One of the biggest challenges private policing agencies face is that of serving a population that is becoming increasingly diverse every year. Regardless of the Canadian region in which a security company serves, chances are great that it will see more racial, ethnic and cultural diversity than ever before. Ontario alone receives fifty percent of immigrants to Canada, of which 50% settle in the Greater Toronto Area. The bulk of immigrants no longer come from Western Europe, but from so-called Third World countries such as India, Pakistan, the Philipines, the Caribbean and China.

The changing population profile means is that approaches to interactions with the public that generated positive results in the past may not necessarily produce the same results now. It is to the benefit of security companies that they not only understand the impact of diversity on their work, but also understand how the very nature of their business impacts on diverse members of the public with whom they come in contact. The challenge for security personnel is particularly marked in the aspects of their jobs that involve `profiling’ airline passengers; patrolling private property open to the public, such as malls and shopping centers; and, policing residential apartment buildings.

It is no secret that even public policing organizations are coming under intense scrutiny and are subject to increasingly strident demands for more accountability of pant sizes too big that they wear? By the colors and paraphernalia they sport? …./2
in their treatment of visible minorities. Often the debate centers on whether or not policing organizations harbor racist rogue officers who break the rules and who can therefore be excised, leaving an organization that is well equipped to serve the cross-section of the Canadian population.

The reality is, rogue officers are not the issue. The issue really centers on another word that has cropped up in the debate--systemic discrimination. This word makes policing organizations crazy, as they think that not only are advocacy groups accusing them of harboring racist individuals, they are now implying that the entire policing organization is racist and is deliberately promoting discriminatory practices.

In fact, systemic discrimination is what can happen when an organization is not engaging in discriminatory practices, but when the very nature of how the
organization does business by definition has disparate (differing) impacts on different groups of people.

Let’s take a closer look. In its 2002 discussion paper, “In Search of Security: The Roles of Public and Private Agencies”, the Law Commission of Canada highlights some of the major aspects of the way security companies have traditionally done their work.
These include the following:

• “deprive individuals of their liberty”
• “follow drug dealers and map their behaviors”
• “keep detailed databases on suspects”
• share with police “information about people and events in a particular jurisdiction”
• remove and ban individuals from private property that is open to the public
• keep photographs of `banned’ individuals, available to the police
• serve as “extra eyes and ears” in support of the police

These are very serious powers granted to a select group of individuals in the interest of maintaining law and order. There is nothing wrong with these strategies per se. They are allowed under the law and the companies with a track record of zealously applying the law presumably stand to benefit from lucrative contracts awarded by property owners and business people.

The way these strategies are implemented and the assumptions that govern implementation, however, creates a challenge for the security industry to maintain an image of impartiality and anti-discrimination. As a society we all want the `bad guys’ off the streets and for this we are prepared to pay extra to allow security personnel on the premises we frequent. Who doesn’t feel more comfortable when they enter a building that has security in the foyer? It sends the psychological message that we are safe from the bad guys.

But how does the industry define the `bad guys’ in a population whose rules of conduct are shifting as fast as its diversity? Is it congregated groups of youth?
Youth visiting each other’s apartment buildings to `hang out’ or as some West Indian islands term it, to `lime’? Is it by the number of pant sizes too big that they wear? By the colors and paraphernalia they sport?

I am reminded of a time when I worked as a journalist in a small Caribbean island where people took their political colors very seriously. One night I attended a political rally wearing a shirt of a particular color. I became aware of an increasing hostility and buzz of the people around me. Unable to figure why, I asked a `contact’ whom I knew from the party. He quickly assured the people I was `one of us’. Luckily I did not pay the price for my foreign naiveté.

I am in no way trying to minimize the reality of gang symbols that represent the `bad guys’ public and private policing organizations are hired to catch. The complexity of the landscape in which security organizations work, however, demands that they develop equally sophisticated skills in determining who the true bad guys are.
The sea of colors, paraphernalia and clothing that make mothers cringe is certainly not enough. The trauma of innocent young people frisked, photographed and `taken down’ in the course of the Trespass Act being implemented, for example, is worth any effort a security company takes to minimize collateral damage in the course of engaging in legitimate policing.

Many strategies are available to security companies to help them understand their populations better and, in fact, to even leverage diversity to their benefit. Success pays off in improved public image, more cooperative community relationships and in some cases, tangible help in getting the real `bad guys’. Over upcoming issues we will discuss further the challenges of policing a changing population and strategies that increase chances of success, to the benefit of both the organization and the community. The goal is to have a `win win’ outcome.

Maureen Brown’s company, DiversityTrainersPlus provides training to organizations on how to understand, manage and serve diverse staff and client populations. Maureen can be contacted at diversitytrainer@cogeco.ca