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| NEWS > 14 May 2007 |
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There is Hope For Ending Polic
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- In a step toward solving one of Latin America's most unrelenting problems, five Latin American countries sent delegates from police and civil society last week to a conference in Brazil to discuss police reform.
The delegates from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico met in Rio de Janeiro at a seminar sponsored by non-governmental organizations, including the Open Society Institute. Next year, they plan to invite five more countries in an attempt to create a permanent forum on the issue.
The problems are well known: violence... Read more
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 Article sourced from
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Edmonton Journal (subscription
14 May 2007
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Edmonton Police Service
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Canada: Ethics code aims to ma
EDMONTON - An online refresher course and a new code of ethics -- both to be unveiled this fall -- mark a new day in Edmonton police training and self-scrutiny.
The projects tie into continent-wide efforts to make sure all officers play good cop.
"For the most part, good cops are tired of being measured by the behaviour of bad cops," said Gregory Smith, an American expert who helped Edmonton Police start its ethics program.
"There's been a number of high-profile cases in law enforcement where officers just did the wrong thing. In the last 10 years we've increased our acknowledgement that there are problems and we want to fix our own problems. Ethics training is part of that fix."
Smith has been associate director at the Texas-based Institute For Law Enforcement Administration for the past nine years. During the past decade, several Edmonton police ethics trainers studied at the institute, and currently use its curriculum in the eight-hour course for recruits.
The new online refresher course is being developed in-house.
"It's for the entire membership, both sworn and non-sworn, all ranks," said Sgt. Carol Glasgow, who is designing the 45-minute course to come out this fall. The course will teach officers decision-making steps to identify all consequences of their actions.
Edmonton's newest initiatives stem from a standing ethics committee formed by deputy chief Norm Lipinski last November. The committee reviews internal policy with input from non-police professionals, and expects to have a code of ethics written by mid-summer. The code will eventually be posted on an internal website.
"It's more of a reminder than anything else," Lipinski said. "(Ethics) will be a thread throughout the organization."
Glasgow attributed Edmonton's new focus to a greater articulation of ethical rules throughout society. But these initiatives come after several high-profile allegations of police misconduct -- the Overtime stakeout where several officers appeared to target a journalist and local politician, the "no rats" T-shirts handed out to downtown officers at a police softball event, and recent allegations police have been transporting homeless people from Whyte Avenue to inner-city neighbourhoods against their will.
Edmonton residents who feel they've been mistreated can submit an official complaint to the Edmonton Police Commission, but some community leaders are glad to hear police are finding other ways to get at the roots of misconduct.
Jim Gurnett, head of the downtown Mennonite Centre for Newcomers and former manager of community services at the Bissell Centre, said he's seen "way too much behaviour that I would say was an abuse of (police) power and their status in the community.
"It's hard to generalize. There are individuals that are very good and wonderful with people, but ... I don't think there's (just) a few bad apples," he said. "Those dramatic incidents grow out of a low-grade indifference to what it means to have power over other people and it's displayed a lot in kind of a pushy and aggressive attitude towards people."
Gurnett said many confrontations he hears about never make it to a disciplinary hearing. Homeless, low-income and immigrant people don't have the resources or confidence to make it through the red tape.
"This issue is never going to be dealt with by people at the receiving end registering complaints," he said.
Smith, the American advisor to the Edmonton project, said changing how police think about their roles is exactly what ethics training tries to accomplish.
"One of the best ways to improve law enforcement officers is to start looking at things like ethics and communication, diversity and all those soft skills that improve the human being," he added. "When you improve the human being, you improve the police officer."
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