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Good cop, bad cop
The Democratic Coalition is in favour of the community policing because it's a form of strengthening democratic structures. Community policing means greater civilian input into the way the police operate--which means you get more accountability and professionalism from police officers. Once you have local scrutiny, a brutal cop will be fingered by everybody. We supported community policing when the proposal was first brought forward. But back then we said that while we supported it, the proposal was full of holes, and even now it remains full of holes. First, there has been no consultation, no information, no dialogue. Community policing is quickly becoming a reality, and the bulk of Montrealers don't even know that it's happening. Then there's the way the system has been set up. There are 49 points of service, or community stations, and four megacentres. But it's the megacentres that handle a lot of the important work--the detectives and the jails are located there. Meanwhile, most of those community stations are closed at night. People aren't sure where they're supposed to go. The next question is: have the police changed? The move towards community policing is a major transformation. But most uniformed officers received two days' training and were told, "Congratulations, you are now a community cop." They're not. Officers, particularly the older ones who've been there 25 years, can't change overnight. Then there's the issue of community involvement itself. In many areas, phase 1 of the new model--the creation of the community stations--is either complete or well under way. But the local consultative committee for the community stations has not been created properly. Now the MUC says that phase 2 of the implementation is when they'll get around to the consultative committee. But that's the means of civilian control they're ignoring. It is vital in a democracy to have civilian control of the police. But Police Chief Jacques Duchesneau wanted to scrap the civilian authority altogether within the Ethics Commission: In 1995, he had proposed that all Code of Ethics issues be handled internally. Instead, we got a system of obligatory conciliation for almost all complaints, which doesn't wipe out civilian input but still weakens it. They've done away with the quasi-judicial body, which ensured that everyone's rights were protected and that there was a proper investigation. The new system will substitute apologies for sanctions. We'll end up with mass-produced conciliation. Duchesneau believes that the police should control the police. To some degree, this is natural: police have always preferred the military model, where complaints are handled internally and discipline is handed down by superiors. And I will say this for the MUC Police: they don't stand for corruption at all. Police officers don't tolerate it within their ranks. But they've been very weak when it comes to rooting out brutality. Community involvement is essential. But if you believe in the democratization of police operations, you also have to believe in participation. Right now, in Montreal, there is no community interest at all. And politicians aren't leading the way, either. The Public Security Commission is not providing any forum for people to air their views--that civilian body is nothing more than a rubber stamp right now. I hate to say it because some of the people on the Commission are my friends, but there are huge changes happening and they don't seem to be involved at all. They've only held information meetings on community policing--they've had no public consultation. We'll have had 18 months of community policing before ever having a public hearing. So now I've started to organize my own meetings where people can come and talk about it. City councillor Robert Côté, who used to be with Vision Montreal, told me, "Marvin, all you're doing is parallelling the structures that are already in place." Maybe, but I don't think the current structures are doing their job. I don't want to replace the official channels, but if things keep up like this, I might have no choice.
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Marvin Rotrand of the Democratic Coalition has been sticking his nose into police affairs since he was first elected as Snowdon's city councillor fifteen years ago. Now, as the MUC Police begin implementing the new community policing system across Montreal, Rotrand has some sharp criticism for Police Chief Jacques Duchesneau and the Public Security Commission, the political arm of the police administration. In the following excerpts from an interview with News Editor Philip Preville, Rotrand explains how the good idea of community policing went wrong.