The Paradox of Discretion: Customs and the Changing Occupational Identity of Canadian Border Officers

Abstract

This article challenges the assumption that border officers enjoy a high level of discretion. By studying customs, it provides insight into how the policing of goods and transport workers is less concerned with ‘risky’ individuals than it is with promoting international trade flows. In this context, border officer discretion may be seen as a hindrance that must be channeled or curtailed. Interviews with Canadian customs officers demonstrate that technologies facilitate the redistribution of compliance and risk management responsibilities among border policing actors. Such alterations in customs operations have reconfigured discretion in paradoxical ways, both extending and reducing officers’ hold on decision-making. This article considers the effects of these changes on officers’ use, experience and perception of discretion as well as on their occupational identity.