Public Perceptions of Policing

Although the political landscape of Alberta remains broadly consistent with the tenor of the Firewall letter (see for example Lightbody and Kline 2016[1]), the perception, roles, provision and scope of policing across North America has come under increased scrutiny for a number of reasons. These range from (1) highly public, violent and often racialized events in both Canada and the USA, (2) related calls to “defund” the police, (3) concerns in rural areas about increases in crime rates and the impacts of such crimes, but also (4) concerns about lack of federal engagement in the RCMP, (5) concerns about the transactional and longer-term costs of a provincial police force, to (6) the question of whether the Albertan public, whether rural or urban, actually wants to proceed down the pathway to a provincial policing force.

The success of a public service organization such as the police is in part associated with its ability to deliver quality services while maintaining a positive public image. While civil society might not entirely comprehend the inner workings of police services, their perspectives of police remain vital for upholding police and state legitimacy. If citizens do not trust the police or if they believe the police are not doing their job well (or fairly) it can be destabilizing. In Canada, citizens tend to generally have a positive view of police and feel that they can be trusted to do their job; however, this is not consistent across all aspects of policing, and those areas where the public feel the police are not meeting expectations should be a focus of policy makers and police administration with the aim of repairing trust and increasing the capacity of the police to succeed. The following summarizes the results from the public perceptions of policing survey of Albertans completed in February 2023.

[1] Lightbody, James, and Lisa Kline. 2016. “Dispositional Immobility: An Analysis of Non-Decisions as Public Policy in Alberta’s City-Regions.” Social Sciences 5 (4): 54. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci5040054.