A commentary on `A Vision of the Future of Policing in Canada: Police Challenge 2000.'

This discussion paper on policing has been the most widely distributed product of a broader initiative undertaken by the Ministry of the Solicitor General of Canada under the direction of AndréNormandeau of the Criminology Department of the University of Montréal and Barry Leighton of the Ministry Secretariat. Its purpose has been to review current trends and likely future directions for policing in Canada. The paper is the synthesis of consultations and background reviews of issues the results of which were presented in a national workshop held in October 1990. The purpose of this exercise was strategic in nature and in its authors' words, aims to provide a single coherent view of policing in Canada as it is likely to evolve over the next decade. This view is that of community-based policing. The authors claim that community-based policing is the object of growing consensus and that, furthermore, there exist no competing views if policing. Policing approaches of the past, identified in the document only as professional policing, are relegated to the position of historical artifacts. Professional policing is viewed by the authors as no more than a momentary hiatus in the history of policing strategies which, with the advent of modern community-based policing, return to their original and purer conception.