Self-Administered First Nations’ Policing: An Overview of Organizational and Managerial Issues

Abstract

This report provides an overview of organizational and managerial issues in selfadministered First Nations (FN) police services. It complements, and represents a second phase to, a previous report by the authors which examined a comprehensive survey of a large representative sample of the front-line aboriginal officers policing Canada's aboriginal communities. The major policy issues in FN self-administered policing are discussed in an introductory chapter where the central foci of this project are developed. The central areas of concern are defined as organizational structure and challenges, varieties of management styles, special challenges and accomplishments of FN management, the needs, adequacies and strategies with respect to resources in FN policing, community expectations, demands, problems and participation in FN policing, issues of FN oversight and political context, and characterizations of the unique features of FN policing. The methods employed in this second phase research have included a modest survey of FN police managers, on-site visits, review of audits and evaluations where available, and examination of management-level data obtained in the previous 1995 survey of FN police officers.