FSIN vice chief proposes First Nations police force

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If Lawrence Joseph has his way, there could be another chief joining the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN)-the chief of police.

When the federation holds its legislative assembly in Regina at the end of this month creation of a First Nations police force will be on the agenda, said the FSIN vice-chief.

A desire to take more control of their own affairs, the changing needs of police service and dissatisfaction with the current state of the RCMP is behind the initiative, he said.

"A lot of pressure has been placed on us as a federation to come up with a model that will work for the benefit of First Nations people," he said in an interview.

"There are so many factors. We can't just paint everyone with one swoop."

One of the strongest reasons to consider a province-wide First Nations police force on Saskatchewan's 75 reserves is a desire to provide as many of their own services as possible, he said.

"We can't always be the clients of government. We are capable of doing our own policing and our own teaching schools, maintaining our own institutions. We want to be part of the solution."

Another reason, said Joseph, is that the RCMP is facing a manpower shortage. Almost all detachments in rural and northern Saskatchewan are understaffed.

"The RCMP clearly doesn't have the manpower," he said. "We have community tripartite agreements where members promise to spend so much time on the reserves, but it's not happening in many of the territories. It's something that has troubled First Nations people for many, many years.

"The treaties promised that the redcoats would protect us. Frankly, that's not being upheld with the government."

First Nations also want a different model of policing in order to meet their communities' needs, Joseph said.

"The definition of community policing, as defined by First Nations people, will become the norm. For example, the way we know policing right now, it's strictly and mostly law enforcement. You charge a person, and you go about trying to find him guilty in a court of law," he said.

"Our model is different. We want police officers to be trained not only in law enforcement, but counsellors, referral agents-things that our communities need on the front line. That's totally different from what we know of policing today."

In some cases police officers are performing community policing, but some RCMP operational philosophies, such as transferring officers into and out of communities, work against this model, he said.

The impact such a philosophy can have on a community was something Joseph said he witnessed recently at Grandmother's Bay, where one of the RCMP officers was being transferred.

"I was at a special ceremony for her, and some of the Elders were weeping. They were sad to see her go," he said.

"She was more than a police officer in the community. She didn't push her weight around ... she was doing community policing. She got to know the community, and really brought down the issue of violence by being part of the community," he said.

"That part of policing is so important, that a law enforcement officer is also a partner with the community. But that's not existent in Western culture."

That contrasts with what the FSIN's Special Investigations Unit has found. Set up four years ago in the wake of deteriorating relations between Saskatoon's Aboriginal community and the Saskatoon Police Service, the unit discovered several cases of alleged police misconduct, involving members of both municipal forces and the RCMP.

"There are some 'Rambos' out there. There are some people who should not be wearing the uniform. They're really damaging individuals-damaging the credibility of the community and the police force," Joseph said, adding that municipal governments and the RCMP have often been reluctant to make changes or to discipline officers in the wake of such allegations.

"When we say 'Something needs to be fixed,' we had to rove that. The agencies and the governments were very reluctant to admit that something was broken."

One preliminary model for a new province-wide First Nations police force would see it set up much like the RCMP's F Division in Saskatchewan, with regional commanders reporting to a provincial commanding officer in a central location.

"That's one idea. But the governance structure will be vastly different," said the vice-chief. "The chiefs, the councils and the community will have some say as to who polices their communities, what type of training they will undergo, that kind of thing.

"This isn't to make the police force into a political instrument, but to make a police force more a part of the community than the sheriff riding into town, carting off the bad guys and you don't see them again."

Saskatchewan currently has one First Nations police force, the File Hills Tribal Police, who look after law enforcement on the Okanese, Little Black Bear, Star Blanket, Peepeekisis, and Carry the Kettle First Nations.