Pour ceux qui aiment critiquer le travail policier l'article suivant semble très bien balancé et présente de très belle façon le travail qu'effectue ces gens. Il présente aussi la perception que la population en ont ainsi que le rôle que les média jouent dans ce processus de perception.
Celui-ci est cependant en anglais.
Le nom, l'adresse et le no de téléphone de son auteur ont été effacés.
Bonne lecture pour ceux qui peuvent se rendre jusqu'au bout.
CITATION
The RCMP and Policing in General – An Insiders View
I’m writing this as a retired 20 year veteran of the RCMP. I am neither a spokesperson nor an apologist
for the Force or its Members. All of the opinions expressed are my own and simply provide some of my
personal thoughts and views about the RCMP, the Media and Policing in general. I suppose this was
prompted by the fact that, in spite of the literally hundreds of thousands of positive and successful
police/public contacts in any given year, the vast amount of media coverage deals with the relatively
few verified complaints of police misconduct or failure. It is not my intention to minimize or downplay
police mis-conduct but perhaps I am trying to present a more balanced or alternative view. At least that
is what I am hoping for.
RCMP Hiring
The RCMP’s goal, when hiring, is to get the very best that society offers. In fact, that is not totally
possible. Firstly, they can only hire from the candidates who ‘want’ to be police officers and one has to
assume that many excellent candidates are not interested in such a career. After all, the pay is not great
when considering the responsibilities, the liabilities, the consequences of making a mistake, the
conditions and hours of work and recently, the barrage of negative media coverage which seemingly
tends to paint the Force and ALL Members in a less than flattering light. Secondly, they must hire in
accordance with Federal guidelines which make it mandatory to recruit based on factors like gender,
language, race, culture & education. Anytime you set targeted hiring guidelines you move from hiring
the very best and qualified candidate to hiring the very best and qualified ‘available’ candidate and
there is a difference. I believe that an organization fulfills it’s obligation to equality hiring by simply
making it clear that ‘everyone’ is invited and encouraged to apply and that attempting to hire in order to
fulfill a particular demographic is counter productive.
RCMP Firing
One of the reasons I believe Commissioner Paulson fought so hard to get changes to the RCMP Act was
so that he and the Force would have the authority to fire those members of the Force that were clearly
unsuited to remain as police officers. A ‘bad’ officer is a huge detriment to any police force and their
behavior unfairly taints every police officer in the Country. Up until now, the Force had few tools
available if they wished to terminate an officer. This led to the media and the public being highly critical
of what they must have seen as an unwillingness to fire someone, regardless of how outrageous the
behavior. Naturally this authority must be handled carefully and every Member should be entitled to
due process, however if a Member’s behavior is found to have occurred and warrants termination, then
it should be done firmly and quickly. Hopefully this new legislation allows that.
The Human Factor
First and foremost, all police forces are composed of human beings, and as such, it is simply a fact that
in spite of best efforts, there will be human error. Some of these errors will be in judgment, some in
behavior. Police officers have all the same problems, issues, strengths & weaknesses as the general
public. They are not immune to family or financial problems, substance abuse, mental and physical
health issues or any of the myriad of issues that any other human being may deal with. In truth, the
very nature of police work can have a high human cost and it is paid by the individual officer. It’s almost
impossible to be an operational police officer and not become somewhat desensitized. How can you
spend a shift dealing with a seriously abused child and then show the necessary sensitivity and empathy
to a spouse who has had an argument with a co-worker or a child who has lost their homework or a
citizen who has had their bicycle stolen. Intellectually you may realize that the situation is important to
them but how do you make the emotional transition? This may be interpreted as a lack of caring and
can cause resentment or anger and becomes yet another factor that can affect an officer and which can
change from one day to the next. In a given shift, an officer may be required to notify a family that their
son or daughter has been killed by a drunk driver. Handled properly, this takes the compassion and
empathy of a Priest or trained counselor. An hour later that same officer may have to arrest an impaired
driver who is abusive and un-co-operative and he/she MUST find a way to compartmentalize those two,
very different duties and the very different emotional responses. Later, in the same shift, the officer
may have to intervene in a bar fight. Handled properly this takes physical courage and a strong ‘take
control’ approach. Even later, they may have to handle a dispute between two neighbors. Handled
properly may require the mediation skills of a lawyer or judge. Counselor, enforcer and mediator… all in
one short shift. Can any one individual have ALL the skills that may be required. I mean, you may well
have an officer who is strong, courageous & take charge but who struggles with the sensitivity part.
Conversely, you may have an officer who is sensitive and empathetic but lacks the ability to command or
take charge of a critical situation. This might work except for the fact that police officers don’t get to
pick and choose their assignments and have to adapt to each call as best they can. Can any human being
do this over and over and get it right every time? I sure couldn’t, but most of the officers I ever knew
and worked with did it as well as anyone could have.
Expectations vs Performance vs Reality
It’s hard to describe police work to someone who has never done it. It’s an incredibly difficult job to do
well. Officers are required to place themselves into conflict situations that most people avoid. We ask
them to have the physical abilities of a young person and the wisdom of a senior, to be patient and
understanding , courageous, honest and selfless, sensitive but strong… just to mention a few of the
desired characteristics. In fact, many of the public’s expectations of and for a police officer come from
the hundreds of TV police shows that have been aired over the years where officers have all of the
above noted qualities, where they can arrest multiple suspects with a few deft moves, shoot to wound,
never make a mistake and always solve the crime. It makes for great TV but places an impossible
expectation on the officers doing the real job in the real world. In almost every case, when expectations
exceed the ability to perform, there will be disappointment. Much is made of the fact that officers are
‘trained’ to handle all of the situations they may encounter. Seriously? How do you train someone to
‘handle’ seeing a child with a dozen cigarette burns on their body? How do you train someone to
‘handle’ picking up body parts at a crime or accident scene? Consider for a moment what we as a society
do when there is a mass shooting at a college or university. We rush counselors in to manage the grief
and trauma of the witness’s and who would disagree with that. Then consider that many of the police
officers who have had to attend that same scene may be about the same age or even younger than
many of those college students. There simply is no ‘training’ for this sort of thing. We like to believe that
a police officer is ‘trained’ in martial arts or self defense to a degree that allows him or her to make an
arrest using minimal force and causing no injury to the suspect. Really? Ask a martial arts expert one day
how many years of extensive training it would take to do that. Most officers may receive approx 6
months of training, a small portion of it devoted to self defense. There is nothing pretty about a physical
altercation between two or more adults and there is no way to make it look the way they do on TV. The
same thing applies to a Robert Pickton style investigation. This type of massive investigation is quite rare
and when one does occur there is much ‘on the job’ learning and there are bound to be some
procedural errors. Like other organizations, police try to learn from mistakes and success, in short, from
experience. There is no inate, God given talent bestowed upon a police officer that gives them the
power or ability to make the right decision in any situation regardless of circumstances or experience.
The main difference is the public scrutiny and armchair quarterbacking that almost always occurs in a
police incident or investigation. If you were to offer a University course on policing and cover all
aspects of policing, a four year program would not be unrealistic… but we give a 25 year old six months
to a year of training and then expect him/her to handle anything that may occur in a job where anything
can and does occur. And even if society could afford 4 year training programs for officers, you still
wouldn’t be able to ‘train’ an officer to deal with many of the things noted above. I’m retired from
police work and still can’t forget some of the things I’ve seen and done … and probably never will.
The Medical Factor
I wonder if any one factor has so undermined the ability of an organization to manage employees as
what’s commonly referred to as ‘Stress Leave’. It has gotten to the point that if a supervisor does
admonish or discipline an employee, no matter how warranted, that employee may well go on almost
indefinite leave by claiming that their work environment is too stressful. Perhaps the new catch word is
toxic. Now, a supervisor may be tempted to overlook certain deficiencies or behavior in an employee
rather than risk losing them for several months or even years and that has serious, long term negative
effects on any organization. I don’t think anyone is unsympathetic to an officer who has genuinely gone
through an extraordinarily traumatic experience - work, health or family wise, but there are many more
who have no specific incident or cause but who simply feel that their job ‘stresses’ them out. I don’t
deny that police work, like many other occupations, can be stressful and certainly not everyone is
emotionally or physically suited to the job. That doesn’t in any way make that person inferior or flawed,
they just may not be suited to police work. When this occurs, is it not for their own benefit as well as
the organization’s, to have that quickly determined so that both can move on. From both an
administrative and operational view, how long can or should an employee be absent from work at full
salary before they are deemed unfit or unsuitable for duty? It makes it almost impossible to manage
resources, it places an unfair burden or stress on other officers and it cost’s the tax payer an enormous
amount in wages as well as medical & psychological services.
RCMP Culture
I don’t know how many times I have heard that the ‘culture’ of the RCMP has to change. What nobody
has been able to properly explain to me yet is ‘what is the RCMP culture’ as opposed to a ‘general police
culture’ It’s been said that the RCMP culture is too ‘military’ in nature. In truth, that has not been my
experience. I will say though that there are many situations in police work where it would be
inappropriate to call a meeting, consider everyone’s opinion, arrive at a consensus, form a committee
and then put an action plan into place. Sometimes an order has to be followed immediately and to the
letter or the consequences can be grave. Is that being too ‘military’? Because the safety of fellow
officers and the public often depend upon the actions and decisions made by an officer, demands and
expectations from both peers and supervisors can be quite high, mistakes bluntly pointed out and
debriefings critical and often harsh by some standards. I will admit that this can be very difficult if you
are thin skinned or sensitive to criticism, but when the stakes are high and the effects of an error so
major, I’m not so sure there is room for a different approach. Some of the best boss’s that I ever
worked for were tough, no nonsense supervisors who told it the way it was and left you with no doubt
about where you stood with them. Is it possible that some officers take exception to such criticism,
believe it is directed at them because of personality, gender, race, culture or religion? I suspect that
some have and will continue to do so. Does that mean that the Force and the public would be better
served by a warmer, fuzzier approach? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Thankfully I don’t have to make that call.
Recently there was a public exchange of correspondence between a Constable, a Staff Sergeant and the
Commissioner. While everyone else was questioning the ‘style’ of the Commissioner’s response, I
viewed it differently. I wondered what would have happened if an entry level or mid manager level
employee at say, Esso Oil, had publicly challenged or criticized their CEO. Would there have been a
response to analyze or would they simply have been fired? I wondered what would have happened if a
Private or a Staff Sergeant in the Military had done the same thing to the Commanding General?
Commissioner Paulson has publicly stated time and again that the vast majority of RCMP Members
provide a professional service and that his goal is to get rid of the ones who do not. This requires
significant change and like any organization, there will be those who resist it and some who may even
have a vested interest in not changing. I think the Commissioners restraint in not immediately
disciplining these two Members showed tremendous patience and tolerance. Maybe even too much if
you accept that mid level managers MUST ‘buy in’ to a policy of change even if they disagree with it. I
think it is the same with many organizations, you can have meetings, disagreements, discussions and
different opinions but at the end of the day, when the final decision is made by the General, CEO,
Commissioner or Owner, management needs to show a unified front and either get on board or
disembark.
Internal Investigations
Much has been said about police investigating police and how it should not be allowed due to the
conflict of interest. Frankly, I agree, but perhaps not for the same reason as many of the critics. I have
personally done several ‘internal’ investigations and seen many others. In almost every case the police
are as hard if not harder on their own. It’s difficult for one police officer to con another and in my
experience, no police officer wants a bad apple on the Force. The bad, criminal or unprofessional
behavior of another officer reflects badly on the entire Force and every officer feels that very keenly.
No, the reason I don’t agree with it is all about ‘perception’ . When police investigate police there is
only one outcome that will not result in calls of cover up or bias and that is a finding of guilt and the
laying of charges. Any other finding, regardless of the facts, will be called a cover up. One of the main
critics of police investigating police is the BC Civil Liberties organization. I find it beyond hypocritical that
they take this position when they are members of the legal society which has the largest conflict of
interest on earth. If a lawyer misbehaves, they are investigated & disciplined by other lawyers (Law
Society). If they are criminally charged, they are prosecuted by a lawyer & judged by a lawyer. If they
appeal, their case is reviewed by lawyers right up to and including the Supreme Court which is
comprised of lawyers. I’ve often wondered if they feel that lawyers have so much higher moral and
ethical standards and are therefore more capable of policing themselves? In any event, I think that most
police officers welcome an external investigative organization as it removes any hint or perception,
however unfounded, of undue or improper bias.
Harassment
I suppose one of the problems with the term Sexual Harassment is that nobody really knows what it
means or, perhaps more accurately, everyone has their own idea of what it means. When I think of
sexual harassment it involves a supervisor using their position of authority to reward or punish an
employee based on sexual co-operation. It might also mean supervisors or co-workers who constantly
and consistently make the workplace uncomfortable for an employee with sexually based comments or
actions. Those are just my own thoughts about the matter but I know there are others. I have, over the
years, seen and heard many things that, judged by today’s standards, could be deemed inappropriate
and it has come from both males and females. I have seen Members meet, date and be married happily
for years. I have also seen Members meet, date, and have a very acrimonious split, I have seen spurned
and unhappy males and females, I have seen mutually accepted flirting and I’ve seen some flirting from
both genders that was unwelcome. When you put males and females into a workplace it is naive to
think that a certain amount of sexually based interaction won’t occur. At what point is any of this sexual
harassment? I don’t really know. What I do know is that an allegation of sexual harassment is an easy
one to make and a difficult one to defend against. If the employer goes public in a defensive move, they
are branded as bullies and having a ‘toxic culture’. Remaining silent simply reinforces the allegations.
Perhaps the point I’m making is this; if an officer has been mis-treated or harassed and if there is an
internal process to deal with that, then they should deal with it professionally, in a timely manner and in
the proper venue so that all of the facts and both sides of the story can be told.
The Media Factor
Having a free media is integral to having a free society and its’ importance can’t be overstated. Having
said that, an independent, impartial police force that has the support and the trust of the public is just
as important and I wonder sometimes if this gets lost in all the clutter. When it comes to policing, does
the media have a responsibility to report all the facts in a balanced manner, to report the good with the
bad? What public need gets met if the media portrays policing in such a consistently negative manner
that potentially good candidates decide on a different career path, when experienced officers leave for
other employment, when public confidence is eroded and when disgruntled employees find a
sympathetic and very public method of airing their grievances? It’s not hard to find unhappy employees
in almost any large organization. Sometimes they have genuine complaints and sometimes not but the
media is rarely the best way of dealing with them. When it comes to media coverage, why is it front
page news when a mid level RCMP employee has an affair with a subordinate? Would the same
coverage be given if it involved employees at the Bay, Telus, The Province or BC Hydro? Should a police
officer be held to a higher moral and ethical standard than a Priest, a Politian, a Judge, a Doctor, a
Teacher, a member of the Media? Police officers are paid to enforce the law and keep the peace. They
don’t make the laws, they don’t judge the accused and they don’t sentence the guilty. An officer may be
a terrible spouse, a bad parent or a lousy neighbor and still be a good police officer. Like most large
organizations, there will always be a few who stumble, but most of the police officers I ever knew led
exemplary professional and personal lives and nobody likes to be tarred with the same brush when a
colleague does act badly. Unfortunately, when it comes to police organizations, the reporting of
inappropriate behavior, mistakes, internal disputes or complaints is so tempting because after all, who
doesn’t like watching the referee take a fall. The airing or publishing of unfounded complaints or
allegations by a disgruntled employee is tantamount to interviewing a person about the character of
their ex- spouse. It makes for interesting gossip but nothing more.
Decision vs Outcome
The very nature of police work places officers in confrontational situations where the outcome can vary
greatly depending upon the action of the individual officer and on the decisions or actions of the
person(s) they are interacting with. Rightly or wrongly, the consequences of an officer’s decision or
action can be incredibly serious and are often judged not on the circumstances but on the outcome. As
an example I will use one of the most controversial police actions in recent history, the Robert
Dziekanski case. I use it not because I agree or disagree with the actions of the police, I wasn’t there. I
use it because it illustrates the point I’m trying to make about action & circumstances vs outcome. In
this case, the police officers receive a report of a man acting erratically in the airport arrivals area. They
have no idea who he is or what the situation is. They arrive and find a person who they cannot verbally
communicate with and who is agitated and refuses to settle down. Almost any adult in the world knows
that a person in uniform represents authority and would calm down, but in this case he continued to act
erratically. Of course in hind sight we know why, but at that time these officer’s didn’t and quickly
decided to use a Taser. It is important to remember that this was a Force sanctioned weapon and these
officers had been trained to believe that it was a safe & effective method of taking control of a violent or
resisting suspect. Now imagine if things had worked the way these officers ‘expected’ it would. The
suspect would have collapsed to the ground unharmed and the officers would have placed him in
restraints, taken him to cells and the entire matter would have been a non issue, just like hundreds of
similar situations every day. In this case, however, the ‘outcome’ of the officer’s decision was far
different than what they expected and they were judged on the outcome, not the circumstances. Allow
me to expand further with a different scenario. What if, instead of a Taser, the officers had decided
they would try to physically restrain the suspect. In the altercation, the suspect fell, striking his head on
the desk and dying. I suspect many would have been critical, stating that they were issued Tasers for a
reason and had failed to use the best possible method available to them. Again, judged on the outcome
and not the action. Lastly, suppose they had decided to simply try talking to and calming the subject
down, but, in spite of that, he became so agitated that he threw a chair through the plate glass window
causing a section of it to kill a civilian on the other side. Without doubt, many would accuse the officers
of not acting quickly enough. These are just a few sample scenarios based on one example and
hopefully illustrates how an outcome can vary on factors beyond the control of the officer. The public
seems quick to demand that police abandon techniques and tools that have resulted in death or injury
and yet many more people die every year due to a bad reaction to anesthesia and we don’t demand
returning to a shot of whiskey and a stick to bite on.
The Judgment Factor
Perhaps it’s because I was with the RCMP and am overly sensitive, but it seems to me that there is a
decidedly negative slant to much of the media coverage with regards to the Force. This ignores the fact
that the vast majority of Members provide an amazing service in an almost impossible job. This is not to
say they are ‘better’ than officers from other departments and forces, but they are certainly not worse!
In actual fact, it’s pretty easy to find positive and negative incidents involving every and any police force.
The very nature of police work places officers into conflict situations involving violent & emotional
situations where they are often subject to physical and verbal abuse and are required to make almost
impossible decisions under the worst of conditions… and time and time again they do so with amazing
success. But, like any human endeavor, there is the human factor. Most humans will go their entire adult
lives and never be involved in a serious physical or even verbal confrontation. Officers are involved in
just such incidents time after time. Officers may be routinely cursed at, assaulted, have their families
threatened, be spit upon, have feces thrown at them or deal with any number of other challenging
situations and they may have acquitted themselves well on each occasion. Imagine then that one shift
the same Officer may come to work distracted with personal issues. It could be an argument with a
spouse, no sleep because of a sick child, money or health worries or any of the myriad of issues that can
occur with any human being. This time, when the drunk spits on them or threatens their family they
snap and treat them roughly. The action is caught on tape and the world will judge that officer’s entire
career on a 5 second video tape. Ironically, the ones who will judge him are those who have likely never
been tested even once. It’s like the soldier who fights bravely in 19 fire fights and on the 20th breaks
down and runs. Those who will sit in judgment may well have never been in a single fire fight… and yet
they WILL judge and that soldier’s career, integrity and courage will often be measured based solely on
that 20th fight.
In Conclusion
There has been a lot of public comment about how the RCMP is ‘broken’ or dysfunctional and should be
replaced. This ignores that fact that almost every police organization has its share of both personnel or
operational problems . Maybe it’s time to stop focusing on particular police departments and focus on
police work itself. Are we asking too much of these young men and women? Is it realistic to hold them
to standards so high they are virtually impossible to meet. What is a ‘fair’ standard? How can that be
determined? Certainly by men and women smarter than me, but if we want our best and our brightest
to serve as police officers, we have to find a way to treat them better, to accept, that in spite of best
efforts, mistakes will be made and that some mistakes will have a high cost.
Perhaps we should consider this - Is it possible that no human being is really and truly equipped to
handle all of the things a police officer must see, do and feel on a regular basis throughout their career
and that ultimately, individuals and organizations can only do their best.
If you are a critic and feel you could do better, please, step up and be fitted for a uniform…. when you
have faced the challenges and passed the test then by all means, weigh in, criticize, offer suggestions
and judgments. At least you will have earned the right.
FIN DE CITATION
Accueil 
Mer 12 Sep 2012 - 8:52
