Lorna Ferguson – författare

This book looks at police reform in Canada, arguing that no significant and sustainable reform can occur until steps are taken to answer the question of ''What exactly do we want police to do?'' Adding challenge to this is that setting boundaries on what we expect the police to do requires grappling with the complex social problems we ask them to resolve. In public policy language, these are ‘wicked problems’ – social or cultural issues frequently seen as intractable.

Authors Huey, Ferguson, and Schulenberg, all policing scholars, draw on a unique collection of data to explore these issues: over 20 years of research (2000– 2021) ranging from in-depth interviews, surveys, and field observations to document analysis and systematic social observation. Pooling this data generates a national-level picture of changes in the policing operational environment over these decades. This book focuses on four particular wicked problems (mental health, substance misuse, homelessness, missing persons) with causes and potential preventative treatments that lie primarily outside the criminal justice system and yet continue to be treated as ''policing problems.'' Bringing about changes in public policing requires changes in public policy, and these are precisely the types of wicked problems that need innovative policy solutions.

This book is suitable for a wide range of audiences within and outside Canada, including law enforcement and community leaders; scholars and policy experts who specialize in policing; students of criminal justice, organizations, and management; and citizen-consumers of information about policing.

This book looks at police reform in Canada, arguing that no significant and sustainable reform can occur until steps are taken to answer the question of ''What exactly do we want police to do?'' Adding challenge to this is that setting boundaries on what we expect the police to do requires grappling with the complex social problems we ask them to resolve. In public policy language, these are ‘wicked problems’ – social or cultural issues frequently seen as intractable.

Authors Huey, Ferguson, and Schulenberg, all policing scholars, draw on a unique collection of data to explore these issues: over 20 years of research (2000– 2021) ranging from in-depth interviews, surveys, and field observations to document analysis and systematic social observation. Pooling this data generates a national-level picture of changes in the policing operational environment over these decades. This book focuses on four particular wicked problems (mental health, substance misuse, homelessness, missing persons) with causes and potential preventative treatments that lie primarily outside the criminal justice system and yet continue to be treated as ''policing problems.'' Bringing about changes in public policing requires changes in public policy, and these are precisely the types of wicked problems that need innovative policy solutions.

This book is suitable for a wide range of audiences within and outside Canada, including law enforcement and community leaders; scholars and policy experts who specialize in policing; students of criminal justice, organizations, and management; and citizen-consumers of information about policing.

This brief discusses the significant contribution of police search and rescue to the successful location and resolution of missing persons cases. 

Across seven chapters, this volume offers a detailed examination of the routine practices of police search and rescue personnel. To do so, it draws from a collection of data, including in-depth interviews with police and thousands of different types of missing persons records. Laced with the stories of missing persons, it presents a detailed overview of what these teams do, the processes and procedures employed, and the tools and technologies in police search and rescue. It explores some of the challenges impacting police search and rescue response, emphasizing how to leverage this work in the field. This book also identifies future trends to address the “What may be next” question in the police search and rescue response to missing persons.

This brief examines Canadian police incident command response teams’ process of decision-making during major, critical, and public order events. It explores the different factors that influence how police Incident Commanders (ICs) approach their work, and demystifies this work and how it is organized and operationalized.

The chapters in this book detail:

• The basics of how incident command is structured in Canada.

• How incident command models in Canada relate to those in other countries.

• Overviews of the training and responsibilities for different incident command types.

• First-hand accounts of how ICs approach their work and feel about the decisions they have to make.

This book is ideal for practitioners and policymakers who are interested in how this mode of policing works. It is also suitable for policing students in upper-level criminology and criminal justice courses curious about this potential line of work.