Governance Change and Pressures around the World

Andrew GrahamSchool of Policy Studies

Queens University

What I have tried to do here….

• Review of governance developments around the world

• Review of literature (all kinds of media)• Found few structural developments or changes in

law (except what I note next)• Found a lot of issues, concerns and

preoccupations coming from those engaged in various forms of oversight, governance or policy

• Here goes….

Movers and Shakers

• UK and the PCC• Canada:

– New Police Act in Manitoba: Boards for the first time– New Guidelines in Alberta and New Brunswick– Ontario clearly moving through a policy review – early days

• US: President’s Task Force on Policing in the 21st Century (March, 2015): skating around governance

• In general, remarkably little change in police governance – no one model emerges, only radical change is in the UK and that is a work in progress

One View of Developments in the UK

The Economist, June, 2011

Developments Affecting Governance

• Mission creep in police services: security is just one example

• Militarization: creation of special forces a necessity, but cops are not soldiers: they do not occupy enemy territory

• Strategic partnerships are muddying the waters of accountability around the world – who is in charge

• What Bob Hoogenboom calls “grey policing” that defies linear oversight

• Capacity to govern challenges are growing: – Increasing sophistication and complexity of performance data

puts Board members under more pressure

Developments in Governance

– Emergence of new policing pressures can overwhelm capacity to provide strategic direction that is anything but minimal and vague, see cybercrime and terrorism

• Economics of policing and emerging new policing models: the moose in the room

Developments in Governance

• Consistent theme that police systems cannot resolve the key drivers of crime and disorder: governance of police must build linkages to municipal, provincial and federal sources of pressures on police

• Private policing of economic crime: the growth of forensic accounting and corporate investigation industry

• “Police powerless online.” – how do you patrol to prevent in an area that is so global and murky?

Developments in Governance

• Strengthening of internal accountability systems with police services globally: Baltimore’s Professional Standards and Accountability Bureau just an example: the Canadian scene is generally strong.

• Manitoba’s new Act calls for citizen observers for SIU investigations: calls in the US for a Serious Incident Review Board involving community members to review cases involving shootings

• Increasing focus on Sentinel Events, i.e. episodes that are within policy but disastrous in terms of community trust and relations

Out on the Horizon: What Governors Need to Worry About

• Trust and confidence in policing in times of strain and repositioning

• As costs rise as an issue, articulating police value without slipping into defensiveness or attacks on policing becomes key: rethinking “business as usual”

• Moving to new understanding of police challenges• Getting the police capabilities right: tactical,

leadership, vision

Out on the Horizon: What Governors Need to Worry About

• Is the composition of the workforce what it should be?

• How to keep governance local while addressing increasingly global issues

Out on the Horizon: What Governors Need to Worry About

• Getting the metrics right: it’s not all about money: the need for leading public safety indicators: it is foolish to persist in the belief that any single index could provide us with a reasonably accurate portrait of the quality of our police

• Avoiding or managing the rush towards technological solutions without good research, good policy and training and link to mission

• Not getting hooked on some cliché solution: intelligence-led policing? Please……..