The Vigilant Eye

"The Vigilant Eye combines the narrative and chronological approach of traditional institutional history with the critical approaches of social history, legal history and criminology. It begins with the English and Irish roots of 19th- century British North American policing then traces the early development of the three models of law enforcement that would shape the future: the local rural constable, the municipal police department and the paramilitary territorial constabulary. The North-West Mounted Police was a force for Canadian imperialism in the post Confederation era but its relationship with the First Nations was not totally repressive in nature. Its approach to policing morality was much more pragmatic than that of urban police services which navigated the political morass of enforcing laws governing alcohol, prostitution and gambling. The urban police, despite their increasing identification with crime fighting, also played an important social welfare role.^ The police, notably the RCMP, were a key force behind the continued criminalization of drug users. The book examines the development of provincial police services whose expansion coincided with the rise of mass automobile and controversies over prohibition and liquor control and their eventual absorption (outside of Ontario and Quebec) by the RCMP. In terms of political policing, the 'vigilant eye' has monitored, harassed and disrupted various social and political movements ranging from Fenians to Communists to Quebec separatists and environmentalists. The study examines the vogue for community policing that developed in the 1970s and 1980s and concludes that it lacked coherence and had a limited impact.^ In more recent decades the simplistic and misleading crime- fighting ethos of policing, bolstered by the rise of powerful rank and file unions, has undermined reforms such as affirmative action, public complaints and accountability processes and limits on the use of deadly and less than deadly force. During this same period, which ended with signs of increased militarization in 'normal' policing and counter insurgency tactics in the areas of security and intelligence and the policing of mass protest, outsiders such as women and visible minorities challenged the primacy of white males in police services. The author hopes that citizens, by reading this study, will turn their own 'vigilant eye' to policing in their own communities."--