Citizens' Rights and Police Powers (From Police Powers in Canada: The Evolution and Practice of Authority, P 59-74, 1994, R. C. Macleod and David Schneiderman, eds. - See NCJ-157774)

• NCJ Number: 157778
• Author(s): R A Shiner
• Date Published: 1994
• Length: 16 pages
• Sale Source: University of Toronto Press
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: Canada

Annotation

This discusses focuses on the need for Canadian policy makers to balance more effectively police powers with citizens' rights.

Abstract

The author views citizens' rights, such as those embodied in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to be a determination of general human rights to a part of fundamental criminal justice. In Canada, a liberal democratic society, the powers of the police to achieve the ends for which the institution was designed, are limited by law, although these limitations are often viewed by the police and their supporters as undue interference with their law enforcement responsibilities. This essay focuses on the metaphor of the need to balance police powers and citizens' constitutional rights, and compares that philosophical metaphor to the reality of police-citizen relations in Canada. 39 notes