POLICE EDUCATIONAL MODELS PUBLIC DISSENT Luis Alberto DEla
POLICE EDUCATIONAL MODELS & PUBLIC DISSENT Luis Alberto D’Elía University of Alberta, AB, CANADA CESE CONFERENCE 2006 – Granada
DEDICATION To my lovely and supportive wife and children. To those who have been tortured and killed for peacefully protesting.
INTRODUCTION Context: Police and the global narrative of security My research question: appropriateness of public police educational programs to respond to the protesting public. “How prepared are police officers to police public demonstrations? ”
Ø Paradox: keeping the peace & enforcing the law Ø Police powers & police discretion: relevance of police education
Police Training in Canada Ø common teaching and program-planning approaches Ø guided by a traditional, classical and structuralist theory of education (Wotherspoon, 1998) Ø planning approach follows hierarchical, rigid, lessdemocratic models more so than designs adopted in Europe (D’Elia, 2002). Ø Stansfield’s finding (Stansfield, 1996) for the Ontario Police College (OPC) recruit-training program “old education paradigm” “rigid, hierarchical, authoritatian, and content-oriented structure…” (ibid).
Use of police power in public demonstrations (some cases from Canada) Ø APEC in Vancouver Ø Summit of the Americas in Quebec Ø G 8 meeting in Kananaskis
Police education & officers’ decision-making Ø Canadian police “excesses” >> human rights violations l l political interference factor police management or rank officers’ decisions based on their TRAINING (Canadian, Dutch, German)
The Canadian Programs Ø The Ax Police Service l l l All police instructors take a university “curriculum design” course • Important pedagogical value Planning model: Knowles’ • Linear, sequential, constrained needs-assessment, limited or no consideration of players’ power & interests, socio-cultural context, institut. constraints etc Evaluation: 1. instructors, 2. team-mates & supervisors, 3. self-eval, 4. occasional community survey* Budgetary allocations: Chief (assisted by Deputy-Chiefs) Program power characteristics • mandated - the audience (trainee group) is prescribed (Cervero & Wilson) = little room for planner to make decisions • negotiating interests through networking (among training staff) and bargaining (with management) • Planner is internal & in a hierarchical work structure l power relationships reflect hierarchical differences & division of labor.
Most Recent Data 1. 2. Confirmation of Inadequacies Positive developments on policy Ax Police planners answerable ultimately to the Chief. Yet, at a lower level, to the main stakeholders. Nevertheless, ultimate decisions >> chief committee How these inadequacies can be resolved? Ø The Ax. PS management argument the decision-making on training program planning >>good “educational” will or empathy of chief? Ø the decision-making on training program planning could not be left to the existence or not of good will or empathy of chief committee members towards professional, sound educational decisions Ø Ø Ø A more democratic process >> autonomy of educator managers
educational models and theory of Canadian police training-program planning Ø achievement of professed goal: Respond to community needs? Ø quality pedagogical values in experiential cultural sensitivity programming Ø structural constraints and power asymmetries inherent in the institution likely thwart the educators' efforts to respond to the philosophy of the police institution Ø Inadequate, rigid, sequential, authoritative program-planning model further limits the ability to attain ultimate aim of responding to community needs. Ø A general lack of a participatory, experiential and comprehensive human rights education before or after graduation puts officers at a disadvantage vis-avis community advocacy and understanding of dissent.
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