Community into Intelligence: Resolving Information uptake in the RCMP

Abstract

Police now and then undergo radical mission adaptation. Yet, how events shape organizational police history, including the adoption of radically different missions, has largely evaded scholarship. Through a review of executive-level interviews and strategic leadership documents, we trace how the Royal Canadian Mounted Police turned from a community-policing mission to one which now highlights intelligence. We argue that while various programs and strategies to garner rank-and-file and public buy-in to the community-policing mission largely failed, problem-oriented policing nevertheless readied the ground for the next mission iteration: intelligence-led policing. The core problem underpinning the transition was not community service, but information uptake.

Making up ‘Terror Identities’: security intelligence, Canada's Integrated Threat Assessment Centre and social movement suppression

“…Likewise, our analysis lends itself to an understanding of surveillance that emphasises how intelligence gathering always takes place within a political context (see also Brodeur and Leman-Langlois 2006). In response to the perceived failures of security intelligence as it regards the events of 11 September 2001, 'doctrinal changes' (Gill 2004) or 'mission adaptation' (Deukmedjian and de Lint 2007) are altering the face of security intelligence in Canada. We have not focused on the up-take of new forms of national intelligence by municipal police.…”

“…In this way, the blurring of these categories has become a strategy of CSIS to rationalise domestic spying campaigns that target grassroots social movements under the statutory responsibilities of Canadian law. This shift constitutes what Deukmedjian and de Lint (2007) refer to as a 'mission adaptation' insofar as one set of intelligence targets disappears from the reports while grassroots political opposition receives more scrutiny. The shifting and blurred focus of these reports also draws attention to the knowledge work that intelligence officers do in creating the classifications that become organizing rubrics within intelligence clusters and the policing agencies they communicate with.…”

“…This transformation includes a broadening of the scope and a 'fusion' of the responsibility for security intelligence, primarily in response to the perceived failures of intelligence with the events of 11 September 2001. The 'doctrinal changes' (Gill 2004) or 'mission adaptation' (Deukmedjian and de Lint 2007) are altering the face of security intelligence in Canada. Bell (2006) argues that, since 11 September 2001, national security and intelligence agencies in Canada have explicitly extended their reach, where the targets are defined more on the basis of suspicion.…”

Community Safety Officers in Western Canada

“…The RCMP's own evaluation showed that RCMP CSOs broke the rules, substantiating the point of Deukmedjian and de Lint (2007) that community policing is misaligned with the RCMP's overall approach. CSOs are associated with a bottom-up outlook on policing and safety (Shepherdson et al, 2014), but the RCMP adoption and adaptation of the model invert this.…”

An Empirical Study of Intelligence Strategy Implementation

“…Deukmedjian and Lint (2007) find that this process invites suspicion and distrust because it is predicated on concealed methods.…”