The Toronto Police Service is embroiled in an unprecedented crisis following a criminal investigation that led to several officers being charged with a list of drug trafficking, theft, conspiracy, fraud and other offences related to an organized crime investigation.
Project South was a seven-month long investigation that disrupted a criminal network that used information supplied to them via police databases.
The details of Project South were disclosed during a news conference that featured senior police officers bizarrely wearing bullet-proof vests. The core of these allegations involve claims of officers leaking information to this network that contributed to a series of violent crimes, including a conspiracy to murder a correctional officer.
Image management strategies activated
Toronto police Chief Myron Demkiw promised that no stone would be left unturned in the investigation and said the actions of a few officers did not define the force. He requested an independent external investigation before announcing the Project South charges.
The head of the Toronto Police Association, Clayton Campbell, similarly said there is “nothing our members hate more than a corrupt cop.”
Ontario’s inspector general of policing announced the province will lead a review of police services to address corruption in policing.
These public statements and requests for a probe are best understood through the lens of police image management, which refers to the array of what are essentially marketing strategies employed by police services to maintain their public image.
The police employ a series of strategic communications in times of crisis, and in their routine corporate communications, to convey a curated image to the public. Like other public relations strategies, this can obscure systemic issues in policing.
The statements from Demkiw and Campbell serve several functions, all of which are intended to safeguard the public image of policing. They disavow the charged officers, protect the reputation of the larger policing community and demonstrate a public-facing commitment to change.
Demkiw’s request for an external investigation, outlined during the news conference, is a strategy that allows the Toronto Police Service to be seen as taking the issue seriously and pre-empts public calls for such a response.
Police misconduct in Toronto and beyond
Allegations of misconduct against the Toronto Police Service have persisted for decades and include charges of corruption, theft, evidence management, misleading the court and fraud, among other offences.
A 2020 study investigating the experiences of inner-city Toronto residents subjected to police raids also demonstrated that allegations of theft, violence and intentional property damage are commonplace.
Some researchers have argued that a double standard exists for police services in terms of officers accused of corruption and other forms of misconduct. They argue that police often demand harsh sentences and punishment for members of the public, but face less severe consequences when misconduct is addressed internally.
A lesser-known form of police misconduct surrounds the abuse of police databases. Officers across Canada have used databases to stalk former partners, interfere in investigations for friends and family, form intimate relationships, access the personal information of and monitor lawyers and leak information.
While Campbell noted that searches on police databases leave digital footprints, this does little to prevent their abuse.
Like ticket-fixing, database abuse is difficult to detect. The true scope of database abuse is immeasurable, owing to the vast volume of data and searches officers perform, which makes it difficult to distinguish legitimate policing activity from illegitimate activity. What is known about its prevalence should be regarded as the tip of the iceberg.
Why bother?
So what value does an “independent” probe into Ontario police services offer? Considering the hard-to-detect nature of many forms of police misconduct, the efficacy of such an initiative is debatable.
There is also an inherent contradiction at play. The probe is being directed at all Ontario police services, suggesting that these forms of misconduct are systemic.
But Ontario Premier Doug Ford referred to a “few bad apples” in response to the public uproar following the Project South charges, suggesting there’s no systemic issue in place.
So why launch such an expansive probe that will likely cost taxpayers millions of dollars if these acts of misconduct are limited to a select few officers?
Demkiw’s request for an independent probe is an admission that police misconduct is systemic, but places the onus for repair onto an independent institutional body. As I’ve argued previously, police services cannot be trusted to repair these issues. This strategy not only allows police forces to appear as though they take internal corruption seriously, but insulates them from future criticism when officers engage in misconduct.
Considering there are already calls for Demkiw to resign, inaction would mark the end of his career.
Nonetheless, while the probe promises to investigate the “totality of the landscape” of policing in Ontario, the public should regard these efforts as a form of image management that insulates police forces from serious, genuine scrutiny.
Better ways to prevent corruption
While the police are mitigating the damage stemming from Project South, the question of how to prevent these abuses arises.
The existing mechanisms for detecting database abuse, for example, are inherently reactive. These issues are brought to the attention of the police following the misconduct.
One strategy to address this issue is a more robust system of random audits that function as a general “integrity check” on the police use of databases. This would function in tandem with a requirement that officers provide a detailed explanation of why searches on people are performed, creating a more substantive digital footprint that may be audited.
This strategy will inherently be met with resistance from police unions and researchers who partner with the police who have drawn attention to the occupational stress stemming from police reporting requirements.
But the research drawing attention to report writing and its proposed relationship to occupational stress fails to adequately consider that report writing is not only an expected function of the police — it may also be a critical avenue for accountability.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
