Projects
The CRSP research through various projects focuses on four research themes: Brokers, Spaces, Populations, and Technologies. The Brokers theme examines individuals with power, such as humanitarian workers, social service providers, police, and correctional services, who establish and maintain security systems. It explores their practices, training, governance, and perceptions. The Spaces theme investigates how security is shaped by spatial logics within social, architectural, and geographical contexts, focusing on securitized spaces like detention centers, shelters, care institutions, and refugee camps. The Populations theme studies the impact of security practices on specific groups, including racialized communities, homeless individuals, migrant workers, asylum seekers, and refugees, aiming to understand their perceptions and experiences of security. Lastly, the Technologies theme explores the development, use, and governance of security technologies, analyzing their social, political, economic, and organizational influences and impacts. Together, these themes provide a comprehensive view of security practices and their implications. Research may focus within a theme or flow across substantive research themes. Infused across all research themes is a commitment to student involvement, community engagement, and methodological and ethical rigour.
Current
Our mission is to amplify the voices of pricarious migrants and equip organizations like CLC-BHN with evidence-based strategies to improve legal support and social inclusion.
A documentary screening we hosted to show new insights on homelessness, exploring solutions to build safer, more inclusive communities.
Opening the Blackbox: Examining the Craft of Police Intelligence
Information technologies and analytic platforms are an integral part of policing practices. Yet, as police acquire access to increasingly larger data sets, technological platforms and autonomous technologies (e.g., facial recognition software and predictive policing) the more their work retreats behind a ‘technological veil’ that has serious implications for public trust and policing accountability. Central to this new data-driven policing movement is the intelligence analyst, who, working with analytic technologies, translates raw data into intelligence products to predict, identify and disrupt crime. In doing so, analysts engage in sensemaking and use their “craft” (combination of creativity, spontaneity, rigour, and systematic character of science) to sort through and digest large volumes of data to identify what is important and reliable, decide analytic techniques, and draw inferences to inform police decision-making.
This project empirically investigates the craft of intelligence analysis. The research involves an innovative mix of analytic scenarios and observational analyses, semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis to address the following objectives:
- To examine how intelligence analysts construct intelligence products, and the knowledge, rationalities, and decisions that inform the craft of intelligence analysis.
- To identify the training, expertise, and competencies that analytic managers hold, and how these shape the craft of intelligence analysis.
- To determine how the technical design of intelligence technologies shapes the craft of intelligence analysis, and identify the assumptions (e.g., about crime, risk, harm) that are embedded in the design of intelligence software.
- To uncover the public goods and harms associated with the socio-technical construction of intelligence analysis.
The research will make visible the low-visibility processes embedded in the craft of intelligence analysis, while also empirically identifying the public goods and harms associated with its production.
Addressing the Governance Gap: A Collaborative Strategy for Building Capacity to Enhance Police Governance and Oversight
Building on research that identified a significant "governance gap" in Canadian police oversight, this project seeks to address the training needs of Police Service Board (PSB) members in Canada through a 5-part action-oriented workshop series designed to build current PSB member capacity through knowledge mobilization and co-create Canada-wide training materials with PSB members.
A final online-training resource will be produced and disseminated through the CAPG membership network. Together these outreach activities will contribute to building the current and future capacity of PSB members across Canada and promises to contribute to police accountability in our communities.
This research is funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Connection and Canadian Association of Police Governance
Securitizing the Last Public Bastion: Safety in Public Libraries in Mid-Sized Ontario Municipalities
Concerns about safety and security are increasing in cities across Canada. This is especially true for libraries, as they represent some of the last public, civic, and impartial spaces in our communities. However, public libraries are often ignored in conversations about community safety and security. With mandates to promote free and equitable access, this inclusiveness brings its own challenges.
This research collaborates with three libraries in Ontario -- Brantford Public Library, Barrie Public Library, and Thunder Bay Public Library to address the challenges and issues faced by mid-sized public libraries in Canada particularly in the context of increasing social problems such as the opioid epidemic, mental health crisis, lack of affordable housing, and changing perceptions of public safety.
Focused on safety, security and inclusion, this collaborative project will investigate the current challenges libraries face and explore opportunities for community and capacity building within these spaces. This research is funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight.
COVID-19: Examining the Experiences of Canadian Women in Law Enforcement During the Pandemic
During the COVID-19 pandemic, police officers are facing many of the same dangers and following many of the same practices as frontline healthcare workers in order to protect themselves and their families. For women police, the impacts of COVID-19 are particularly concerning. Not only do women in policing generally experience higher levels of stress than their male colleagues and are more likely to provide frontline care to vulnerable populations than men, but they also perform the bulk of domestic labour and child care at home. COVID-19 threatens to intensify these inequalities as the crisis makes it impossible to divide work and home spaces. A gendered analysis of the impacts of COVID-19 is critical to recognize these stresses and to avoid perpetuating pre-existing inequalities in policing that have traditionally excluded women from high-ranking, leadership positions where policies and decisions are made, including pandemic planning.
Supported by a SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant ($24,879), Drs. Debra Langan and Carrie Sanders are collaborating with Ontario Women in Law Enforcement (OWLE), a networking and professional development organization, to examine whether, how, and to what extent COVID-19 has exacerbated the challenges and inequalities experienced by women in law enforcement, at work and home. This SSHRC-funded project’s objectives are to: (1) understand how COVID-19 is impacting the experiences of women in law enforcement, at work and at home; (2) assess how law enforcement agencies have responded to COVID-19, and the impact of these responses on the experiences of women in law enforcement, as well as their retention and promotion; and, (3) provide a report (co-written by OWLE and the research team), that contains concrete recommendations for how organizations can safeguard the professional and personal well-being of women in law enforcement.
OWLE recognizes that the pandemic disproportionately jeopardizes women's well-being, and risks reversing the important gains that have been made in the recruitment, retention, and promotion of women in law enforcement. The partnership between OWLE and Drs. Langan and Sanders’ research team will result in actionable recommendations based on the identification of existing practices, the limitations, strengths, and resource demands of those practices, and innovative strategies to address limitations and resource demands. This project uses a gendered analysis of the impacts of COVID-19 by examining whether, how, and to what extent the pandemic has exacerbated the challenges, complexities, and inequalities -- both at work and at home -- experienced by women in law enforcement.
Methodologically, the project employs a multi-mode approach. Drs. Langan and Sanders have collected responses from 115 participants via an online survey of women in law enforcement - those on the front lines, in supervisory/management positions, and civilians - from across Canada. The insights gained from the survey results have been used to inform the development of a set of questions that is being used to gather qualitative interview data from 25 officers who wish to elaborate on their survey responses.
The research findings will be shared with OWLE members through a written report, an infographic, and a podcast, to enhance solidarity among women and support their coping strategies. Drs. Langan and Sanders will also work with OWLE to translate findings into action-oriented policy recommendations that will be shared broadly with law enforcement practitioners (e.g., police services in Canada, the International Association of Women Police, the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police).
Research Labs
Craft of Intelligence Analysis Laboratory (CIAL)
Data analytics and big data technologies (BDT) are tools that enable identification and prediction of patterns in large data sets that hold great promise for increased efficiency and innovation in policing and security. At the same time, citizens are increasingly concerned that the use of such technologies is potentially detrimental to individual privacy and civil rights. To date, there is little empirical research on how data analytics and BDT are used and experienced in security organizations– especially within the Canadian context – to inform evidence-based policy and practice development, or discussions on the ethics, regulation and governance of intelligence practice. Access to police services to conduct empirical studies on intelligence analysis is significantly restricted due to privacy and security concerns, and the fear that the presence of researchers may impede investigations. Given the rapid adoption of these technologies within the security sector, there is a growing need for institutional spaces that facilitate research in the field of intelligence analysis.
Dr. Carrie Sanders has recently received infrastructure funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Ontario Research Fund, and vendors to establish the, Craft of Intelligence Analysis Lab (CIAL), a lab that simulates a “real” criminal intelligence analysis unit and will enable Dr. Sander’s to: (1) examine how intelligence analysts build intelligence products, (2) examine what (and how) technologies and analytic practices are used in the construction of intelligence products; (3) identify the facilitators and barriers (e.g., ethical, legal and governance structures and professional standards) to the use of analytical technologies in intelligence analysis; and, (4) identify what training, support, and career opportunities are needed to help analysts utilize the innovative benefits of these technologies.
This space will feature four workstations with desk-top computers where the analysts will have access to hypothetical data and scenarios created by experts to closely resemble real cases as well as technologies, data bases, and platforms that assist in the examination and production of intelligence. To observe the analysts, researchers will have access to ceiling-mounted cameras as well microphones positioned within the space and at analysts’ workstations to record the interactions of analysts. Construction of the lab will be complete in the fall of 2020 and research projects within space will commence shortly thereafter.
CIAL will enable Dr. Sanders and her team to closely observe, record, and interview analysts as they work in real time to capture the scientific, technological, and “craft” (knowledge, skills and judgements incorporated in practices) skills required for conducting intelligence analysis.
Completed
A knowledge synthesis review that mapped peer-reviewed academic and grey-literature contributions to three areas related to homelessness.
A knowledge synthesis project that focused on socio-spatial initiatives that help refugee families maintain their cultural identities and connections with their country of origin and establish a new sense of beloning in their communities of resettlement.
A pilot evaluation where teams engaged and supported street-involved people without police enforcement.
Our team collaborated with Brantford Police Services to empirically investigate crime and perceptions of safety in downtown Brantford.
To look at perceptions about people experiencing homelessness as inherently deviant and dangerous, and to build a new narrative premised on knowledge sharing and enhancing community resiliency.
A knowledge synthesis project that explored and summarized literature linking digital interaction and loneliness to the involuntary celibate (incel) ideology.
Focus on illuminating the methodological challenges and opportunities in human security research and highlight strategies for effectively managing these challenges.
How Content Streaming Services Users Make Sense of the Algorithm-Generated Viewing Recommendations
PATRICK WATSON'S SSHRC FUNDED RESEARCH
Do you share a Netflix, Spotify, Hulu, etc. streaming account with your family, friends, or strangers? Do you ever wonder how your account gives you weird recommendations after you share your password with your new boyfriend or girlfriend? If so, we want to talk to you! Gaming Predictive Subscription Algorithms is a one-year project examining how content streaming services users make sense of the recommendation algorithms these services employ. We’re particularly interested in users who share accounts with people they don’t live with, since these tend to be the scenarios where the recommendation algorithm makes the strangest recommendations. There is a lot of scholarly interest in how people interact with algorithms and other digital agents, but the problem is, most of the time, we don’t know that we are interacting with them. Algorithms are being used more and more every day to predict what we might do, either collectively or individually, and the services we use and organizations we interact with are being guided by them, but for the most part these remain hidden to us and we don’t know a ton about how they work or how we should feel about them. Recommenders, on the other hand, are algos that we “see” working all the time and interact with more or less directly, so our question is “how do people feel about those interactions?” Knowing more about this will lead us to better understand what impacts algos and digital agents are having on our lives.
Examining the use of body-worn cameras among Canadian police officers
High-profile police killings of citizens, concentrated in the United States of America (USA), have contributed to a crisis in public perceptions of police legitimacy, prompting demands for police reform. Police across the USA have begun adopting body-worn cameras (BWCs), in part, to improve strained community-police relations. Police adoption of BWCs is cast as essential to contemporary USA policing, setting a new global standard. In Canada, large trendsetting police services (including the RCMP, Toronto, Calgary and Edmonton) have piloted BWCs. The limited research available on the effects of BWCs on policing is mixed, USA-centric, and quantitative in nature with little qualitative work exploring officers’ perceptions of, and experiences with using them. To address this gap in knowledge, Drs. Alana Saulnier and Carrie Sanders have undertaken one of the first major qualitative analyses into the perceived and actual impact of BWCs on frontline policing practices in Canada. Specifically, the research uses interviews with police officers and document analysis to:
(1) Examine the factors that influence officers’ perceptions of BWCs.
(2) Uncover how officers perceive BWCs impact their relationships with their employer, colleagues, and members of the public.
(3) Explore how occupational performance is influenced by the use of BWCs.
(4) Create a Canadian BWC policy template informed by analyses of domestic policies, international guidelines, and Canadian officers’ experiences.
This is one of the first major empirical investigations into the perceived and actual impact of BWC on Canadian policing in addition to being amongst the first to conduct an analysis of Canadian police service BWC policies. The project will enhance the domestic and international literature on policing and BWCs by providing empirical insights into the theory and practice of contemporary policing strategies, and the opportunities, risks, strategies, and best practices for useful and ethical deployment of BWCs.
Creating a Homelessness Counter-Narrative
This project investigates (mis)perceptions of homelessness, crime, and safety among different groups of people in a mid-sized suburban city in British Columbia. The goal of this project is to create a fact-based counter-narrative that both challenges and changes widely held truths about homelessness, crime and safety in this community.
This research has received funding from the British Columbia Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, Office of Crime Reduction and Gang Outreach, Crime Reduction Research Program (CRRP_2018-19_03). The research team on this project consists of Drs. Carrie Sanders, Erin Dej, and Jessica Braimoh and their work is supported by three undergraduate research assistants.
The project involves interviewing a diverse group of stakeholders, each with a relationship to homelessness. Forty-six interviews were conducted with people with lived experience of homelessness, service providers, housed residents, and the police. Data collection was completed in November 2019. Analysis of the interview data has commenced, and the research team will be presenting the research results at conferences during 2020.