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Abstract
This article focuses on the consequences of increasing patron–client relationships between manufacturers of Conducted Energy Weapons (CEWs) and Canadian police. It explicates the potential for institutional isomorphism in Canadian police. Four markers of isomorphic change in the policing field generated by the growing dependency of police on CEW manufacturers are highlighted. The article argues that the role CEW makers assume is intrinsically complex and contradictory and constitutes a gatekeeping, legitimizing, and ideationally (re)structuring process.
Notes
[This work was supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant [430-2012-0545] (with Charles T. Adeyanju and Nicole Neverson).]
[Disclosure Statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.]
1 See Bittner, Functions of the Police; Klockars, Idea of Police; Peak, “Quest for Alternatives”; and Adams, “What We Know.”
2 See Skolnick and Fyfe, Above the Law.
3 See White and Ready, “Taser”; Trostle, “Force Continuum.”
4 See Kornblum and Reddy, “Effects of the Taser.”
5 See National Institute of Justice, “Nonlethal Weapons and Equipment.”
6 A June 1986 conference convened by US Attorney General Edwin Meese, to address the slow pace of technological development in law enforcement, proposed the term “less-than-lethal” weapons to replace the widely used term “non-lethal” weapons. The new term in essence acknowledges that any weapon is “potentially lethal if used inappropriately”; see Sweetman, “Report,” cited in Trostle, “Force Continuum” (emphasis in original). The term “less-lethal” is also commonly used; for details, see Trostle, “Force Continuum”; Sweetman, “Report,” 2.
7 See Kornblum and Reddy, “Effects of the Taser.”
8 See Canadian Police Research Centre, “TASER Technology Research Paper.”
9 See Canadian Broadcasting Corporation , “RCMP Softened Taser-use Restrictions.”
10 See Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, “Taser, Other Stun Gun Deaths.”
11 See Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, “RCMP Softened Taser-use Restrictions.”
12 See Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, “Taser, Other Stun Gun Deaths.”
13 Council of Canadian Academies and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, “Health Effects,” ix.
14 See National Institute of Justice, “Study of Deaths.”
15 See Amnesty International, “Amnesty International Urges Stricter Limits.”
16 See Toronto Police Service, “Toronto Annual Taser ECD.”
17 This article does not address the issue of appropriateness of CEW use. For more on this debate, see Terill and Paoline, “Conducted Energy Devices”; Kaminsky et al., “Quantum of Force.”
18 Giblin, “Structural Elaboration,” 644.
19 Ibid.
20 See Donaldson, American Anti-management Theories.
21 Maguire and Uchida, “Measurement and Explanation,” 535.
22 Giblin, “Structural Elaboration.”
23 Ibid., 645.
24 Hinings and Greenwood, “Normative Prescription,” 53.
25 Giblin, “Structural Elaboration.”
26 Ibid., 645.
27 Meyer and Zucker, Permanently Failing Organizations; see the review by Bruton, “Permanently Failing Organizations,” 247.
28 DiMaggio and Powell, “Iron Cage Revisited,” 149.
29 See Manning, Police Work, 4. Manning presents a macro-dramaturgical perspective of policing. He notes the inherently ceremonial, dramatic, and ritualistic nature of police work and finds that what constitutes police work is often a function of who you ask in the chain of command. The police “job” is often understood in various ways by different levels of actors. Manning argues that the “driving force of policing is not the regulations and policies, law, politics or public sentiment, although all play a role” (4); the engine of police work, he argues, is the occupational culture in interaction with external factors or institutional environment.
30 See Nivette, “Legitimacy and Crime”; McLaughlin, New Policing.
31 See DiMaggio and Powell, “Iron Cage Revisited,” 150.
32 Aldrich, Organizations and Environments, 265, cited in DiMaggio and Powell, “Iron Cage Revisited,” 150.
33 DiMaggio and Powell, “Iron Cage Revisited,” 150.
34 Ibid., 150.
35 See Tunnel and Gaines, “Political Pressures,” 14.
36 Ibid., 11.
37 Rainguet and Dodge, “Problem of Police Chiefs,” 278–9.
38 DiMaggio and Powell, “Iron Cage Revisited,” 151.
39 Ibid.
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid, 152.
42 Larson, Rise of Professionalism, 49–52, cited in Dimaggio and Powell, “Iron Cage Revisited,” 152.
43 See DiMaggio and Powell, “Iron Cage Revisited.”
44 Oriola, Neverson, and Adeyanju, “ ‘Don’t Tase Me, Bro.’ ”
45 TASER International, “Safety Every Officer Deserves,” 4.
46 Ibid., 2.
47 Oriola, Neverson, and Adeyanju, “ ‘Don’t Tase Me, Bro.’ ”
48 Ibid.
49 Meyer and Rowan, “Institutionalized Organizations.”
50 See Morabito, “Adoption of Policing Innovation,” 478.
51 Ibid., 479.
52 Ibid., 480.
53 Ibid., 481.
54 Ibid., 481.
55 See Zhao, Lovrich, and Robinson, “Community Policing,” 365, 373.
56 Ibid., 373.
57 See also Klockars, Idea of Police.
58 See Katz, “Establishment of a Police Gang Unit.”
59 See ibid.
60 See Crank, “Watchman and Community”; Klockars, Idea of Police.
61 See Meyer and Rowan, “Institutionalized Organizations.”
62 See Kraska and Cubellis, “Militarizing Mayberry and Beyond.”
63 Ibid.
64 See ibid.; Katz, “Establishment of a Police Gang Unit.”
65 Crank and Langworthy, “Institutional Perspective of Policing,” 341.
66 Canadian Police Research Centre, “TASER Technology Research Paper,” 5.
67 See Terrill and Paoline, “Conducted Energy Devices.”
68 See Gandy, Panoptic Sort.
69 Geertz, Local Knowledge, 171–2.
70 See Oriola, Neverson, and Adeyanju, “ ‘Don’t Tase Me, Bro.’ ”
71 See Ericson and Haggerty, Policing the Risk Society.
72 Ibid., 389.
73 Ibid., 389–90.
74 Ibid., 390.
75 See Kaminsky et al., “Quantum of Force”; Terrill and Paoline, “Conducted Energy Devices.”
76 Royal Canadian Mounted Police, “Archived: RCMP Modifies.”
77 Royal Canadian Mounted Police, “Quarterly Report October to December 2007.”
78 Ayling and Grabosky, “When Police Go Shopping,” 666.
79 Oriola, Neverson, and Adeyanju, “ ‘Don’t Tase Me, Bro.’ ”
80 “When to Zap.” This fact emerged from a RCMP report following a Toronto Star Access to Information Request.
81 O’Brien and Thom, “Police Use of Tasers,” 4.
82 See Azadani et al., “Funding Source.”
83 See Burruss and Giblin, “Modeling Isomorphism”; Matusiak, “Dimensionality”; Morabito, “Adoption of Policing Innovation”; and Thompson, Organizations in Action.
84 See Meyer and Rowan, “Institutionalized Organizations”; Burruss and Giblin, “Modeling Isomorphism.”
85 See Palmer, Biggart, and Dick, “Is New Institutionalism a Theory?”
86 See Oliver, “Third Generation.”
87 See Katz, “Establishment of a Police Gang Unit”; Zhao, Lovrich, and Robinson, “Community Policing”; Morabito, “Adoption of Policing Innovation”; Lyons, Politics of Community Policing; Balko, Rise of the Warrior Cop; and Kraska and Cubellis, “Militarizing Mayberry and Beyond.”
88 See Crank and Langworthy, “Institutional Perspective of Policing.”
89 Burruss and Giblin, “Modeling Isomorphism,” 349.
90 Ibid.
91 See Manning, Police Work, 122.
92 Crank and Langworthy, “Institutional Perspective of Policing,” 360 (emphasis in original).
93 See Ottawa Police, “Use of Force”; Occupational and Health Safety Canada, “Report on Taser Use.”
94 See Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, “Facts About Stun Guns.”
95 See Royal Canadian Mounted Police, “Quarterly Report July to September 2010.”
96 See Royal Canadian Mounted Police, “Quarterly Report April to June 2010.”
97 See Occupational Health and Safety Canada, “Report on Taser Use.”
98 The Braidwood Inquiry was established in British Columbia, Canada, following the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski on the floor of Vancouver International Airport. Dziekanski died after the deployment of Taser CEWs by four RCMP officers. The incident arguably remains the watershed in the use of CEWs in Canada. See Braidwood, Restoring Public Confidence. For a critical review of the Braidwood Inquiry’s recommendations, see Williams, “Braidwood Commission Reports.”
99 Braidwood, Restoring Public Confidence, 308.
100 See TASER International, “Course Descriptions.”
101 PoliceOne.com, “TASER Announces Use of Force” (emphasis added).
102 McLaughlin, New Policing, 143.
103 See Ottawa Police, “Use of Force.”
104 See Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, “OACP Submission.”
105 DiMaggio and Powell, “Iron Cage Revisited,” 154.
106 Ibid., 151.
107 Ibid.
108 Cited in “When to Zap.”
109 DiMaggio and Powell, “Iron Cage Revisited,” 153.
110 Ibid.
111 Cotter, “Taser Firm.”
112 See Foley, “Ethics Reviews.”
113 See Johnson, “Report.”
114 Ibid.
115 See Hopkins, Evans, and Norton-Taylor, “MoD Staff.”
116 See Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, “Tasers Don’t Reduce Shootings.”
117 Ibid.
118 See Geis and Binder, “Non-lethal Weapons.”
119 See “Manitoba has Highest Homicide Rate.”
120 See Balko, Rise of the Warrior Cop; Peak, “Quest for Alternatives.”
121 See Oriola, Neverson, and Adeyanju, “ ‘They Should Have Just Taken a Gun’.”
122 See Canadian Broadcasting Copororation, “Ontario Expands Police Taser Use.”
123 See Klieve, Barnes, and De Leo, “Controlling Firearms Use”; Peters and Watson, “Breakthrough.”
124 O’Brien et al., “Use of Tasers on People,” 1.
125 See Lindgren, “Fresh Taser Debate.”
126 See ibid.
127 Ibid.
128 Ibid.
129 See Carter, “Man Died.”
130 See Oriola, Neverson, and Adeyanju, “ ‘They Should Have Just Taken a Gun’.” See also O’Brien and Thom, “Police Use of Tasers.”
131 Oriola, Neverson, and Adeyanju, “ ‘They Should Have Just Taken a Gun’,” 74.
132 See Kleinig, “Ethical Constraints.”
133 See Prenzler, Porter, and Alpert, “Reducing Police Use of Force.”
134 See Goldsmith, “Policing’s New Visibility,” 914.