Abid Jan
Traditionally, policing has been incident-driven, reactive, and focused on speedy emergency responses, investigations, minimizing harm, and law enforcement through arrests and prosecutions. As a result of primarily operating along the lines of incident response, police are increasingly called upon to provide support, exercise discretion, and make decisions in areas such as social work, parenting, youth mentoring, health and mental health, social assistance, housing, school issues, and interpersonal relationships.
The reason for the police to assume this role as generalist problem solvers across a broad spectrum of social and community issues is that data from 14 police jurisdictions in Canada indicates that 65% of calls for service that police must attend relate to social disorder, while only 30% pertain to law enforcement and 5% to traffic issues.
The cost of this model of policing has one serious implication: it is not sustainable. Every municipality will have to go through the process of figuring out if there is any other way to achieve safety and well-being or to afford policing and social services.
Let’s unpack this. It’s not a question of either/or—it’s not merely about funding one or the other. It’s about finding a balance and fostering collaboration between police and social service agencies to ensure safety and well-being.
This means that you can’t sustain the incident response-based, reactive model of policing for long. At the same time, you can’t keep social services in a silo. Irrespective of investment in social services, social development in isolation cannot succeed without a clear focus on risk mitigation and prevention through a social determinant of health approach.
If we continue to rely on police services to respond to the increasing calls for service that are 65% related to social disorder, we will never be able to afford it. Similarly, if we rely solely on social services partners to prevent 65% of the calls from originating in the first place, it won’t happen without collaboration with the local police service.
The solution involves introducing collaborative risk-prevention measures that will reduce the imminent risk of harm and victimization, and related calls for emergency response. Risk mitigation represents a broader collaborative space than emergency response. However, this last chance to work to prevent harm is not good enough either.
We need to go further upstream in the prevention area to proactively design and implement evidence-based measures, policies, and programs to reduce locally identified priority risks. The prevention sphere covers risk factors, vulnerable groups, and protective factors.
The work in the areas of Risk Mitigation and Prevention needs to be augmented by targeted social development that will significantly reduce the demand for emergency response. This includes long-term multi-disciplinary efforts and investments in social determinants of health to reduce harm and victimization.
Collaborative work in these four areas transforms incident response-based policing into a proactive community policing model that is risk-driven, timely, problem-solving, and prevention-oriented in collaboration with others.
Collaborative work with local police in these four areas also helps social service agencies consider what underlies clusters or patterns of crime and social disorder. When police agencies and their community partners do not settle for oversimplified analysis and conclusions, they most often end up considering the social determinants of health that determine individual and community well-being.
It is important to keep in mind that police have limited mandates, resources, and capabilities to problem-solve when faced with deficiencies and inequities in the social determinants of health. However, that doesn’t exclude police from problem-solving partnerships. It is the role of the police to:
- Share data and analysis to bring those problems and related risk and protective factors to everyone’s attention,
- Work with community partners to mobilize neighbourhoods and other community assets to take some responsibility for problem-solving,
- Make it safer for all to do so, and
- Engage a variety of other community partners and resources in helping and supporting the neighbours in implementing their local plans for problem-solving.
That is the future of community and policing. It’s simply a matter of how soon these transformations can and will take place.
Research References:
Books:
Russell, H., & Giva, S (2023). “Transforming Community Policing, Mobilization, Engagement and Collaboration.”
Weisburd, D., & Eck, J. E. (2004). “What Can Police Do to Reduce Crime, Disorder, and Fear?”Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. This book discusses proactive policing strategies, the role of community partnerships, and evidence-based policing methods.
Millie, A. (Ed.). (2016). “The SAGE Handbook of Global Policing.” SAGE Publications. This handbook provides a global overview of contemporary policing models, including community policing and collaborations with social services.
Journal Articles:
Gill, C., Weisburd, D., Telep, C. W., Vitter, Z., & Bennett, T. (2014). “Community-Oriented Policing to Reduce Crime, Disorder, and Fear and Increase Satisfaction and Legitimacy Among Citizens: A Systematic Review.” Journal of Experimental Criminology, 10(4), 399-428. This systematic review focuses on the effectiveness of community-oriented policing in addressing social disorder and fostering police-community collaboration.
Reports and Policy Papers:
Mazerolle, L., & Ransley, J. (2005). “Third-Party Policing.”Cambridge University Press. This book explores the concept of third-party policing, where law enforcement collaborates with other sectors (such as housing, education, and social services) to address community problems and enhance social order.
Public Safety Canada. (2018). “The Economics of Policing and Community Safety: Innovation and Partnerships.” This report highlights the need for innovative partnerships between police and social services to address complex social issues and improve community safety cost-effectively.
Research Papers:
Levenson, J. S., & Copps, C. (2009). “Problem-Oriented Policing and Its Role in Crime Prevention.” Crime Prevention Studies, 25, 233-266. This research paper looks at problem-oriented policing and how integrating it with social services can enhance crime prevention and community safety.
Key Studies on Social Determinants of Health and Policing:
Marmot, M., & Wilkinson, R. G. (2005). “Social Determinants of Health.” Oxford University Press. This study offers an in-depth understanding of how social determinants affect public safety, with implications for police and social service collaborations.
Clarke, R. V., & Goldstein, H. (2003). “Problem-Oriented Policing: From Innovation to Mainstream.” This case study illustrates real-world applications of problem-oriented policing in collaboration with social service agencies to tackle crime and social disorder.