These subcategories reflect a review of major themes in story content. Policing includes: RCMP, Crime, Law Enforcement, Tasers, Justice System, Parole, Prisons
Policing
wdt_ID | Details | Author | Date of Publication | Media Outlet | Title | Category Name | Story summary |
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1 | More details | Staff | 06/05/1985 | Canadian Press | Mounties keep a few pages of the book to themselves | RCMP, CRIME, LAW ENFORCEMENT | The RCMP operations manual is in six large binders covering everything from handling senators to nuclear weapons. There are 23 entries with instructions for dealing with a variety of accidents, and 42 entries for arrest procedures. Mounties attending university “shall not be used for gathering intelligence on campus.” Juveniles “shall not be developed, tasked, or paid as a source but information volunteered may be accepted” if the parents are informed. Portions of the manual were declassified under the ATIA, but large chunks remain secret because the RCMP say disclosure could tip off criminals to procedures or jeopardize national security. |
2 | More details | Jeff Sallot | 11/04/1986 | Globe and Mail | No warrants out for 16,000 tracked by police network | RCMP, CRIME, LAW ENFORCEMENT | Canadian police forces are using a sophisticated computer program to help keep track of the movements of about 16,000 people. These ''persons for observation" are not wanted on a warrant for any specific offence. But they may be suspected of criminal activity by a police officer somewhere in Canada. A heavily censored copy of the CPIC operations manual and other related documents were obtained by The Globe from the RCMP under the ATIA. Individuals in the observation file are those ''who are believed committing criminal offences and sufficient information is unavailable to prosecute," the CPIC manual says. ''Persons for observation" is a distinct category in the giant Canadian Police Information Centre computer system. |
3 | More details | Andrew McIntosh | 01/08/1986 | Globe and Mail | {*} Senior Mounties received reports on union activity | RCMP, CRIME, LAW ENFORCEMENT | RCMP officers sent Commissioner Robert Simmonds and senior commanders confidential reports on the organizing activities of the Association of 17 Divisions, the group overseeing the union drive. Members of the association's chapters in Quebec and British Columbia have been working since 1979 to organize a union within the 14,000-member federal law enforcement agency. Several reports relating to the unionization drive were among documents the RCMP released to the Globe under the ATI Act. One dated Nov. 27, 1981, and written by Inspector D. J. Haggerty of E Division in B.C., describes in detail what transpired at the association's third annual meeting in Surrey on Nov. 12, 1981. |
4 | More details | Peter Moon | 03/11/1986 | Globe and Mail | {*} RCMP used 'racist' manual; Report on recruiting was hidden in archives after 35 years | RCMP, CRIME, LAW ENFORCEMENT | A RCMP 'racist' manual on recruiting was removed from the headquarters personnel branch in 1979 after a senior French-Canadian Mountie made repeated complaints about it. Written for the RCMP in 1944, it contained such remarks as: French Canadians are less stable than English Canadians, and are ignorant because of religious and nationalist influences; Canadians of central European and Ukrainian backgrounds tend to be violent, unclean and unpredictable; Germans and Scandinavians have better natural abilities as policemen than many other racial groups; Indians on a reserve near Montreal were violent and quick-tempered. The reports were obtained by The Globe through the ATIA. They were written by Roderick Haig-Brown, who, as a captain in the Canadian army, was seconded to the RCMP in 1944 to help the force establish a personnel department. Senior officers at RCMP headquarters, after some discussion about destroying all references to the reports, eventually responded by destroying the reports but sending microfilm of them to the force's archives, with severely limited access to the film. All references to the reports and to Capt. Haig-Brown were removed from RCMP personnel files and manuals. |
5 | More details | Stephen Bindman | 15/07/1987 | Ottawa Citizen | Witness protection plan studied | RCMP, CRIME, LAW ENFORCEMENT | The federal and provincial governments are studying ways to beef up protection for witnesses who testify against organized crime bosses. The Witness Security Program administered by the U.S. Marshals Service has a $28-million annual budget and relocates between 300 and 400 witnesses each year. A 1984 federal discussion paper, obtained by the Citizen under the ATIA, concluded it was difficult to demonstrate a need for a similar program. But the report said the U.S. program is "an important, often an essential factor in the successful prosecution of persons engaged in organized criminal activity. " The discussion paper suggested that if the service is set up, it be used as a " last resort " when there is " clear evidence " the life of an essential witness or his family is in danger. |
6 | More details | Elizabeth Thompson | 29/12/1987 | Montreal Gazette | {*} Tory with criminal record got Mirabel security contract | RCMP, CRIME, LAW ENFORCEMENT | A Conservative party organizer was given an untendered contract to guard vacant properties near Mirabel airport, although he has a criminal record and no permit to operate as a security guard in Quebec. The contract was awarded to Gilbert Desjardins by Canada Lands Co. (Mirabel) Ltd., a federal Crown corporation. Canada Lands director of finance said he didn't know Desjardins had a criminal record when he hired him because he never checked. The $42,000 paid to Desjardins' company, Le Receveur Inc., for security services came under fire after an internal audit criticized the way the contract was awarded and said there was "no evidence on file that showed visits were being made once per week as per the contract." Courthouse records show Desjardins was charged with assault and mischief causing damage to private property in a 1982 case. |
7 | More details | Stephen Bindman | 16/03/1988 | Ottawa Citizen | No equity for women in RCMP, report says | RCMP, CRIME, LAW ENFORCEMENT | Women are still not accepted as equals in the RCMP and are resented by many of their male colleagues, an internal Mountie study in 1986 has found. It said some of the force's policies not only have a negative effect on the attitude of male officers, but also "present a permanent career obstacle" to women in the RCMP. "It would appear that newly hired female members are asked to start their career several hundred yards behind their male counterparts and expected to catch up, when already they face an uphill battle as females in a male world," it concludes. "The evidence is strong that many of our male members continue to hold a negative attitude and do not accept policewomen." |
8 | More details | Peter Moon | 11/02/1989 | Globe and Mail | {*} Feuds hinder law enforcement, study says RCMP 'undermined' by other agencies | RCMP, CRIME, LAW ENFORCEMENT | The enforcement of Canada's federal laws is plagued by duplication of effort, poor management, professional incompetence, destructive rivalry and a lack of over-all government control, says a study by the Police and Security Branch of the Department of the Solicitor-General. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and 46 other agencies are responsible for enforcing federal statutes at a cost of more than a half-billion dollars a year. Much of that money, the study found, is poorly spent. A heavily censored copy of the study was obtained from the RCMP two years after The Globe applied for it under the ATIA. It was released only after the access commissioner ruled that the RCMP's reluctance to release the report was unacceptable and offered to take the Mounties to Federal Court on The Globe's behalf. |
9 | More details | Peter Moon | 15/02/1989 | Globe and Mail | Shipping act too complicated to be well enforced, report says | RCMP, CRIME, LAW ENFORCEMENT | The Canada Shipping Act is so complex and covers so many things that enforcement is falling through the cracks. "Generally, the Canada Shipping Act is in dire need of review to determine the value of many (of its) provisions that accord enforcement powers to authorities who may be either ignorant of their existence or ill equipped or reluctant to carry out enforcement functions," says the confidential 1986 report by the Police and Security Branch of the Department of the Solicitor-General, obtained from the RCMP by The Globe through the ATIA. The Act has more than 400 pages and deals with a bewildering list of maritime subjects, ranging from the catering of shipboard meals and the safe operation of pleasure craft to the protection of the wild horses on Sable Island. |
10 | More details | David Vienneau | 04/08/1989 | Toronto Star | Women still fear reporting rape study shows | RCMP, CRIME, LAW ENFORCEMENT | Women remain reluctant to report sexual assaults despite a six-year-old law that was intended to minimize their trauma. This is true even though more victims are reporting they have been raped, says a study. Data for it, which The Star obtained under the ATIA, was collected from rape crisis centres, police- based victim assistance programs and hospital treatment teams across Canada. "There was a strong statement that there was still a considerable way to go in improving the awareness of police, crown and defence (lawyers) regarding the nature and impact of sexual assault," it says. "This lack of awareness was seen as leading to negative treatment of the survivor, to a lack of rigor in applying all relevant aspects of the changed legislation, and contributing to strained relationships with front-line agencies." |