NCJ Number
177346
Date Published
1997
Length
442 pages
Annotation
This is a sociologically based, introductory textbook that provides information on the key issues and debates associated with policing in Canada.
Abstract
The book contains 12 chapters. The first four chapters contexualize policing in Canadian society. One chapter introduces students to the concept of policing and illustrates the interrelationship police agencies have with other agents of the criminal justice system and the public. The second chapter discusses the development of modern police agencies and provides an historical account of how the three levels of Canadian policing -- Federal, Provincial, and municipal -- developed. The third chapter illustrates how these three levels exist and coexist today. The fourth chapter supplements the previous chapters with a theoretical discussion of the police role and its evolution. The next two chapters are concerned with police organization and management. One chapter addresses the recruitment and selection process and ongoing attempts to recruit women, ethnic minorities, and homosexuals to policing. The second chapter addresses one of the key aims of the text by integrating theories of police organizations with research findings and includes details of many seminal academic works on policing. Chapter seven grounds an analysis of police behavior in both theoretical and empirical perspectives, as do the following two chapters on occupational stress and deviance and accountability. The final three chapters discuss issues that are currently being debated in the police environment: community policing and the policing of Aboriginal peoples. Appended RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) Act and Ontario Police Services Act, a 378-item bibliography, and a subject index