Problem
The major problem with the Toronto Police’s budget cuts are that they plan to freeze hiring for three years. This has caused major burnout rates and a reduction in moral in many officers (Fox, 2017). The plan initiated by the Toronto Police this January is one looking at a change to police culture as well as budget reduction. The hiring freeze is a product of the budget, the Toronto Police Service has hit the 1 billion mark as of this year, exceeding any budget ever had in the past (Powell, 2016). The Toronto police have made it their goal to not go over this cap and are doing everything in their power to cut costs. One of the ways they plan on doing this is through a 3-year hiring freeze of all civilian and new cadets (Lee-Shanok,
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Firstly, it reduces the Toronto Polices budget by elevating outside expenditures. Currently, the costs of running court services and parking enforcement is astronomical. The Toronto Police Service spends 30 million dollars of their budget on parking enforcement and a whopping 45 million a year on court services (Dimatteo, 2016). Taking these out of the budget eradicates these costs and thus frees up a huge chunk of money for police expenses. Secondly, removing these agencies from the police budget does not remove them from the publics jurisdiction. The complaint that parking enforcement would become ticket oriented is untrue as it would maintain in the governments authority thus maintaining the same procedures as existed previously. Moreover, the funds that Parking enforcement would not be lost. Many believe that parking enforcement is revenue positive. However, what they fail to realize is placing it within the cities budget still allows the government to collect the funds, it is just in a different budget. Finally, it is being transferred into a budget that has the budget to maintain it. Currently the city is operating under a 10.5-billion-dollar budget (Toronto, 2017) and starting July 1st of next year, Marijuana is supposed to be legal (Cochrane, 2017) bringing in a whole new revenue stream for Toronto. Deloitte business services firm projects, marijuana will boost Canada’s economy up to $22.6 billion annually (Tencer, 2016). Thus, …show more content…
A prominent example is that of the privatization of Hydro One. Premier Kathleen Wynne wants to build $29-billion worth of new transit, roads and bridges over the next 10 years, and needs a way to pay for it(Morrow, 2015). In order to find more money, she has decided to sell off government assets (Morrow, 2015). This takes them out of the budget thus reducing expenditures as well as brings in money to be sued on other aspects of government. This is the same to Toronto removing the agencies not directly related to policing. It will provide more money to the force and remove the expenses that came along with harbouring those agencies. As Sappington and Stiglitz (1987)’s fundamental “Irrelevance Theorem” explains, privatization may be, under some conditions, an optimal solution to the delegation problem (Martimort,
The article also discusses the challenges of attracting and recruiting police officers. Many police departments pay higher than the state police department, which tends to draw the police officers’ attention. Currently state police departments have to decide how to attract police
The field of police work is constantly being forced to develop and improve its protocols, procedures, and practices in an effort to keep pace with the ever-changing society in which it operates and criminal behavior it seeks to eradicate. While the history of policing has been marked by substantial changes throughout time, the work of modern-day police officers and officials demonstrate some of the most substantial adaptations to its surrounding environment that the field has ever seen. In order to understand where the future of policing is heading, it is important to first understand these current trends that are affecting the current landscape of the profession. By
In recent years, recruitment and retention of police officers has been a pain point for many departments across the nation. Odd and inflexible hours, uncompetitive pay, para-militaristic organizational structures, and a negative public perception have all worked to diminish the pool of applicants interested in careers in law enforcement. Add to the mix the sexist “brotherhood” police culture, emphasis on masculinity and aggression, and the nearly non-existent opportunities for advancement for women, and over half of the eligible workforce has been discouraged from even considering a career in law enforcement. In 2013, women comprised just over 57% of the labor force, but accounted for only 13% of sworn police officers (USDOL, 2013; Crooke, 2013). Not only are women sorely underrepresented in the field of law enforcement, but those who are employed experience discrimination at the hands of their supervisors and coworkers, and as a result, the attrition rate for women is often much higher than that of their male counterparts. Departments should pledge dedication to recruiting and retaining more female officers, as research indicates that not only do females perform just as well as males in patrol positions, but they also have a unique set of advantages to offer agencies when employed in law enforcement. In order to improve the recruitment and retention of females into policing roles, departments must determine the biggest deterrents for women who are considering the pursuit
In the article, “Police Academy Socialization: Understanding the Lessons Learned in a Paramilitary Bureaucratic Organization”, Chappell and Lanza-Kaduce discuss the positive and negative effects that occur with type of recruit training, as well as, the outcomes of transitioning towards community policing training. The paramilitary structure entails hard physical training, performing under stress, defense tactics, the use of force, and mastering weapons skills. This paramilitary form of training focuses on being “able to mold them to accept the organizational culture”, drilling recruits on the basics, while preparing them for the demandingness of the job (Chappell, 189). There are numerous pros, which include a prominent chain of command, understanding
Underfunding is the greatest Challenge that is faced by the Canadian Criminal Justice System. This paper will discuss the Police Forces aging population and the challenges to replace them when they retire, it will also look at the insufficient quantity of officers needed to investigate all crime. The underfunding of the legal aid program and the effects on the courts and family law will be discussed. Finally the effects of long-term underfunding of the countries prison system and its effects on the most vulnerable inmates will also be measured.
Many people might argue that the lack of training in the police force is more harmful to the officers than the effect it has on society. Leslie Pfeiffer mentions in her article “” that the Federal government devotes a shocking amount of money toward training, yet local police agencies are often left to fend for themselves” (Pfeiffer). Whatsoever the federal government may be doing with the funds should undoubtedly be providing effective programs and necessities to ensure a complete and sufficient training process for officers. Often time’s people forget that although the officer is vulnerable to failure, error, and possible injury, in the event of a possible suspect or wrongfully accused person the lack of knowledge perceived by the officer can cause outcomes such as hostility, hatred, and death. Not only are officers fending for themselves but in
The increase of the municipal system, and having standards for such systems is why the police departments are like it is not. From centuries and centuries of having vague ideas about what the police officers do and why the police offers are doing what they do, the unification of the police department is just would change how we answer those questions. In the United States southern region, their use of the policing departments was similar to the north but had some dissimilar roots or causes for the change in the various cities policing departments. Reformation of the police department from very scattered policy of ideas to a nationwide acceptance of the various roots in the basic police department is revolution of the police
In 2015, the COPS budget was cut by nearly $300 million and as a result, new officers received poor training as programs that were considered highly essential to the learning process of rookie cops were exterminated as the programs could no longer receive funding. This has caused poorly trained officers, with lethal weapons, to make poor decisions such as using violence, being neglectful, and directing derogatory terms at minorities and it all comes right back to the fact that cops are only taught how to use a gun properly and arrest a criminal. The physical, mental, and/or communication skills that an officer lacks shouldn’t determine the fate of an individual’s safety or
Public safety and the safety of communities are one of the most important areas of focus for the police, which is why I chose to do my policing paper on the crime prevention program known as TAVIS. TAVIS stands for Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy and was created on January 5th, 2006 which included 3 new rapid response teams with 18 officers on each team. The idea was that the teams could be released instantly if any gang or gun violence was reported. A total of an additional 72 officers were formed into these teams and are strategically placed throughout
Since the founding of the United States, the responsibility for enforcing laws has been given to state and local governments. The biggest strength that this distribution of power has granted is that the citizens can have a connection to their officers because they are feeling that they are being policed by one of their own. This keeps the law, law enforcement, and your connection to it close as opposed to (only) having it enforced by entities who do not know your area or the people that live in the area. Along similar lines, local policing provides the opportunity to build relationships with the people they serve, which can go a long way in reducing crime. Despite these two strengths, the biggest weakness is that local law enforcement agencies can, and often are both underfunded and understaffed, preventing the agency from being able to combat crime and help their communities to the level that they wish. The other big weakness to local law enforcement is that due to there being so many localities (most with their own law enforcement agencies), there can be some confusion to the overlap of jurisdictions. The alternative to local policing, which has been gaining some steam in the United States since the start of the 21st century, is placing the responsibility for law
Police Agencies in modern society are a part of the American fabric to serve and protect the American public. The United States currently have more than 15,000 police agencies, (Walker & Katz, 2011). Police Departments across the United States face similar critical issues policing. All police officers face dangers in the job of policing the dangers can emanate from internal and external origins. Police officers have continued to evolve to serve communities by finding better less than lethal alternatives to weapons used. In addition, police departments have continued to keep up with
This article is about the catastrophic backlog in the Toronto police background checks for students who would like to enter the RCMP after they graduate. This is a big problem for the students and for the RCMP. For the students it means that it will take longer for them to get the job that they have studied for and will have to wait a while for them to pay off the debt. The reason why this is a big problem for the RCMP is because they have to do a background check on anyone. The Toronto police get around 200 new requests for checks each day, which cased the backlog of almost 17,00 request. Also if the request is the same gender and birthday of a wanted criminal the RCMP requires finger prints to determine if the person did not change their name without the government knowing causing a bigger delay because of the amount of people in each province. The RCMP have to require finger prints from everyone who needs vulnerable sector screening but they find that it could cause more a backlog for the system that keeps all the records.
Over the last several years, most police departments have been facing numerous financial challenges. The main reason is law enforcement agencies are expected to do more with less and the stagnant economy. The combination of these factors has been placing pressure on many departments to begin imposing budget cuts. Evidence of this can be seen with a survey that was conducted by the University of North Carolina. They found that 67% of police departments made some kind of budget cuts for 2011. The most severe reductions were occurring in large police departments such as Los Angeles, Atlanta and Detroit. (Delfem, 2011, pp. 199 - 205) This is illustrating one of the most pressing issues affecting a wide variety of police departments across the country. To fully understand what is happening requires: examining the situation, how they are able to interact with other agencies (i.e. state / federal) and recommending the way this relationship can be improved. Together, these elements will offer specific insights about how police departments can effectively address this problem.
Friederich Nietzsche wrote, “Whoever fights monsters should seek to it that in the process he does not become a monster”. This aptly applies to police officers who face unexpected and potentially dangerous situations every day. Police officers are confronted with destructive and negative behavior on a regular basis. Law enforcement is one of the most stressful and demanding professions in the United States. Characteristics of police work are stressful because a situation can change at any time. An FBI report shows that approximately twelve out of every one hundred or 60,000 police officers are assaulted each year (Stevens, p. 587). Combined with many other factors,
Police Reform should be one of the many issues handled in the first one-hundred days of our new President’s term. The unrest and corruption are actions that do not belong in our police force. The criminal justice system needs revised. Since 1791 Americans have lost 20,789 officers killed in the line of duty (Law Enforcement Facts 1). To modernize this statistic, from 2004-2013 an average of 151 officers have died in the line of duty (Deaths,