2022 - Troubling Encounters: Ottawa Residents' Experiences of Policing (Moffette & Bruckert) (original) (raw)
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Deviant Behavior, 2023
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2023.2208254 Scholarship on police violence tends to either center the historical role of the institution in protecting an unequal social order or the individual use of force. To broaden our understanding and unpack how violence manifests in everyday interactions, we examined 251 accounts of police encounters in Ottawa, Canada. Finding that disrespect was disturbingly common, we developed a typology that highlights the spectrum of police disrespect as it manifests through: a) denial of bodily autonomy, b) demeaning verbal interactions, and c) disdain. We argue that everyday police disrespect may appear banal compared to the use of physical force, but that it is a significant part of a continuum of dehumanization that creates an atmosphere that renders police violence possible.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
In recent years, police violence has amassed notable international attention from the public, practitioners, and academics alike. This paper explores experiences and perceptions of police violence in Canada, documenting the impacts of direct and vicarious experiences of police violence on inner-city residents. The study employed semi-structured interviews with 45 community members across three Toronto inner-city neighbourhoods. Using a general interview prompt guide, participants were asked a range of questions about their experiences with and perceptions of police, and particularly, of police violence in their community. The interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, thematically coded, and analyzed. All participants reported direct and/or vicarious experiences of police violence, and most described experiencing long-standing, and continual fear that police contact would result in harm to them. Further, participants described a variety of serious and negative outcomes associated ...
Black Males' Perceptions of and Experiences with the Police in Toronto
Canada is commonly depicted as a diverse and tolerant immigrant-receiving nation, accepting of individuals of various racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. Nevertheless, Canadian institutions have not been immune to allegations of racial bias and discrimination. For the past several decades, Toronto’s Black communities have directed allegations of racial discrimination at the police services operating within the city. Using a mixed-methods approach, this thesis examines Black males’ perceptions of and experiences with the police in the Greater Toronto Area. In order to provide a comprehensive examination of this issue, this thesis is comprised of three studies with three distinct groups of Black males. The first of these three studies utilizes data from a representative sample of Black, Chinese, and White adults from the Greater Toronto area to examine racial and gender differences in perceptions of and experiences with the police. The second study draws on data from a sample of young Black men recruited from four of Toronto’s most disadvantaged and high crime neighbourhoods to examine the views and experiences of those most targeted by the police. The final study involves interviews with Black male police officers in order to draw on the perspectives of those entrusted with enforcing the law. In line with a mixed-model hypothesis, the findings suggest that Black males’ tenuous relationship with the police is a product of their increased involvement in crime, as well as racism on the part of police officers and police services. Using insights drawn from Critical Race Theory, I suggest that both the increased levels of crime and the current manifestations of racism have a common origin in Canada’s colonial past.
We’ll Deal with it Later: African Nova Scotian Women’s Perceptions and Experiences of the Police
Canadian Journal of Sociology, 2019
This case study explores the experiences of African Nova Scotian women in relation to the police. Three semi-structured interviews were conducted with Black women living in a rural Nova Scotian community with a well-documented history of confrontations between the police and the Black community. Interviews explored their experiences with the police, their community’s experiences with the police, and their relationship with the police. My analysis revealed that participants did not trust the police, felt targeted by the police, and did not feel protected by the police. Their perceptions of the police were shaped by their own interactions with the police – often as Black mothers – and the experiences of the Black men in their lives in rural Nova Scotia. Some had engaged in active resistance and protection of their community. This article explores how anti-Blackness affects Black women directly and indirectly, contributing to the existing scholarship about over-policing of Black commun...
Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, 2014
Research on police decision-making and the use of discretion predominantly relies on official records or qualitative interview and participant observation data. Pioneered by Albert J. Reiss, Jr. in the 1960s, systematic social observation is a field research method simultaneously gathering quantitative and qualitative data in a natural setting. Data collection procedures are stipulated in advance reducing bias and allowing for scientific inference, replication, and measurable process outcomes as the observations recorded are independent of the observer. Although three large scale studies have been conducted in the United States to understand police behaviour, this ‘gold standard’ is used infrequently due to methodological challenges in an applied setting. The current research is the first sole observer and non-U.S. study conducted with a Canadian regional police service. Discussion of methodological innovation, challenges, and process are based on the experience of collecting data on 406 police–citizen encounters involving 568 citizens over 637 observational hours. To assist future researchers, the method and data collection using modified instruments as well as the challenges of resources, police cooperation, bias, reactivity, field role, and dynamics of conducting research as a female in an insular, male-dominated setting are explored.
2013
Abstract: The purpose of the study was to document the situational and subject specific characteristics surrounding police restraint in the Canadian population of persons who resist police interaction and undergo police restraint and to determine the outcome (mortality) proximal to police restraint for those persons. This report defines the scope of the study, the methodology, results, and impact of the body of knowledge for police forces in Canada and international communities. The report details the supporting data with tables, figures, and evidence- based conclusions. The report includes recommendations and way forward. <strong>Résume</strong> L'objectif de la présente étude est d'établir les caractéristiques situationnelles et particulières entourant la question des mesures de contrainte prises par la police sur les éléments de la population canadienne qui résistent à toute interaction avec la police et font l'objet de mesures de contrainte, et de détermi...
Youth in Windsor (POWER) project to take part in focus group interviews. Interview transcripts were analyzed using a thematic analysis in NVIVO 10 software. Themes included a belief that police have positive effects on society, and that only a certain minority of officers are responsible for misconduct; many interactions with youth are not the fault of the officer(s) involved and that police institutions play an important role in society. However, youth also expressed reasons for their displeasure with these institutions, such as: the lack of diversity within the police force, and that police sometimes abuse power and can be aggressive. Moreover, police have obstructed justice, profiled, and treated ACB people differently, according to participants. These results come at a time when community advocacy groups, such as Black Lives Matter, are mobilizing to improve the experiences of African diasporic people in Canadian society.
Citizen Satisfaction with Police Encounters
Police Quarterly, 2005
This article examines the character and consequences of encounters between police and residents of the city of Chicago. It describes the frequency with which they contacted the police for assistance or support and how often they were stopped by them. Follow-up questions gathered information about the character of those contacts. The analysis contrasts the effects of experiential, on-scene factors with those of race, age, gender, and language on satisfaction with encounters. It demonstrates the great importance of the quality of routine police-citizen encounters, for things that officers did on the spot dominated in determining satisfaction. The personal characteristics of city residents played an important role in shaping who was treated in this way or that and affected satisfaction primarily through on-scene actions by police. age race language police effort communication satisfaction assistance FIGURE 6: Effects of Race, Age, and Language on Satisfaction With Police Service
The usual suspects: Police stop and search practices in Canada
This paper explores police stop and search activities in Canada using data from a 2007 survey of Toronto residents. The paper begins by demonstrating that black respondents are more likely to view racial profiling as a major problem in Canada than whites or Asians. By contrast, white and Asian respondents are more likely to believe that profiling is a useful crime-fighting tool. Further analysis reveals that the black community's concern with racial profiling may be justified. Indeed, black respondents are much more likely to report being stopped and searched by the police over the past two years than respondents from other racial backgrounds. Blacks are also much more likely to report vicarious experiences with racial profiling. Importantly, racial differences in police stop and search experiences remain statistically significant after controlling for other relevant factors. The theoretical implications of these findings – and their meaning within Canada's multicultural framework – are discussed.