Canadian police chiefs and law reform The historical perspective

Abstract

An examination of the history of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP), founded in 1905 during a period of rapid social and economic change, sheds light on the police reaction to recent criminal law reform and criminal justice policy. From their origins in the nineteenth century until recent decades, the municipal police monopolized the debate on crime, which usually centred on the control and punishment of offenders. For several decades CACP members defined police professionalism almost totally in terms of crime control and criticized legal and institutional challenges to this role. Although policing was decentralized, the Criminal Code and other federal statutes provided a focus for professional organization on the national level. The CACP’s reaction to parole and ticket of leave administration in the 1920s, to the capital punishment debate in the 1960’s, and 1970's and to the impending Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the early 1980's reflected occupational anxieties as much as ideology. The formation of the CACP and its subsequent activities, including the establishment of a permanent secretariat in 1972 and Research Foundation in 1982, reflect police recognition of the inherently political nature of law reform and criminal justice policy. CACP activities in the 1970’s were a direct result of unprecedented law reform, supported by academic research , on the federal level