RCMP Gazette Human Rights and Policing - Alberta Hate Crimes ...

ON ThE lEADiNG EDGELatest research in law enforcementThe following are excerpts from recentre-search related to justice and lawenforcement. To access the full reports,lease visit the website links at the bottom ofeach summary.Effect of drug-law enforcement ondrug-related violenceby the urban health Researchinitiative of thebritish Columbia Centre forExcellence in hiV/AiDSThe present systematic review evaluatedall available English-language publishedresearch on the impact of law enforcementon drug market violence. The hypothesiswas that the existing scientific evidencewould demonstrate an association betweendrug-law enforcement expenditures orintensity and reduced levels of violence.The initial search captured 306 studiesfor further analysis. Of these, 15 wereidentified that evaluated the impact of druglawenforcement on violence. Contrary toour primary hypothesis, 13 studies (87 percent) reported a likely adverse impact ofdrug-law enforcement on levels of violence.That is, most studies found that increasingdrug-law enforcement intensity resulted inincreased rates of drug market violence.The association between increaseddrug-law enforcement funding and drugmarket violence may seem counterintuitive.However, in many of the studies reviewedhere, experts delineated certain causativemechanisms that may explain thisassociation. Specifically, research hasshown that by removing key players fromthe lucrative illegal drug market, drug-lawenforcement may have the perverse effectof creating significant financial incentivesfor other individuals to fill this vacuum byentering the market.While theoretically it could be arguedthat some increase in drug-related violencecould be justified if drug-law enforcementreduced the flow of drugs, prior researchsuggests that law enforcement efforts havenot achieved their stated objectives withrespect to reducing drug supply and use.In fact, despite annual federal budgets ofapproximately US$15 billion and higherin the U.S. since the 1990s, illegal drugs— including heroin, cocaine and cannabis— have become cheaper, their purityhas increased, and rates of use have notmarkedly changed.In the face of strong evidence thatdrug-law enforcement has failed to achieveits stated objectives and instead appearsto contribute to drug market violence,policy makers must consider alternatives.In response to the known limitations oflaw enforcement in reducing drug supply,A U.S. study has found that many first responders have identified a need for more training in the area of hazardous materials.several medical and scientific bodies havecalled for the regulation of illicit drugs.The findings of this report do notimply that current government policies areresponsible for recent increases in violencein some cities, nor do they imply thatindividual police officers are responsiblefor this violence. Rather, the evidencesuggests that front-line police officers aregiven the task of enforcing drug laws thatappear to lead to increased violence byunintentionally driving up the enormousblack market profits attributable to theillegal drug trade.To accessthe full report, visit:uhri.cfenet.ubc.ca2009 National Training NeedsSurvey research brief: lawenforcementby the Rural DomesticPreparedness Consortium (u.S.)In 2005, the U.S. Congress established theRural Domestic Preparedness Consortium(RDPC) to develop and deliver all-hazardspreparedness training to rural communitiesacross America. In 2009, RDPC conductedits second National Training Needs Survey.The survey targeted a random sampleof individuals from eight disciplinesrepresentative of the rural emergencyresponse community.This brief focuses on the identifiedtraining needs of respondents across thelaw enforcement discipline. This sampleincluded officers from college/universitycampus departments, county policedepartments, sheriffs’ departments andmunicipal (city or town) police departments.Provided with a list of all 37 targetcapabilities (on the U.S. Department ofHomeland Security’s Target CapabilitiesList, which identifies and definescapabilities that communities may needto achieve and sustain in order to prevent,protect against, respond to and recover from32Gazette Vol. 72, No. 3, 2010