in Ayutla. On the outskirts of the town, down a rough track, a cavalcade of armoured military vehicles and police pick-up trucks have come to a stop next to a small farm.

Around the perimeter of the property, members of the self-defence force have taken up positions at five-metre intervals. Yellow police tape cordons off one area.

"They found the remains of a body here, in an unmarked grave. It looks like it's a drug-related crime", says Gonzalo Torres, a large middle-aged man in a checked shirt, and one of the vigilantes.

"Local people told us about the body, and we gave that information to the police." This is a role the self-defence force would like to play - important intermediaries between the community and Mexican authorities that are often regarded with suspicion by locals.

The next day another three bodies are found close by. One of them was buried crouching, a young man with his legs tucked under his chin.

Kidnap, too, is a common crime in Ayutla, a profitable sideline for the drug cartels and organised crime. Everyone knows someone who has been taken.

In January, when the third of their commanders in as many months was bundled into a vehicle by an armed gang, hundreds of men, and some women, joined the self-defence force. They swooped and detained more than 50 people they claimed were guilty of serious crime.

Comandante Ernesto Gallardo Grande denies allegations of torture Eleuterio Maximino Flora was the first vigilante commander to be abducted. He did not think he would get away alive.

"They said they were going to kill me. They kicked me, and used torture. They nearly drowned me."

He says he did not know the men who held him. But he does know why he was taken.

67

"We had detained some criminals. So the gang kidnapped me to use as a bargaining chip to get their people released. I was freed after Comandante Ernesto Gallardo Grande told them if they executed me he was going to kill 10 members of one of their families."

But in this scary scenario, who were the bad guys? It is an illustration of what can happen when organised crime, an armed population and a power vacuum conspire to create an altogether toxic mix.

And there are allegations of torture against the self-defence force too. Rafael Mendoza Ventura is a lawyer representing some of those who were detained by the vigilantes in January, and who are now in the custody of the state while they are being investigated.

"While they were held by the self-defence force, electric shocks were applied to genitals, there were beatings, plastic bags put over detainees' heads - the same kind of practices the police use to extract confessions."

Ayutla's self-defence group found this man guilty of violence against his wife Comandante Ernesto Gallardo Grande denies these allegations.

Citizens' self-defence groups are now operating in 13 Mexican states. According to one newspaper, Reforma, they are present in more than 60 municipalities. But there are wider concerns about the growth of the vigilante movement in Mexico.

Luz Paula Parra is a security expert at CIDE, Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas in Mexico City, and believes the state must take action to stop it.

"In Ayutla, it's very dangerous, a very short-term gain to allow these groups because they will be Frankensteins. Little by little they will gain power and resources, and then it won't be easy to stop them."

She points to examples elsewhere in Latin America, like Colombia, where self- defence groups morphed into paramilitary killing machines during the civil war.

And what of the shoeless young man detained in Ayutla, tied up and investigated? Even though the self-defence force found him guilty of violence against his wife, he was not handed over to the police.

Instead he was put to work sweeping streets and painting houses - part of a system of punishment and rehabilitation with its roots in indigenous culture, passed down from Mexico's original inhabitants.

At the end of last month, in their largest show of force so far, more than 1,500 of Ayutla's self-defence volunteers surrounded the community of Tierra Colorada. They demanded the police arrest several officials after one of their volunteers was murdered.

68 This is a movement that is growing in confidence. The risk is that it becomes yet another unaccountable, organised, armed group - one that threatens rather than enhances the security of the citizens of Ayutla.

SB 747: Portland police arbitration on the line By Ken Boddie Updated: Wednesday, April 10, 2013, 9:47 pm Published: Wednesday, April 10, 2013, 9:29 pm

A Senate committee in Salem, Ore., hears arguments for SB 747, a bill that could keep officers fired for excessive force from coming back through arbitration. (KOIN 6 News) SALEM, Ore. (KOIN) — A Portland lawyer wants to get rid of the arbitration process that allows officers to be reinstated. And he’s taking his case to the Oregon state capital in Salem.

“Until the police know they face actual consequences when they beat people, nothing is going to change,” said Portland attorney Greg Kafoury.

He presented video Wednesday to senators, as an example of police out of control as he testified for Senate Bill 747. Included in the video was the story of Jason Cox, a DUII suspect now filing suit against the City of Portland for injuries sustained during that 2011 arrest.

Senate Bill 747, if passed into law, would take away a police officer’s right to arbitration if the police force determines an officer should be fired after findings of excessive force.

For example, in the 2010 shooting death of Portlander Aaron Campbell an officer was fired — but an arbitrator later reinstated him.

Portland’s police union and other law enforcement organizations oppose the senate bill. They said the bill would take away the rights of officers.

“When we are accused of making mistakes, arbitration is a fair and keep part of due process,” the union representative said.

The bill would only apply to the Portland Police Bureau, since it is restricted to cities with more than 300,000 people. Arbitration is written into the police-union contract, a contract that is being negotiated right now.

This bill is sponsored by Sen. Chip Shields (D-Portland), at the request of Kafoury.

Senate Bill 747 has yet to move out of committee. The first hearing was Wednesday in front of the Oregon Senate committee on General Government, Consumer and Small Business Protection.

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St. Paul police to add interpreters for deaf Article by: Nicole Norfleet Star Tribune May 7, 2013 - 9:47 PM

St. Paul police are planning to change the way they communicate with hearing- impaired people as part of an expected settlement between the city and a deaf man who alleges he was mistreated after asking for police to communicate with him in writing during a traffic stop.

Deaf activist Douglas Bahl and his attorney are expected to be awarded $93,450, most of which will go to legal fees, after the St. Paul City Council approves the settlement in a Wednesday meeting. In addition to the money, the agreement stipulates that St. Paul police will provide qualified sign language interpreters and train its staff on the communication needs of those who are deaf or hard-of- hearing.

On Nov. 17, 2006, Bahl was stopped for running a red light. Bahl claims he told the officer he was deaf and asked to communicate in writing. Instead, he said, a scuffle ensued in which he was sprayed with chemical irritant and pulled from his vehicle.

Bahl later was transported to Regions Hospital for treatment of cuts and bruises before being taken to jail, where he said he was detained for three days without a sign-language interpreter to help him communicate.

Bahl ultimately was convicted of a misdemeanor in connection with the incident. Bahl, a member at-large and former president of the Minnesota Association of Deaf Citizens, sued the city of St. Paul, Ramsey County and the Sheriff's Office alleging that he had not been provided auxiliary aids necessary to communicate effectively during the traffic stop and following his arrest.

Ramsey County reached a $230,000 settlement with Douglas Bahl, his wife and attorneys in 2011 that required the county to provide all deaf and hearing- impaired inmates a sign-language interpreter or other appropriate communication aids within an hour of being taken into custody.

In the city's settlement agreement, the city denies Bahl's allegations and liability for damages.

The settlement agreement states that the Police Department will provide qualified sign language interpreters or other auxiliary aids without charge to make sure those who are arrested or detained and are hard-of-hearing can communicate effectively.

70 "The City will not fail or refuse to provide any service or program because a person makes a request for an ASL interpreter or other auxiliary aids or services," according to the agreement.

Within 30 days of the effective date of the agreement, the police will designate a deaf and hard-of-hearing coordinator.

By the end of the year, the St. Paul police will also complete departmentwide training to address the special communication needs of deaf or hard-of-hearing people. The training will include best practices for communicating with hard-of- hearing individuals in "on the street" encounters when interpreters are not available as well as how to use equipment to facilitate communication, such as a videophones. The training will be part of the initial orientation of all department staff.

"We are already in the process of reviewing those policies," said St. Paul police spokesman Howie Padilla.

Currently, the Police Department's policy is that if somebody is hearing-impaired and the arresting officer is able to communicate in writing, then no interpreter is needed.

Earlier this year, St. Paul reached a $30,000 settlement in a police brutality lawsuit in which a man alleged that officers used unnecessary force when they came to his home with an arrest warrant on allegations he had violated his probation in 2011.

Council agrees to pension bump for retired cops

May 7, 2013 4:33 PM The Shreveport Times

Written by Adam Duvernay

Last week, Bossier City Marshal Lynn Austin, president of the Bossier City Police Pension and Relief Fund, petitioned the Council for the two percent increase. The pension system was closed in 1977, and now only 29 former officers and 10 widows draw from it while all officers hired after 1977 draw from a state-run system.

The cost of the increase would be about $34,000 for the first year, compounded until 2017 when the pension system is fully paid, Austin said. In 2017, part of the funding dedicated to paying that retirement plan will become city revenue.

71 “The 29 retirees and 10 widows are thankful to the Council for being fair in distributing our half-cent sales tax to bring parity with the fire department,” Austin said.

The Bossier City Police Pension and Relief Fund is partially funded, along with the corresponding fire department pension system which also was closed after a switch to the state system, by a half-cent sales tax dedicated to police and fire retirement. At some point in recent years, an oversight saw cost-of-living raises dropped for the retired police officers, but not for the firefighters.

Before the actual vote, City Council members expressed a willingness to grant the increase if the money made sense as Austin presented it. The half-cent sales tax means the increase will not come from the city’s general fund.

“ ... until those two pension obligations are completely funded, that sales tax is dedicated strictly for that use,” said Bossier City Finance Director Joe Buffington.

Buffington said current projections by the actuaries have those pensions fully funded in 2017. Afterward, the half-cent sales tax can be used to fund other city concerns.

The firefighter pension program, which maintains 88 firefighters and their widows, was designed to give retirees 50 percent of their final on-duty salaries and a flat two percent raise every year, Warner said. Police in the old system receive about 67 percent of their final salary, but only receive raises when officers of the rank they retired with receive a pay raise.

U.S. Is Weighing Wide Overhaul of Wiretap Laws By CHARLIE SAVAGE The New York Times Published: May 7, 2013

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, resolving years of internal debate, is on the verge of backing a Federal Bureau of Investigation plan for a sweeping overhaul of surveillance laws that would make it easier to wiretap people who communicate using the Internet rather than by traditional phone services, according to officials familiar with the deliberations.

The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, has argued that the bureau’s ability to carry out court-approved eavesdropping on suspects is “going dark” as communications technology evolves, and since 2010 has pushed for a legal mandate requiring companies like Facebook and Google to build into their instant-messaging and other such systems a capacity to comply with wiretap orders. That proposal, however, bogged down amid concerns by other agencies, like the Commerce Department, about quashing Silicon Valley innovation.

72 While the F.B.I.’s original proposal would have required Internet communications services to each build in a wiretapping capacity, the revised one, which must now be reviewed by the White House, focuses on fining companies that do not comply with wiretap orders. The difference, officials say, means that start-ups with a small number of users would have fewer worries about wiretapping issues unless the companies became popular enough to come to the Justice Department’s attention.

Still, the plan is likely to set off a debate over the future of the Internet if the White House submits it to Congress, according to lawyers for technology companies and advocates of Internet privacy and freedom.

“I think the F.B.I.’s proposal would render Internet communications less secure and more vulnerable to hackers and identity thieves,” said Gregory T. Nojeim of the Center for Democracy and Technology. “It would also mean that innovators who want to avoid new and expensive mandates will take their innovations abroad and develop them there, where there aren’t the same mandates.”

Andrew Weissmann, the general counsel of the F.B.I., said in a statement that the proposal was aimed only at preserving law enforcement officials’ longstanding ability to investigate suspected criminals, spies and terrorists subject to a court’s permission.

“This doesn’t create any new legal surveillance authority,” he said. “This always requires a court order. None of the ‘going dark’ solutions would do anything except update the law given means of modern communications.”

A central element of the F.B.I.’s 2010 proposal was to expand the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act — a 1994 law that already requires phone and network carriers to build interception capabilities into their systems — so that it would also cover Internet-based services that allow people to converse. But the bureau has now largely moved away from that one-size-fits- all mandate.

Instead, the new proposal focuses on strengthening wiretap orders issued by judges. Currently, such orders instruct recipients to provide technical assistance to law enforcement agencies, leaving wiggle room for companies to say they tried but could not make the technology work. Under the new proposal, providers could be ordered to comply, and judges could impose fines if they did not. The shift in thinking toward the judicial fines was first reported by The Washington Post, and additional details were described to The New York Times by several officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Under the proposal, officials said, for a company to be eligible for the strictest deadlines and fines — starting at $25,000 a day — it must first have been put on notice that it needed surveillance capabilities, triggering a 30-day period to consult with the government on any technical problems.

73 Such notice could be the receipt of its first wiretap order or a warning from the attorney general that it might receive a surveillance request in the future, officials said, arguing that most small start-ups would never receive either.

Michael Sussmann, a former Justice Department lawyer who advises communications providers, said that aspect of the plan appeared to be modeled on a British law, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000.

Foreign-based communications services that do business in the United States would be subject to the same procedures, and would be required to have a point of contact on domestic soil who could be served with a wiretap order, officials said.

Albert Gidari Jr., who represents technology companies on law enforcement matters, criticized that proposed procedure. He argued that if the United States started imposing fines on foreign Internet firms, it would encourage other countries, some of which may be looking for political dissidents, to penalize American companies if they refused to turn over users’ information.

“We’ll look a lot more like China than America after this,” Mr. Gidari said.

The expanded fines would also apply to phone and network carriers, like Verizon and AT&T, which are separately subject to the 1994 wiretapping capacity law. The FBI has argued that such companies sometimes roll out system upgrades without making sure that their wiretap capabilities will keep working.

The 1994 law would be expanded to cover peer-to-peer voice-over-Internet protocol, or VoIP — calls between computers that do not connect to the regular phone network. Such services typically do not route data packets through any central hub, making them difficult to intercept.

The F.B.I. has abandoned a component of its original proposal that would have required companies that facilitate the encryption of users’ messages to always have a key to unscramble them if presented with a court order. Critics had charged that such a law would create back doors for hackers. The current proposal would allow services that fully encrypt messages between users to keep operating, officials said.

In November 2010, Mr. Mueller toured Silicon Valley and briefed executives on the proposal as it then existed, urging them not to lobby against it, but the firms have adopted a cautious stance. In February 2011, the F.B.I.’s top lawyer at the time testified about the “going dark” problem at a House hearing, emphasizing that there was no administration proposal yet. Still, several top lawmakers at the hearing expressed skepticism, raising fears about innovation and security.

Empowered Civilian Review Board Advances NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT by Paul Bass | Apr 19, 2013 1:41 pm

74 Posted to: City Hall, Legal Writes

New Haveners may get to weigh in this November on whether to write a citizens' police oversight body into the city's most basic laws, and give it more teeth to go after misbehaving cops.

That's thanks to a vote Thursday night by the city's Charter Revision Commission, which cited the recent high-profile criminal trial of Jewu Richardson as inspiration.

The panel voted 9-0 to recommend that November's general election ballot contain a question about whether to amend the city charter to include a civilian review board to oversee the handling of citizen complaints about alleged police misconduct.

That recommendation now goes to the Board of Aldermen. If the aldermen second the idea, as expected, it will appear on the ballot in November as part of a package of suggested once-a-decade charter changes.

New Haven already has a civilian review board (as well as a mayorally appointed Police Commission). Critics argue that the review board has no real power and doesn't press police to do a better job of reining in misconduct.

The current civlian review board exists by executive order. Advocates say that making it part of the city charter would secure the future of the board by protecting it from mayoral whim.

The proposed charter language approved Thursday night would require the independent review board to have representatives from each of the city's police districts as well as two at-large appointees, all serving two-year terms. (The city currently has 10 neighborhood police districts. It will probably soon have 12.) The mayor would appoint the board members from "among the names recommended by the community engagement organizations" in the districts.

The board would "examine complaints made by civilians pertaining to unprofessional conduct" by cops, examine how those complaints are processed, "hear appeals from complainants brought within ninety (90) days of the completion of an internal affairs report by the department," and review department and internal affairs policies related to misconduct complaints.

An additional proposed duty of the board sparked the only debate Thursday night: that the board "require the internal affairs group of the department to investigate civilian complaints in the event no investigation has been commenced or to re-open and continue to investigate a complaint if, in the opinion of the board, the initial investigation was incomplete or unfair."

In other words, the board would have some power.

Charter Review Commission member Will Ginsberg asked if that provision would risk "compromising the police chief's authority" or confuse the role of the review board with that of the Police Commission. (At the same time, Ginsberg said he'd

75 been "quite taken" by testimony of citizens seeking the review board; they provided some of the most passionate testimony at the charter commission's public hearings.)

Steve Mednick, the charter commission's attorney, said the provision went into the proposal because members felt it important that the review board have "some teeth" and "authority."

"We just watched this trial," said Joelle Fishman, who chaired the commission working group that drew up the proposal. She was referring to the trial of Jewu Richardson, who was accused of trying to run over a cop among other offenses. A judge declared a mistrial in the case last week after jurors were deadlocked. Two hold-out jurors said because of police misconduct in that case, they felt uncomfortable convicting Richardson of any of the charges, including lesser offenses which Richardson's attorney basically conceded in her final argument. (Read about all that here; click on the video at the top of the story to watch the hold-out jurors tell their story.)

The trial "indicated the more the ability there is to investigate cases, the better" policing and community support for law enforcement New Haven will have, Fishman argued.

The police department has doubled the size of its internal affairs office in the past year. Make police review panel's recommendations public

Posted: 5:31 p.m. Monday, April 29, 2013 Austin American-Statesman

By Editorial Board

Negotiations between the city and the Austin police union are underway to replace the current labor contract that expires in September. The talks include discussions about whether a citizen's review panel's disciplinary recommendations should be made public. The city says yes a position we have long supported. Fortunately, the police union finally is showing signs of siding with transparency on this important matter.

Current rules, negotiated by the city and the Austin Police Association, limit how much information the Office of the Police Monitor, which currently is led by former Travis County Sheriff Margo Frasier, can release about the cases it and a panel of seven citizen volunteers review. The office, as its name implies, monitors police internal affairs investigations, and the review panel recommends to the police chief discipline of police officers in certain cases, including officer-involved shootings. With few exceptions, such as an officer's suspension, the panel's recommendations remain secret.

76 The city has proposed removing exceptions and releasing the review panel's recommendations in officer-involved shootings and other "critical incident" cases, as the American-Statesman's Ciara O'Rourke and Tony Plohetski reported last week. The panel's recommendation would be released only after the police chief makes a decision.

Wayne Vincent, police union president, told O'Rourke and Plohetski that the Austin Police Association is willing to work with the city to establish rules that allow the release of the panel's recommendations while protecting an officer's privacy rights. We appreciate Vincent's concerns, but as Tom Stribling, the city's ombudsmen, told O'Rourke and Plohetski, the city wants to release the review panel's recommendation, not the full investigation into an incident involving an officer. Before taking the ombudsman job, Stribling represented dozens of Austin police officers in discipline cases against the city. There are acceptable limits to public disclosure that would protect an officer's privacy.

The May 2011 shooting death of Byron Carter Jr. is one case creating the desire and underscoring the need to change current rules governing the release of the review panel's recommendations. Austin police officer Nathan Wagner fatally shot Carter, 20, on East Eighth Street after police officials said the car Carter was riding in sped toward Wagner's partner, Jeffrey Rodriguez, and hit and injured him. A 16-year-old juvenile was driving the car and was wounded in the shooting.

Significantly, a Travis County grand jury declined to indict the juvenile, who had been charged with aggravated assault on a police officer and evading arrest. A grand jury also declined to indict Wagner.

Last year the American-Statesman reported that the citizen's review panel had recommended to Police Chief Art Acevedo that Wagner be fired. Acevedo, who has said he favors releasing the review panel's recommendations, said Wagner did not violate any department polices on use of deadly force. Wagner faced no departmental discipline.

A report broadcast last week by KXAN, citing court documents in a lawsuit filed by Carter's family against the city and Wagner, raised questions about the police account of the shooting. Among them: the Achilles tendon injury Rodriguez is said to have suffered during the incident appears to have occurred weeks before the shooting.

The Carter case shows that failure to release the review panel's recommendation fuels speculation and doubt that weakens trust in the police department. As City Councilmember Bill Spelman, who proposed creating the police monitor's office and citizen panel, told O'Rourke and Plohetski, the more information people are given about the police, the better they will understand police work, and the better their relationship with police will be.

"By keeping this stuff secret, in a way, we're doing more harm than good," Spelman said.

77 The Austin Police Department is better because of citizen oversight. Preventing the review panel's recommendations from being released does the police and the public no good.

State Senate bill on arbitration awards for public safety employees is long overdue Sunday News May 05, 2013 06:00

By THE SUNDAY NEWS In 1968, a state law that protects the collective bargaining rights of public safety employees was adopted, effectively replacing the right to strike with binding arbitration of contract disputes.

But arbitration has put too many Pennsylvania municipalities in a bind. Forty-five years later, one state lawmaker is taking another stab at amending Act 111.

Sen. John Eichelberger, R-Blair County, is seeking co-sponsors for a bill that would limit salary awards by requiring arbitrators to take into account the ability of a town or city to pay for increases in salaries and benefits.

It seems like a no-brainer, but the legislation — which hasn't even been introduced yet — is already running into a buzz saw of opposition. A letter jointly signed by the presidents of the state Fraternal Order of Police and Pennsylvania Professional Firefighters Association calls the proposal "an unprecedented and unwarranted attack on Pennsylvania's heroes" by "a group of special interests" trying to "eviscerate Act 111."

With respect to the unions, that's hyperbolic. Sen. Eichelberger's proposal might need some tweaking, and it probably will get that in the legislative meat grinder. But the centerpiece — requiring arbitrators to take into account a municipality's ability to pay — is desperately needed.

Just ask Lancaster city officials. Mayor Rick Gray, a Democrat, says arbitration awards force taxpayers to shoulder the burden for "wage increases that outpace the rate of inflation; fully funded health insurance with low employee contribution to premiums; lifetime health insurance benefits; and defined benefit pensions." And the city has to pay the full costs of arbitration.

So municipalities like Lancaster either must raise taxes to pay arbitration awards or must lay off firefighters and police to balance the budget. The first option encourages homeowners to think about selling and moving somewhere where taxes aren't unbearable. The second option encourages homeowners to think about selling and moving somewhere safer.

Doesn't it make more sense to base raises and benefits on what the municipality can afford?

78

Now, that doesn't happen. The Coalition for Sustainable Communities, an association of chambers of commerce and other state organizations that supports Sen. Eichelberger's plan, points out that salary awards in financially distressed municipalities governed by another state law, Act 47, are significantly lower than in towns and cities where Act 111 controls bargaining.

That's because Act 47 forces arbitrators to award contracts that comply with the municipality's fiscal recovery plans. Raises, in other words, have to fit the budget.

Unless something is done to reform Act 111's arbitration provisions, more and more municipalities will end up in Act 47 territory.

Mayor Gray also backs part of the Eichelberger proposal that would open the arbitration process to the public. We agree: Bringing transparency to hidden proceedings can only help to make the outcomes fairer.

We would not support legislation that "eviscerates" binding arbitration. Because police and firefighters have given up strike rights in the interest of public safety — imagine the criminal chaos that would ensue if cops were walking a picket line — they need contract bargaining leverage, and binding arbitration provides that leverage.

Municipalities that are increasingly crunched by stagnant tax revenue and skyrocketing costs need leverage, too. Act 111 has tended to give the unions a longer lever than management has.

"We are not asking to end binding arbitration or to give our respected police and fire a raw deal," says Tom Baldrige, president of the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce & Industry, which is a founding member of the Coalition for Sustainable Communities. "We're asking for fair playing field which offers opportunity for all and responsibility from all."

That means a playing field where neither union nor management ends up in a bind.

East Hartford Council Rejects Arbitrated Police Pension Agreement May 03, 2013|By SUZANNE CARLSON, [email protected], The Hartford Courant EAST HARTFORD — — The town council has rejected an arbitration panel's decision on a 10-year police pension agreement, saying the town is not financially capable of funding it.

Union President Mike Weglarz called the council's decision a "big slap in the arbitrators' faces."

79 "That's what they always say, no matter what it is — we can't afford it ... If you're crying about 'We can't afford it,' here's a clue — don't put a dollar store and a barber shop on every street corner. Build some real businesses in town."

The council unanimously rejected the arbitrators' decision April 19, and details of the rejection were submitted in a letter to the Connecticut State Board of Mediation and Arbitration by town's labor firm, Siegel and O'Connor, on April 26.

The decision concerns only the 10-year pension agreement; the police union's three-year collective bargaining agreement expired on June 30 and Weglarz said negotiations with the town on that contract are underway.

Town Council Chairman Richard Kehoe said Friday that the town has been trying to move all employees off pensions, not just police, and can't afford to add more workers to the plan every year.

"Something has to give, and we're trying to do it in a way that's fair and equitable to our employees," Kehoe said. "In our view, to continue down the road we are on is untenable for a town government and taxpayers who already pay a significant portion of their income in property taxes."

During arbitration, the three-member panel selected the police union's last best offer on three of nine issues. Two of those concern whether lump sum payments upon retirement from accrued sick time would be included in the calculation of pension benefits. The third was a proposal by the town to change from the existing pension plan to a defined contribution plan for all employees hired after Jan. 1, according to the letter, which describes the pension plan's payments and health benefits as "burdensome and unsustainable."

The arbitration panel ruled that compensation and final average salary for employees would continue to include overtime and accrued sick time, according to the letter. The panel also sided with the police union in rejecting the town's proposal to switch to a defined contribution plan.

In rejecting the arbitrated agreement, the town listed a number of indicators showing that the community can't support the plan, including the 12.3 percent unemployment rate as of July 2012. The letter also stated that the grand list of taxable property has not kept up with spending and that recent commercial developments are generating "little or no real property tax revenue" to the municipality, leaving the town in a precarious financial position.

"In light of the foregoing litany of financial indicators, which depict the unfortunately bleak economic condition of the town, the unrelenting financial demands it faces, and the undeniable need of the town's residents for affordable housing, it is clear that the panel failed to give the requisite priority to the town's financial capability and the public interest in reaching its decision," the letter states.

80 The town is seeking to have the award reviewed by a second arbitration panel and has requested that the three contested issues be set aside and the town's last best offers accepted.

Oakland mayor calls for increased police training, civilian oversight to reduce shootings

By Thomas Peele [email protected] Posted: 05/02/2013 07:10:39 PM PDT

OAKLAND -- Renewing her call for increased oversight of the police, Mayor Jean Quan on Thursday said better training, an updated computer system and a civilian watchdog similar to San Jose's would help Oakland address a troubling number of officer-involved shootings. The mayor's comments came in response to an investigation by this newspaper, published Thursday, that highlighted a history of questionable police shootings in Oakland and a culture of failing to thoroughly investigate them. While the department is already under the unprecedented scrutiny of the federal court to adopt widespread reforms, the mayor said a civilian inspector general would add another layer of accountability. She said she hopes to soon add the position to independently review internal affairs findings and make recommendations on officer discipline. The department already has its own inspector general's office. It is charged with auditing programs and expenditures and tracking efforts to meet reforms ordered more than a decade ago by a federal judge in the wake of the Riders police abuse scandal. What Quan has proposed is a new, civilian position, reporting directly to the mayor and city administrator. "I want someone who is not a member of the force," Quan said, pointing to San Jose's use of an independent police auditor staffed with lawyers who review disciplinary cases and complaints against officers. The plan needs the approval of the department's new federal compliance director, former Baltimore Police Department Commissioner Thomas Frazier, who was appointed in March to usher in reforms. Frazier could not be reached for comment. Oakland police union president Barry Donelan declined to comment on Quan's proposal, calling Thursday's report on police shootings by this newspaper biased against the department. Oakland police Sgt. Christopher Bolton, the department's chief of staff, had no response to Quan's proposal but said he would welcome her promise for new technology to help the department better track police shootings. Oakland police have struggled to tally shootings over the years, blaming an antiquated computer system.

81 The newspaper's extensive review of police reports, district attorney's files, civil lawsuits and news accounts of police shootings since 2000 found police fired on people at least 117 times, killing 39. The review found two dozen officers involved in multiple shootings. At least nine people who appeared to be fleeing were shot in the back. And while the city has paid out more than $9 million to settle lawsuits over the shootings, internal affairs investigations routinely find the shootings were justified. Oakland police say officers often have little choice but to defend themselves with lethal force on the streets of one of California's most dangerous cities. Chief Howard Jordan insists the department constantly trains officers to avoid having to fire their weapons. While Quan says the federal oversight has led to improvements, the mayor said more training would lead to fewer deadly encounters. "We need to review whether the officers had to be in a (dangerous) position in the first place," she said. The newspaper also reviewed new documents that raised questions about the department's internal affairs investigation into the 2007 shooting death of Gary King Jr. Last week, almost six years after the shooting, the Alameda County District Attorney's Office finally released a report, clearing Sgt. Patrick Gonzales of any wrongdoing. On Thursday, Michael Haddad, an attorney who sued the city on behalf of King's family, said the $1.5 million settlement was a "tacit admission" of flaws in the internal affairs investigation and called on District Attorney Nancy O'Malley to re- examine evidence he uncovered. A spokeswoman from the District Attorney's Office had no comment.

Harrisburg chief: 52 percent boost needed for ideal police presence Print By Emily Previti | [email protected] Pennlive.com on April 30, 2013 at 8:50 PM, updated May 01, 2013 at 11:14 AM

HARRISBURG — Police in the capital city are grappling with what’s on pace to be a record-setting year for homicides with staffing that their chief says would need to increase 52 percent to be what he considers ideal.

"I don't have to have 198 — that's just what I want, so I can have (specialized) units, things like that," Harrisburg Police Chief Pierre Ritter said.

"I don't have to have 198 — that's just what I want, so I can have (specialized) units, things like that." - Harrisburg Police Chief Pierre Ritter Ritter, who declined to comment further, spoke after a news conference Tuesday about progress of the city’s Neighborhood Safety Zone initiative in response to reporters’ questions about his goal staffing level.

82 The department’s roster has dropped by 41 cops, or 24 percent, from the 171 on the force in 2010, Police Chief Pierre Ritter said Tuesday. Mayor Linda Thompson, who is seeking re-election in the May 21 primary, and Fred Reddig, adviser to Harrisburg’s state-appointed receiver William Lynch, have attributed the exodus to pension concerns.

In addition to the city's general financial distress, the specific threat of municipal bankruptcy is stoking fears, because judges often look to post-retirement benefits as among the first sources of concessions during Chapter 9 proceedings, Thompson said.

Seven prospective city police officers are in training now, with another 24 hires planned, Thompson said.

That would increase the number of officers to 161 by the end of 2014, but still below the 198 Ritter identified Tuesday as his ideal staffing level.

That’s not based on a study of any kind, he said, but mainly on population.

A 198-officer force, however, would be larger than nearby towns of comparable size.

Ritter said he didn't take into account the thousands of workers at the Capitol adding to the city's daily population.

Lancaster, for example, has a larger population and police force than Harrisburg, but lower crime, poverty and unemployment rates, according to the most recently published U.S. Census and FBI Uniform Crime Reports.

York's crime rate is lower and its population and 105-officer roster are smaller, while poverty and unemployment rates — frequently linked to crime — are higher, than Harrisburg, according to U.S. Census and FBI UCR data.

Harrisburg's 2013 general fund budget also is the highest of the three: $53 million versus $33 million in Lancaster and $41 million in York, according to budget documents from each municipality.

Despite her acknowledgement that it's difficult to attract qualified candidates to work in Harrisburg, Thompson said she won’t reconsider the residency requirement — for any city position.

“Residents want to know officer(s) live next door, and they want to know the fireman lives next door to them,” Thompson said. “It’s always been about directors who shape our policy living and breathing where they work.”

Safety zones will remain the priority, said Thompson, who announced the patrols Monday as a way to remind residents of the public safety presence where criminal activity often is high during the summer. Stricter enforcement of city curfew, among other rules, is expected.

83 Minors out after 10 p.m. on weeknights during the school year and past midnight on weekends and during the summer face fines starting at $200 — unless they have a note from a parent and permission from the owner of whatever property they might be on, Thompson said.

BY THE NUMBERS: HARRISBURG

Population: 49,686 Land area: 11 square miles Police officers: 130 Crime rate per thousand: 65 Unemployment rate: 12.9 percent Poverty rate: 31.6 percent Median household income: $32,949

LANCASTER Population: 59,511 Land area: 7 square miles Police officers: 143 Crime rate per thousand: 59 Unemployment rate: 12.8 percent Poverty rate: 28 percent Median household income: $33,115

YORK Population: 43,857 Land area: 5 square miles Police officers: 105 Crime rate per thousand: 56 Unemployment rate: 18.9 percent Poverty rate: 35.5 percent Median household income: $29,814

New officers roll in as violent city of Camden phases out force

Mel Evans / AP

By Matthew DeLuca, Staff Writer, NBC News The last remaining members of the 141-year-old police department in Camden, N.J., will retire their badges Tuesday as the city -- stricken by brutal murders and crippling poverty -- yields its streets to a new metro division of the county police force. Gov. Chris Christie and other advocates hope that the transition to a county-run force will help drag the city of 77,000 out of a half century of post-industrial decline and decay, its annals pockmarked by open-air drug markets and sky-high murder rates. Union leaders called the new policing model, which was approved

84 by local and state officials in August 2011, "untested" and said the move amounts to union busting. What no one argues is that violent crime in Camden has been all too frequent and often chillingly desperate. The city recorded 67 homicides in 2012, blowing past the previous record of 58 set in 1995. In one case, a man killed a six-year- old boy. In another, a mother decapitated her 2-year-old son.

“First and foremost the number one goal of the department is to make the residents of Camden feel safer,” said Dan Keashen, a spokesman for the city. “We’re trying to ultimately stabilize the city and stabilize all the neighborhoods within the city.” Officials have struggled for years to reduce crime in a city where more than 42 percent of people are thought to live below the poverty line. Budget cuts forced the city to lay off 168 officers in January 2011 -- 46 percent of the entire department. A spike in crime ensued Even after some of the laid-off officers trickled back with the help of federal funds, crime rates never fully leveled off. Camden had about 270 cops to rely on as the streets turned into killing zones last year, with absentee rates reported as high as 30 percent, said Jose Cordero, a consultant with 21 years of New York City Police Department experience. Police union contracts had gotten too expensive for the city, said Cordero, who helped design the new force. Officers could earn an 11 percent bump in their pay by working an anti-crime patrol, or 10 percent more for working a nighttime shift. “The primary purpose of this was the city could not afford to staff up its police department to the number of officers required to have a fighting chance in what is one of the deadliest cities in America,” Cordero said. Officers in what will be a 400-strong metro division, to be backed by 100 civilian employees, have trained on the streets of Camden alongside city police since March. About half of the regional force is expected to be comprised of members of the old Camden Police Department. “I’m looking to see a partnership form between the metro division officers and the citizens of Camden; that partnership is crucial to prevent future crimes,” said Freeholder director Louis Capelli, Jr., who helped develop the new force. “For the first time in decades they’ll have officers walking the beat and in their neighborhoods on bicycles.” Camden is so far the only town or city to make use of the regional police department, which will be paid for by city property tax revenues and state municipal aid funds, Capelli said. Camden Police Chief Scott Thomson will take control of the new force on Wednesday after retiring his city post. The force will cost Camden an estimated $62 million, the same amount the city use to pay for the smaller previous force. Some city residents and business owners said they were pleased with the change as the new force began to roll out on streets in April. “I’m glad they’re here. We used to have dope boys that were right there,” resident Alicia Mitchell told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “Before, we were afraid to even let our kids outside.” The teams of newly sworn officers on patrol should be one part of an effort to get Camden cleaned up and back on its feet, said resident Lawrence Perry. “The kids don’t have nothing to do, so what else are they going to do? Stand out here, hang on the streets,” Perry told NBC Philadelphia. "They definitely got to

85 change, because we can’t have all these killings. So something’s definitely got to change. So this is just a start.”

In Its Defense, Police Dept. Cites Laziness of Its Officers By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN Published: April 29, 2013 The New York Times

Ten percent of them were malcontents who worked as little as possible. Unless they are being paid overtime, officers seem to avoid writing summonses. Indeed, some police officers need to be weaned of the idea that they are paid to drive around in their patrol cars, eating doughnuts.

And those sentiments came not from critics of the department, but from police commanders and city lawyers.

One of the surprising developments of the trial regarding the Police Department’s stop-and-frisk practices is how top police officials and city lawyers have been willing to criticize some of the department’s rank-and-file officers — all in an effort to counter testimony from whistle-blower officers who say that commanders had created quotas that pressured them to make street stops without the proper grounds.

Some of the testimony heard over the first six weeks of the trial in Federal District Court in Manhattan has had more in keeping with labor arbitration than with a constitutional case, as the city has tried to play down secret station house recordings, partly by characterizing some police officers as lazy.

“The sergeant is complaining that the cops on overtime didn’t want to get out of the car,” one deputy inspector, Steven Mauriello, testified after being played a secret station house recording of one of his sergeants exhorting his officers to work harder. “He doesn’t want them sitting in the car reading the newspaper.”

The two whistle-blowing officers have offered testimony that is crucial to the plaintiffs’ claim that the department relies on a quota system to force officers to generate more “activity” — a category that includes arrests, tickets and street stops. According to the civil rights lawyers who brought the stop-and-frisk class action lawsuit, the number of street stops has soared over the last decade because police officers, under pressure to make the quota, have resorted to stopping people whom they have no reason to suspect of wrongdoing.

The trial’s focus on quotas and productivity goals has illuminated the labor- management tensions that run deep through the Police Department, with 15,000 rank-and-file officers on the patrol force. “I think we’re charged with trying to get the police officers to work, do the things that they’re getting paid for,” the Police Department’s deputy commissioner for labor relations, John Beirne, testified.

86 So when Joseph J. Esposito, the department’s highest-ranking uniformed member until his retirement last month, testified in the trial, he offered candid insight into management’s view.

“You have 10 percent that will work as hard as they can, whenever they can, no matter how bad we treat them, how bad the conditions are,” Mr. Esposito said. These officers “love being cops and they’re going to do it no matter what.”

On the other extreme, Mr. Esposito said, “You have 10 percent on the other side that are complete malcontents that will do as little as possible no matter how well you treat them.”

In some precincts, Mr. Esposito noted, most enforcement activity, like ticket writing, occurred when officers were paid time-and-a-half overtime, instead of during their regular workweek.

“It’s a question as to why they can see activity when they are being paid overtime as opposed to not being able to see activity when they are on straight time,” Mr. Esposito testified.

Officers who complained about quotas were resistant to doing their job, city lawyers suggested.

In one of the surreptitious recordings made by a Bronx police officer, Pedro Serrano, his precinct commander suggested that the low number of stops that the officer conducted — just a few for an entire year — indicated that he was derelict in his duties when on patrol.

“We’re still one of the most violent commands in the city,” Deputy Inspector Christopher McCormack said on the tape. “And to stop two people, you know, to see only two things going on, that’s almost like you’re purposely not doing your job at all.”

A text message that Officer Serrano had received from a sergeant was displayed in court. “U need to do more 250,” it read, referring to the UF-250, the name of the form officers fill out after a stop.

While most police commanders have denied putting a quota in place, city officials have not shied from explaining that they keep close track of how productive their officers are, as would any other employer of a large work force.

Indeed, at times the trial has focused on Operations Order 52, a Police Department policy that stresses the importance of “proactive enforcement activities,” including “the stopping and questioning of suspicious individuals.” The order says “department managers can and must set performance goals” for officers with respect to enforcement efforts.

Displaying the five-page document on a projector screen in the courtroom, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, Jonathan C. Moore, asked, “Now, as a police officer, how did you interpret that?”

87

Officer Serrano offered a memorable answer: “It says, quota, quota, quota, quota and quota.”

But what precisely makes a quota a quota remains unclear.

“If I look at it, it’s a number,” Officer Serrano testified. “You’re not allowed to give me a specific number.”

A 2010 state law forbids the department from retaliating against officers for not making a certain minimum number of street stops. But Mr. Beirne testified that performance goals did not violate that law.

“My feeling was that the supervisors or the department could set performance goals for employees,” Mr. Beirne said. “Whether they be numerical or not was not an issue.”

Some officers have testified that the difference between a quota and a performance goal was one of interpretation.

“You have your faction of police officers that believe there is a quota,” Officer Edward Arias testified, adding that this faction constantly complained about quotas.

But perhaps the most defiant testimony came from Chief Michael Marino, who said that the “simple truth of the matter” is that the monthly quotas which officers complained about were quite low.

“The number I set was so low that I could do it in one day,” Chief Marino said about his time commanding a Brooklyn precinct.

“And reasonably do it without hurting anybody or picking on anybody.”

Criminalizing Children at School By The New York Times THE EDITORIAL BOARD Published: April 18, 2013 The National Rifle Association and President Obama responded to the Newtown, Conn., shootings by recommending that more police officers be placed in the nation’s schools. But a growing body of research suggests that, contrary to popular wisdom, a larger police presence in schools generally does little to improve safety. It can also create a repressive environment in which children are arrested or issued summonses for minor misdeeds — like cutting class or talking back — that once would have been dealt with by the principal.

Stationing police in schools, while common today, was virtually unknown during the 1970s. Things began to change with the surge of juvenile crime during the ’80s, followed by an overreaction among school officials. Then came the

88 1999 Columbine High School shooting outside Denver, which prompted a surge in financing for specially trained police. In the mid-1970s, police patrolled about 1 percent of schools. By 2008, the figure was 40 percent.

The belief that police officers automatically make schools safer was challenged in a 2011 study that compared federal crime data of schools that had police officers with schools that did not. It found that the presence of the officers did not drive down crime. The study — by Chongmin Na of The University of Houston, Clear Lake, and Denise Gottfredson of the University of Maryland — also found that with police in the buildings, routine disciplinary problems began to be treated as criminal justice problems, increasing the likelihood of arrests.

Children as young as 12 have been treated as criminals for shoving matches and even adolescent misconduct like cursing in school. This is worrisome because young people who spend time in adult jails are more likely to have problems with law enforcement later on. Moreover, federal data suggest a pattern of discrimination in the arrests, with black and Hispanic children more likely to be affected than their white peers.

In Texas, civil rights groups filed a federal complaint against the school district in the town of Bryan. The lawyers say African-American students are four times as likely as other students to be charged with misdemeanors, which can carry fines up to $500 and lead to jail time for disrupting class or using foul language.

The criminalization of misbehavior so alarmed the New York City Council that, in 2010, it passed the Student Safety Act, which requires detailed police reports on which students are arrested and why. (Data from the 2011-12 school year show that black students are being disproportionately arrested and suspended.)

Some critics now want to require greater transparency in the reporting process to make the police even more forthcoming. Elsewhere in the country, judges, lawmakers and children’s advocates have been working hard to dismantle what they have begun to call the school-to-prison pipeline.

Given the growing criticism, districts that have gotten along without police officers should think twice before deploying them in school buildings.

Scott: Gun bounty drive requires cash and anonymity

By Ceola Wilson Royal Gazette Published Apr 17, 2013 at 8:00 am

While hopeful the programme will be successful, Mr Scott said guaranteed anonymity and the money factor will be the key for potential tipsters.

89 If the main objective is to get guns off the streets he said the appeal for information should not be tied to criminal convictions for a monetary reward.

As a lawyer, he said that implies that anyone who gives information that leads to an arrest and conviction may think that requires them to testify in court. And while there are some who may be willing to do that he believes the majority will not.

In a statement released yesterday, Mr Scott said the programme could be successful if it is “made to operate like a standard bounty”.

“Anything less and the public may not respond or provide information to the police. Furthermore the programme will be fruitless from the start if the process does not involve persons remaining anonymous,” said Mr Scott.

“Linking the receipt of the bounty to the requirement that the information must lead to an arrest and prosecution of the offender, as the Minister is quoted as saying suggests strongly that the informant will have to give evidence.

“It is also unclear why the Minister is being tentative about the amount of money being posted as the bounty — both steps put the programme at risk. Anonymity and the money are the two key factors to secure public participation,” he said.

The Minister, Michael Dunkley, has stated that amount of money paid out will be decided by CrimeStoppers Bermuda (CSB). He issued a statement that said: “It is important to note that the CSB Reward committee determines the financial rewards for information given. The Committee has a best practice information scale that takes into account forensic and other information provided by the Bermuda Police Service. Outside of the CSB Committee, no one is aware of the reward process.”

But Mr Scott maintained that on the surface his reservations about the programme remain the same. “I can see how a reward would be an incentive if it’s for the discovery of a gun but I don’t see people being willing to come to court to testify to help get convictions.

“This programme will be an utter failure if the condition of the reward is absent of anonymity or to give evidence against someone for a firearm. That will destroy any prospect of anyone coming forward and I think its incumbent upon the Minister to make that clear.”

And he was adamant that the amount of cash to be paid out is a key factor, without knowing the amount he asked why people would even consider it because of the risks.

As it stands now he said: “The implication is that informants will have to testify, the Minister would not say how much money will be paid and the incentivising of the programme is directly linked to the attractiveness of the bounty.

“The primary good that can come out of the Gun Buy Back Programme is the ability to get guns off the street. As the Minister declared in his statement, getting

90 one gun turned in that has been used in several murders is positive news. We in the PLP agree.

“However, to encourage effective participation, there must be a guarantee that any informants’ identities must be protected and that the bounty amounts must be published.”

Report: Child Welfare Investment Could Slow 'Prison Pipeline' April 10, 2013 08:35:27 am The Crime Report Investment in child welfare systems and abuse prevention can help keep children out of the so-called “prison pipeline,” according to a new report from the non-profit Justice Policy Institute.

Researchers studied the child welfare system in Washington D.C., which removes children from their homes at higher rates than other similar cities. The report argues that while children who are subjected to abuse should be removed from their homes, “policies and resources should acknowledge that the majority of cases that lead to referrals and out of home placements may be better served by alternatives that emphasize in-home services, community supports and stability, all of which can serve to reduce future justice system contact.”

Nearly all of the children supervised by Washington, D.C.’s child welfare and juvenile justice agencies are black, according to the report, and most come from the city’s poorest Wards.

Despite the correlation between involvement in child welfare and involvement in juvenile justice, budget cuts reduced funding to the city’s Children and Family Services Agency by $1.2 million in 2012.

The report recommends: expanding child maltreatment prevention efforts; prioritizing educational support and stability; enabling access to mental health prevention and treatment for youth and their families, and providing employment opportunities to youth. Can a Police "Nudge" Stop Repeat Criminality? May 1, 2013 07:18:49 am The Crime Report

By Ted Gest

Police officers should be trying more creative ways to get criminals to stop breaking the law.

91 That was a leading theme of the annual Jerry Lee Symposium on Evidence- Based Crime Policy, which concluded yesterday in Washington, D.C.

Jim Bueermann, President of the Police Foundation, and criminologist John Laub, former director of the National Institute of Justice, discussed ways that police can expand their roles beyond the traditional responses to crime.

They suggested law enforcement could play a larger role in direct intervention with lawbreakers to help them return successfully to society.

Bueermann and Laub embraced the "nudge" theory made popular in a book by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, who described how people can be nudged to make better choices about how they live their lives.

A former police chief in Redlands, CA, Bueermann admitted that it would be necessary to "change the way police think" in order to have them spend more time in prisoner re-entry programs.

Police for example could become involved in parenting classes, drug courts, and programs for at-risk youths, or serve as school resource officers, he said.

Such activities, he observed, represent an extension of the kind of community policing already practiced by many police departments around the nation, and would "enhance public confidence in the police."

Laub, who brought Bueermann into the National Institute of Justice as a visiting fellow, explained how the "nudge" theory fits in with his own long-term research on "why offenders stop offending."

As Laub describes it, based on periodic interviews over many years with people who have committed crimes, key "turning points" ---particularly marriage but also jobs, military service, and neighborhood changes---influence people to stop committing crimes.

A typical statement of an offender interview is "I was a hell raiser, now I'm a family man," said Laub, who returned this year from his Justice Department service to the criminology faculty of the University of Maryland.

The Bueermann-Laub concept was generally endorsed by criminologist Lawrence Sherman of Britain's Cambridge University and the University of Maryland, who predicted a "brave new world of police managing individual offenders."

Such an approach is already underway experimentally in the United Kingdom.

Sherman is involved with a new College of Policing in Britain which, he writes, is "modeled in part on such professional bodies as those for physicians and engineers" and aims "to advance professional knowledge by using rigorously scientific testing for recommending police policy."

92 Other speakers at the symposium talked about ways to get police to base more of their work on scientifically-proved methods.

John Firman, research director at the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said his organization maintains a Research Advisory Committee that works to "mainstream" evidence-based practices to the 18,000 police agencies spread across the United States.

Laurie Robinson, former Assistant U.S. Attorney General for Justice Programs, urged other police associations, including police unions, to get more involved in discussing policing advances that probably work to reduce crime.

Robinson also urged her former department to reinstate training conferences that have fallen under Washington's budget-cutting axe of late, saying the reduction in such events is "crippling the ability of the Justice Department to be a leader in this field when leadership is badly needed."

The Lee symposium is sponsored by Jerry Lee, a Philadelphia radio broadcaster who helped found criminal justice research centers at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Cambridge.

The University of Maryland and George Mason University in Virginia co- sponsored this week's conference.

California: Oakland Police Chief Quits By MALIA WOLLAN The New York Times Published: May 8, 2013 Amid a surge in violent crime, the Oakland police chief, Howard A. Jordan, resigned Wednesday, citing unspecified medical reasons. For years, the city’s beleaguered Police Department has suffered from low staffing and management problems. Last year the city narrowly avoided becoming the first in the country to cede control of its police force to federal authorities. Gov. Jerry Brown had to deploy California Highway Patrol officers to help patrol city streets. Chief Jordan, who was appointed in 2011, made his announcement a short time before a police consultant, William Bratton, a former police commissioner for New York City and a former Los Angeles police chief, was to announce his recommendations for fighting crime.

Crime-fighting, Twitter and the Boston Bombing May 7, 2013 08:44:55 am By Alyce McGovern The Crime Report

Social media has profoundly changed the ways in which police are now able to communicate—unmediated—with the public.

93 Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms have become essential communications tools for police, and the events surrounding last month’s Boston Marathon bombing indicate just how far police have come in engaging proactively with social media to achieve operational (and non-operational) outcomes.

With pressure on police to increase public confidence and reduce community concerns over crime, social media has emerged as a valuable tool for improving communication between organizations and their “customers” — the public.

And as we witnessed in Boston, social media is now the site for breaking news.

But increasingly it is the police, not the media, who are providing real-time crime news to an ever-interested audience.

In the aftermath of the bombings, and the ensuing pursuit of the alleged attackers, social media played a critical role.

For example, social media served as a channel for disseminating police information about the bombings, and facilitated “citizen policing” during the hunt for the prime suspects in the attack—with sometimes negative results, such as the wrongful identification of one missing student as a suspect.

But while the Boston case has brought attention to the nexus between police and social media, the intersection of social media and police work is not an entirely new phenomenon.

Over the last five years, police organizations around the world have been developing skills in using social media as investigative and public relations tools.

What my own research into this phenomenon has shown is that police are more than happy to take a lead role in defining crime events for the public, bypassing the traditional media platforms that have filtered much of the public communications work of law enforcement.

Today’s police organizations increasingly recognize the benefits of social media to their communication and operational priorities.

Their pro-active approach includes:

• Seeking information and assistance from the public to help solve crime; • Displaying footage, images and information that may help solve crime; • Keeping the public informed about police activities and crime events; • Warning the public of dangers; • Reducing the fear of crime.

For the Boston Police Department (BPD), social media such as Twitter also proved invaluable in providing first-hand information to the public, keeping residents up to date with events in Boston as they happened.

94

From the confirmation of the first explosion, the BPD was able to harness social media as an authoritative source of information.

Regular Tweets from the BPD’s official Twitter account relayed the latest news in the case, called for footage of the Marathon finish line from spectators, sought information from the public that might help solve the case, and quashed media- driven rumors of an arrest.

Through Twitter, the BPD was able to control the parameters of the case, and avoid potential panic created by the spread of misinformation, or speculation over the scale of the incident, or the status of the investigation.

In short, social media helped police not only to do their job but to let the community know they were doing their job.

In similar ways, social media has demonstrated great operational benefits to police forces elsewhere in the world. Evidence from Australia and Europe attests to the capacity of social media to assist in the detection and arrest of suspects.

The Boston case is just one of a number of examples of how social media has been used during large-scale disasters or incidents to bring a level of gravity to the typically sensationalist (and often incorrect) reporting of the past.

For example, police were praised for their use of social media during events such as Tropical Cyclones Yasi and Tasha in Queensland, Australia in 2010 and 2011, with the Queensland Police Service gaining international recognition for their effective use of social media during these disasters.

But despite the benefits of social media, there are still some thorny issues to be worked out.

As we saw in Boston, there was a downside to the role that social media played in the days following the attack, as “citizen journalists” turned into “citizen police.”

Suspects were mis-identified, and police investigative strategies were broadcast online for all — including, potentially, the bombers — to consume.

Theories were traded back and forth; speculation was rife.

So while social media has the potential to provide police agencies with crucial information and support, not to mention a direct line to the public in times of crisis, there is also a warning that must be heeded from Boston.

In harnessing the capacity of the crowd on social media to help solve cases, police must also clearly define the boundaries within which this occurs.

One way to stop the online chatter that occurred during the manhunt is to digitally encrypt police radio systems, a strategy that has already been employed in Australian policing organizations.

95

Such moves, though, have raised concerns over police secrecy, and may not completely address the problems that arose during the bombing investigation.

UK Government threats to shut down social media and mobile networks during times of crisis have also been widely criticized. So where does this leave governments and police?

There is no simple answer to the problems that threaten police investigations, given the changeable nature of social media platforms.

No doubt though, lessons can be learned from recent events, and police can put strategies in place to minimize the risks, if not completely erase them. Legal and technical moves, such as those listed above, may be one part of the solution.

Another response may be sought from looking at what other police organizations are doing to proactively harness social media in positive ways.

The New South Wales Police Force, for example, has introduced the Project Eyewatch scheme as a way of engaging the community in the crime-fighting process. With clear strategies and processes in place for how citizens can help police in the virtual environment, such a scheme signals a new development in policing capabilities, giving much more power to police than a ‘free-for-all’ model can.

“Citizen policing” on social media platforms can too readily turn into vigilante justice—with serious consequences not only for the accused but for the investigation itself.

Police now have to think carefully about the best ways forward to ensure that citizens can engage in investigative processes to beneficial ends.

Dr. Alyce McGovern, a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of New South Wales, Australia, is a visiting scholar at the Center on Media, Crime and Justice at John Jay College. She welcomes comments from readers.

From ‘Boom’ to Bust: 10 Years of Criminal Justice Change May 2, 2013 06:50:14 am The Crime Report

By Ted Gest

A decade ago, when Crime and Justice News began providing daily summaries of important developments, criminal justice was, in one sense, “booming”: the incarcerated population was growing, despite a long-term decline in the crime rate.

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Taxpayer money spent on the justice system seemed like it had nowhere to go but up.

Within five years, a recession changed that. Government officials across the nation are still seeking ways to economize.

As we mark our 10th anniversary, our unique digest continues to reflect not only the economic challenges facing the nation’s criminal justice system, but the similar challenges to journalism itself.

Crime and Justice News, produced by Criminal Justice Journalists, is emailed to about 6,000 people Monday through Friday and appears simultaneously on The Crime Report. We started it in 2003 because there was no reliable national daily report on criminal justice news and developments. A decade later, we are still unique as a report that covers the entire criminal justice system.

Meanwhile, the journalism profession overall has taken major hits—caused largely by the growth of the Internet. And the toll continues to be severe, as print newspapers around the country suffer major layoffs, and a few have closed down entirely.

The ease of creating a website has encouraged contradictory trends in the reporting of crime and justice.

On the one hand, news sources have proliferated, with small local news sites, bloggers, and advocacy groups offering their own takes on criminal justice developments. At the same time, mainstream media outlets have reduced traditional enterprise reporting as their income from advertising has been drained by online phenomena like craigslist.

Crime and Justice News continues to reflect these journalistic trends, as well as the broader changes in our field. The dozen news items we highlight each weekday, consisting of exclusive news from government and academic sources and digests of news reporting by others, illustrate noticeable changes in both content and sourcing.

Many more of today’s news items deal with federal, state, and local officials struggling with how to protect public safety with fewer available tax revenues. Our stories frequently describe public agencies trying to do more with less, many of them adapting their practices to scientific evidence of what works to cut crime.

As for news sourcing, there are relatively fewer stories from newspapers and more from blogs and online-only news organizations of many varieties.

Over the years, readers have asked why some stories are included in the digest and others are not.

97 It’s a daily judgment call, but the goal is to report news that may have significance to more than one community. There is no way that we could report every major crime, or would want to do so.

For the most part, crime incidents reported here should have some resonance, whether they are part of a trend or involve some new or unusual twist. We apply the same criteria to items about the criminal justice system—focusing on whether they represent structural shifts, different ways of delivering services, or cutbacks prompted by budget woes.

With a daily report that spans the entire justice system, we also try to include stories from a variety of geographical areas. It would be easy to fill the digest with stories about the hot topic of the day, whether it is gun control or terrorism, but our primary aim is to provide a more complete picture of what is going on nationally.

For that, we exercise the judgment based on our organization’s combined experience and wide contacts in the field. Both our member journalists and sources in criminal justice regularly suggest stories for the digest.

Because the details of many news stories are discovered only over time, what may appear at first like a story with great criminal justice importance may turn out to be one that is actually a local concern.

The recent killings of two Texas prosecutors in separate incidents may turn out to be such a case.

What initially was speculated to be a plot by drug cartels or prison inmates may in fact be the work of a former local official who, aided by his wife, was seeking revenge for his prosecution. The case still merits attention because prosecutors rarely are murdered, but it may have no long-lasting impact outside of Kaufman County, Texas

A dozen news items each day can reflect only a small fraction of what is happening nationwide.

Why do some cities or regions rarely appear in our digest (another question we are sometimes asked)?

The reasons vary. There may not be much happening in the criminal justice field in a particular city or region that is of wider interest.

Just as possible, though, is that the news media aren’t reporting it. This is hard to prove statistically, but anecdotally many news organizations have cut back both on beat reporters—in our field, the people who report the news from police stations and courthouses—and on enterprise journalists who look into corruption and trends that aren’t immediately obvious.

98 One good example of the latter is a series last month in The New York Times about how the courts in the city’s Bronx borough process criminal cases so slowly.

Lawyers, defendants, victims, and jurors knew what was happening—or not happening as the case may be—but it took months of work by reporter William Glaberson to bring the story to life. As it happens, Glaberson left the newspaper shortly after his articles appeared, another loss to a profession with relatively few people having long-term knowledge of how criminal justice works.

In many cities, non-profit local news sites have popped up to fill some of the gaps left by the reduced reporting by traditional news organizations. While several of these have done exemplary reporting, such as the California Watch organization and the Texas Tribune, these outlets typically employ only a small number of journalists, who usually can’t specialize in one area of reporting.

Crime and Justice News strives to tell it like it is, not to advocate for one cause or another.

If we have a bias, it is to focus on the media aspects of crime stories. Because this website is run as a partnership between the Center for Media, Crime and Justice at John Jay College and Criminal Justice Journalists, one of our missions is to assess the impact of media coverage on government policy and on public opinion

We want to feature exemplary journalism, and also want to call attention to media misrepresentations—not to scold journalists for honest errors, but rather in the hope of preventing others from going astray.

On the criminal justice side, some professionals have complained that we often use stories about flaws in the justice system.

Recently, for example, the Denver Post and other media have focused on policies and practices in the Colorado corrections system that made it easier for the suspected killer of the director of the state’s Department of Corrections to commit his crime.

This is the kind of journalism, when responsibly done, that we’d like to encourage by giving it national attention.

We’re also glad to run stories telling how the justice system has worked effectively, whether it involves solving crimes or reducing recidivism.

We welcome suggestions from readers, especially references to good news stories that we might otherwise miss.

Feel free to message me at [email protected] with any ideas.

As we said in an earlier e-mail message marking our anniversary, we thank our financial supporters over the years, including the Butler Family Fund, Wadsworth

99 Publishing, the Open Society Institute, the Ford Foundation, the National Criminal Justice Association, and John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

What will the next 10 years bring? The only constant we can predict—as both journalists and veteran observers of criminal justice—is more change.

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