Will Surrey get a police “force” or a police “department”?
Posted February 10, 2019 12:56 pm.
Last Updated February 10, 2019 12:58 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – As Surrey continues its quest to replace the RCMP with its own municipal police, what will the city call it, a force or a department?
Patrick Parnaby, a sociologist with the University of Guelph, says it will almost certainly be the latter, as the former is quite often misused.
The term “police force” went out of fashion in the early 1980s amid a North-America-wide PR push.
“The idea was that using the term ‘police force’ kind of signaled an organization that was a little bit too aggressive,” Parnaby says. “Whereas a ‘police service’ was more in line with the community policing philosophy.
He says that transition has never been perfect and people still debate it today.
“Those who align more with the ‘police force’ mentality are the ones who generally see police departments’ primary objectives as really crime fighting, the line that divides good versus evil and that their primary organizational role is to provide security for the public,” Parnaby says.
He doesn’t think Surrey will take on the “police force” title.
“I just could not see that happening,” he says. “It would be a political and public relations nightmare.”
