A qualitative examination of unhoused community members' experiences with police and peace officers

• In Event: POL Panel 23. Police partnerships and collaboration

Abstract

In recent years, criminologists, advocates, and politicians have increasingly called for police ‘de-tasking,’ where several existing police activities and functions are re-assigned to ‘better suited' agencies and institutions. In addition to decreasing harms stemming from criminalization and over-policing, calls for police 'de-tasking' are rooted in the recognition that many policing tasks—especially ‘public disorder’ policing—are an inefficient use of resources and that ‘civilian’ and ‘community’-based policing groups are more appropriately suited for certain tasks. In Canada, one such 'civilian' initiative has included the deployment of Peace Officers. Despite cities’ increasing use of Peace Officers, little is known about how those most likely to interact with them— unhoused community members—perceive and experience Peace Officer interactions and whether/how they differentiate between peace officers and police officer treatment. Drawing upon 45 interviews and ethnographic observations with unhoused community members in a Canadian city, we demonstrate that unhoused community members held more negative views of peace officers, describing them as more punitive, violent, and harassing than police officers. Participants routinely attributed these negative experiences to Peace Officers' more limited training and preferred more Police Officer than Peace Officer presence. We interrogate how/why the shift to more affordable policing models for ‘public disorder’ policing may result in increased legitimacy for police officers while resulting in unhoused community members' disdain for civilian-based Peace Officers.

Authors

• Katheryn Lee, University of Alberta

• Marta-Marika Urbanik, University of Alberta

• Carolyn Greene, Athabasca University

• Katharina Maier, University of Winnipeg