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Robert Chrismas had a great turn-out last week for his launch of Canadian Policing in the 21st Century: A Frontline Officer on Challenges and Changes.
Click here for more photos of the event
Read Robert Chrismas’ blog post here
How can police remain effective and vital in an era of unprecedented technological advances, access to information, and the global transformation of crime? Written by a long-serving officer, Canadian Policing in the 21st Century offers a rare look at street-level police work and the hidden culture behind the badge.
Robert Chrismas shares experiences from his years of service to highlight areas where police can more effectively enforce laws and improve relations with the communities they serve. He proposes tactics for addressing widespread social issues such as gang and domestic violence and strategies for cooperating in international networks tackling human trafficking, internet-based child exploitation, organized crime, and terrorism. Chrismas stresses how changing demographics related to age, gender and racial diversity, and increased dangers and demands, require intensified training and higher education in policing. He highlights the need for more effective collaborative relationships between police and local, provincial, and federal governments, non-government agencies, and their communities.
To learn more about Canadian Policing in the 21st Century, or to order online, click here.
For media inquiries, contact MQUP publicist Jacqui Davis.
Book review from Oxford:
“…Canadian Policing in the 21st Century will certainly interest anyone who studies or practices policing. The prose is easy to follow. The vignettes are very engaging and memorable. Given the detailed account of local public police work that Chrismas provides, scholars and practitioners alike might wish to grab a copy and pass their own judgement. Practitioners who are thinking of writing about their policing work will find Canadian Policing in the 21st Century interesting to assess as a template.”
Oxford University Press: Policing, A Journal of Policy an Practice, published December 1, 2013
From the LITERARY REVIEW OF CANADA
Dr. Boyd, Criminology professor at Simon Fraser University, provides some interesting analysis around some of my assertions, but overall offers very positive comments about the book. Here is a few paragraphs from the 2,000 word review.
Safer, Meaner Streets: Why does life seem more dangerous even as crime rates fall? by NEIL BOYD
(First paragraph)
“Like the author of Canadian Policing in the 21st Century: A Frontline Officer on Challenges and Changes, I have been involved with the criminal justice system for most of my adult life. Unlike Robert Chrismas, however, I have not endured the pressures and stresses of front-line police work, balancing the desire to arrest those who impose harm with the need to simultaneously respect their human rights. I have not seen murderers and the distributors of illegal drugs at their worst, but rather, more often, at their best, able to reflect upon what they have done, years after the crimes in question. I have spent almost 40 years studying law and criminology at something of a distance from the most awful of events, nestled in the comfortable perch of a university on top of a mountain.
(From the middle)
Robert Chrismas is a thoughtful and engaged police officer, and he has produced a manuscript that is a very useful and commendable reflection upon the many mostly positive changes that have occurred in Canadian policing during the past 30 years.
Chrismas writes of changing technologies of communication; the cover of his text has a telling image of a typewriter and a Rolodex, imbedded in a smart phone. His chapter on how the tools of policing have changed allows all of us to reflect upon the ways in which new technologies have transformed our workplaces. For the police officer, a facility with a range of computer programs and an ease and comfort with email and voicemail communications have become a part of the process of crime detection. And, as Chrismas notes, this has led to more effective policing, not only improving processes of crime detection, but also reducing possibilities for human errors in arrest and conviction.
When Robert Chrismas writes of the introduction of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, and the police disclosure of information mandated by the Supreme Court’s decision in Stinchcombe in 1991, he provides a compelling portrait of the increasing demands on police officers. He writes without bitterness or particular regret, noting that while these two initiatives are quite clearly “added stressors” on police time and resources, “such transparency is necessary to ensure that people accused of crimes can mount their defence properly.”
For me, the most compelling chapter in this book is “Transparency and Accountability.” After describing the balancing of the need to keep some critical information confidential when investigating crime, and ways in which police conduct can sometimes work to undermine public trust, Chrismas turns his attention to police culture and the internal conflicts that are inherent in good policing.
(Last paragraph)
Reviewing this book is a challenge for an academic like me, since Chrismas and I come at this material—and these serious social concerns—not so much from different points of view as from different methodologies, both of them valuable in their own ways. My analytical critique aside, what comes shining through this work is a recognition that police on the street today have more respect for human rights than they did a generation ago, and improved technologies that can both limit harms imposed upon law breakers and increase the possibilities for the detection of crime. Perhaps most important of all, police work, as imagined and described by Robert Chrismas, is honourable public service—stressful, frustrating and occasionally dangerous—but wholly deserving of our admiration and support.”
Magazine – Literary Review of Canada
reviewcanada.ca Founded in 1991