Public police’s philanthropy and Twitter communications in Canada

PurposePolice services, police associations and police foundations now engage in philanthropy and these efforts are communicated using social media. This paper examines social media framing of the philanthropic and charitable work of police in Canada.Design/methodology/approachDrawing from discourse and semiotic analyses, the authors examined the ways that police communications frame contributions to charity and community’s well-being. Tweets were analyzed for themes, hashtags and images that conveyed the philanthropic work of police services, police associations as well as police foundations.FindingsThe authors discovered four main forms of framing in these social media communications, focusing on community, diversity, youth and crime prevention. The authors argue that police used these communications as mechanisms to flaunt social capital and to boost perceptions of legitimacy and benevolence.Research limitations/implicationsMore analyses are needed to examine such representations over time and in multiple jurisdictions.Practical implicationsExamining police communications about philanthropy not only reveals insights about the politics of giving but also the political use of social media by police.Originality/valueSocial media is used by organizations to position themselves in social networks. The increased use of social media by police, for promoting philanthropic work, is political in the sense that it aims to bolster a sense of legitimacy.

Marketisation or corporatisation? Making sense of private influence in public policing across Canada and the US

New forms of private influence are emerging in public policing across Canada. This includes private sponsorship of public police and donations to police foundations. This chapter explores key concepts in criminology and criminal justice studies and gauges their applicability to private sponsorship and donations in public policing. We compare definitions and applications of marketisation and corporatisation. Marketisation and corporatisation are often invoked in scholarly and even activist debates, but these terms are often conflated or erroneously used. There are subtle but important differences between marketisation and corporatisation that we explain here. We attempt to add clarity to these debates occurring within police studies as well as in criminology and criminal justice studies more broadly.

Funding Frontiers: Public Policing, ‘User Pays’ Policing and Police Foundations

This chapter explores the longstanding but surprisingly neglected ‘user pays’ policing, as well as newer and proliferating police foundations in Canada and the US. Many police departments in North America and beyond now offer ‘user pays’ public policing. The premise of ‘user pays’, as its name suggests, is that the public should not pay for private use of the public police. Those who use their security services for private benefit should pay, and the more they use them, the more they should pay. In practice, this involves selling security services to individuals and organisations for street festivals, funeral escorts, concerts, special parades, and retail establishments, and sometimes directly to private security firms themselves. These arrangements always entail uniformed officers providing security to these ‘users’ via temporary assignment.

A Criminology of Policing and Security Frontiers

Policing and security provision are subjects central to criminology. Yet there are newer and neglected forms that are currently unscrutinised. By examining the work of community safety officers, ambassador patrols, conservation officers, and private police foundations, who operate on and are animated by a frontier, this book reveals why criminological inquiry must reach beyond traditional conceptual and methodological boundaries in the twenty-first century. Including novel case studies, this multi-disciplinary and international book assembles a rich collection of policing and security frontiers both geographical (e.g. the margins of cities) and conceptual (dispersion and credentialism) not seen or acknowledged previously.

Going to the dogs? Police, donations, and K9s

Purpose Most existing literature on K9 units has focused on the relationship between police handler and canine, or questions about use of force. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between private donations to public police departments, an increasingly accepted institutional practice in the policing world, and K9 units. Specifically, the authors examine rationales for sponsoring and financially supporting K9 units in Canada and the USA. Design/methodology/approach The authors focus on four main themes that emerged in analysis of media articles, interview transcripts, and the results of freedom of information requests. Findings These four rationales or repertoires of discourse are: police dogs as heroes; dogs as crime fighters; cute K9s; and police dogs as uncontroversial donation recipients. Originality/value After drawing attention to the expanding role of police foundations in these funding endeavors, the authors reflect on what these findings mean for understanding private sponsorship of public police as well as K9 units in North America and elsewhere. The authors draw attention to the possibility of perceived and actual corruption when private, corporate monies become the main channel through which K9 and other police units are funded.

Police foundation governance and accountability: Corporate interlocks and private, nonprofit influence on public police

Police foundations are new private organizations used by public police services to raise corporate monies in North America. This article examines problems of governance and accountability arising in relation to police foundations and police services. Drawing from interviews, freedom of information requests and records from city archives, we analyze interlocks between corporations and police foundations via board membership. Because of the influence and control directors exercise by voting on projects and vetting other board members, links between corporations and police foundations raise ethical questions about the power of board members to influence police spending and procurement. We analyze data pertaining to four themes in literature on nonprofit organizations and directorate interlocking: philanthropy; influence and control; cooptation; and reciprocity. In conclusion, we reflect on the implications of our findings for literatures on public police governance and accountability.