Public administration: evolution of a discipline

Public Administration

I beg to move, That this House welcomes the formation of a Government representing the united and inflexible resolve of the nation to prosecute the war with Germany to a victorious conclusion. On Friday evening last I received His Majesty's commission to form a new Administration. It as the evident wish and will of Parliament and the nation that this should be conceived on the broadest possible basis and that it should include all parties, both those who supported the late Government and also the parties of the Opposition. I have completed the most important part of this task. A War Cabinet has been formed of five Members, representing, with the Opposition Liberals, the unity of the nation. The three party Leaders have agreed to serve, either in the War Cabinet or in high executive office. The three Fighting Services have been filled. It was necessary that this should be done in one single day, on account of the extreme urgency and rigour of events. A number of other positions, key positions, were filled yesterday, and I am submitting a further list to His Majesty to-night. I hope to complete the appointment of the principal Ministers during to-morrow. the appointment of the other Ministers usually takes a little longer, but I trust that, when Parliament meets again, this part of my task will be completed, and that the administration will be complete in all respects. I considered it in the public interest to suggest that the House should be summoned to meet today. Mr. Speaker agreed, and took the necessary steps, in accordance with the powers conferred upon him by the Resolution of the House. At the end of the proceedings today, the Adjournment of the House will be proposed until Tuesday, 21st May, with, of course, provision for earlier meeting, if need be. The business to be considered during that week will be notified to Members at the earliest opportunity. I now invite the House, by the Motion which stands in my name, to record its approval of the steps taken and to declare its confidence in the new Government. To form an Administration of this scale and complexity is a serious undertaking in itself, but it must be remembered that we are in the preliminary stage of one of the greatest battles in history, that we are in action at many other points in Norway and in Holland, that we have to be prepared in the Mediterranean, that the air battle is continuous and that many preparations, such as have been indicated by my hon. Friend below the Gangway, have to be made here at home. In this crisis I hope I may be pardoned if I do not address the House at any length today. I hope that any of my friends and colleagues, or former colleagues, who are affected by the political reconstruction, will make allowance, all allowance, for any lack of ceremony with which it has been necessary to act. I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat." 2 We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. Let that be realised; no survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge and impulse of the ages, that mankind will move forward towards its goal. But I take up my task with buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. At this time I feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say, "come then, let us go forward together with our united strength."

“There’s No Such Thing as Sound Science” by By Christie Aschwanden was a lead science writer for FiveThirtyEight. FiveThirtyEight, Science, Dec. 6, 2017 Science is being turned against itself. For decades, its twin ideals of transparency and rigor have been weaponized by those who disagree with results produced by the scientific method. Under the Trump administration, that fight has ramped up again. In a move ostensibly meant to reduce conflicts of interest, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has removed a number of scientists from advisory panels and replaced some of them with representatives from industries that the agency regulates. Like many in the Trump administration, Pruitt has also cast doubt on the reliability of climate science. For instance, in an interview with CNBC, Pruitt said that “measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do.” Similarly, Trump’s pick to head NASA, an agency that oversees a large portion the nation’s climate research, has insisted that research into human influence on climate lacks certainty, and he falsely claimed that “global temperatures stopped rising 10 years ago.” Kathleen Hartnett White, Trump’s nominee to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in a Senate hearing last month that she thinks we “need to have more precise explanations of the human role and the natural role” in climate change. The same entreaties crop up again and again: We need to root out conflicts. We need more precise evidence. What makes these arguments so powerful is that they sound quite similar to the points raised by proponents of a very different call for change that’s coming from within science. This other movement strives to produce more robust, reproducible findings. Despite having dissimilar goals, the two forces espouse principles that look surprisingly alike: Science needs to be transparent. Results and methods should be openly shared so that outside researchers can independently reproduce and validate them. The methods used to collect and analyze data should be rigorous and clear, and conclusions must be supported by evidence. These are the arguments underlying an “open science” reform movement that was created, in part, as a response to a “reproducibility crisis” that has struck some fields of science.1 But they’re also used as talking points by politicians who are working to make it more difficult for the EPA and other federal agencies to use science in their regulatory decision-making, under the guise of basing policy on “sound science.” Science’s virtues are being wielded against it. What distinguishes the two calls for transparency is intent: Whereas the “open science” movement aims to make science more reliable, reproducible and robust, proponents of “sound science” have historically worked to amplify uncertainty, create doubt and undermine scientific discoveries that threaten their interests. “Our criticisms are founded in a confidence in science,” said Steven Goodman, co-director of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford and a proponent of open science. “That’s a fundamental difference — we’re critiquing science to make it better. Others are critiquing it to devalue the approach itself.” Calls to base public policy on “sound science” seem unassailable if you don’t know the term’s history. The phrase was adopted by the tobacco industry in the 1990s to counteract mounting evidence linking secondhand smoke to cancer. A 1992 Environmental Protection Agency report identified secondhand smoke as a human carcinogen, and Philip Morris responded by launching an initiative to promote what it called “sound science.” In an internal memo, Philip Morris vice president of corporate affairs Ellen Merlo wrote that the program was designed to “discredit the EPA report,” “prevent states and cities, as well as businesses from passing smoking bans” and “proactively” pass legislation to help their cause. The sound science tactic exploits a fundamental feature of the scientific process: Science does not produce absolute certainty. Contrary to how it’s sometimes represented to the public, science is not a magic wand that turns everything it touches to truth. Instead, it’s a process of uncertainty reduction, much like a game of 20 Questions. Any given study can rarely answer more than one question at a time, and each study usually raises a bunch of new questions in the process of answering old ones. “Science is a process rather than an answer,” said psychologist Alison Ledgerwood of the University of California, Davis. Every answer is provisional and subject to change in the face of new evidence. It’s not entirely correct to say that “this study proves this fact,” Ledgerwood said. “We should be talking instead about how science increases or decreases our confidence in something.” The tobacco industry’s brilliant tactic was to turn this baked-in uncertainty against the scientific enterprise itself. While insisting that they merely wanted to ensure that public policy was based on sound science, tobacco companies defined the term in a way that ensured that no science could ever be sound enough. The only sound science was certain science, which is an impossible standard to achieve. “Doubt is our product,” wrote one employee of the Brown & Williamson tobacco company in a 1969 internal memo. The note went on to say that doubt “is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’” and “establishing a controversy.” These strategies for undermining inconvenient science were so effective that they’ve served as a sort of playbook for industry interests ever since, said Stanford University science historian Robert Proctor. The sound science push is no longer just Philip Morris sowing doubt about the links between cigarettes and cancer. It’s also a 1998 action plan by the American Petroleum Institute, Chevron and Exxon Mobil to “install uncertainty” about the link between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. It’s industry-funded groups’ late-1990s effort to question the science the EPA was using to set fine-particle-pollution air-quality standards that the industry didn’t want. And then there was the more recent effort by Dow Chemical to insist on more scientific certainty before banning a pesticide that the EPA’s scientists had deemed risky to children. Now comes a move by the Trump administration’s EPA to repeal a 2015 rule on wetlands protection by disregarding particular studies. (To name just a few examples.) Doubt merchants aren’t pushing for knowledge, they’re practicing what Proctor has dubbed “agnogenesis” — the intentional manufacture of ignorance. This ignorance isn’t simply the absence of knowing something; it’s a lack of comprehension deliberately created by agents who don’t want you to know, Proctor said.2 In the hands of doubt-makers, transparency becomes a rhetorical move. “It’s really difficult as a scientist or policy maker to make a stand against transparency and openness, because well, who would be against it?” said Karen Levy, researcher on information science at Cornell University. But at the same time, “you can couch everything in the language of transparency and it becomes a powerful weapon.” For instance, when the EPA was preparing to set new limits on particulate pollution in the 1990s, industry groups pushed back against the research and demanded access to primary data (including records that researchers had promised participants would remain confidential) and a reanalysis of the evidence. Their calls succeeded and a new analysis was performed. The reanalysis essentially confirmed the original conclusions, but the process of conducting it delayed the implementation of regulations and cost researchers time and money. Delay is a time-tested strategy. “Gridlock is the greatest friend a global warming skeptic has,” said Marc Morano, a prominent critic of global warming research and the executive director of ClimateDepot.com, in the documentary “Merchants of Doubt” (based on the book by the same name). Morano’s site is a project of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, which has received funding from the oil and gas industry. “We’re the negative force. We’re just trying to stop stuff.” Some of these ploys are getting a fresh boost from Congress. The Data Quality Act (also known as the Information Quality Act) was reportedly written by an industry lobbyist and quietly passed as part of an appropriations bill in 2000. The rule mandates that federal agencies ensure the “quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information” that they disseminate, though it does little to define what these terms mean. The law also provides a mechanism for citizens and groups to challenge information that they deem inaccurate, including science that they disagree with. “It was passed in this very quiet way with no explicit debate about it — that should tell you a lot about the real goals,” Levy said. But what’s most telling about the Data Quality Act is how it’s been used, Levy said. A 2004 Washington Post analysis found that in the 20 months following its implementation, the act was repeatedly used by industry groups to push back against proposed regulations and bog down the decision-making process. Instead of deploying transparency as a fundamental principle that applies to all science, these interests have used transparency as a weapon to attack very particular findings that they would like to eradicate. Now Congress is considering another way to legislate how science is used. The Honest Act, a bill sponsored by Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas,3 is another example of what Levy calls a “Trojan horse” law that uses the language of transparency as a cover to achieve other political goals. Smith’s legislation would severely limit the kind of evidence the EPA could use for decision-making. Only studies whose raw data and computer codes were publicly available would be allowed for consideration. That might sound perfectly reasonable, and in many cases it is, Goodman said. But sometimes there are good reasons why researchers can’t conform to these rules, like when the data contains confidential or sensitive medical information.4 Critics, which include more than a dozen scientific organizations, argue that, in practice, the rules would prevent many studies from being considered in EPA reviews.5 It might seem like an easy task to sort good science from bad, but in reality it’s not so simple. “There’s a misplaced idea that we can definitively distinguish the good from the not-good science, but it’s all a matter of degree,” said Brian Nosek, executive director of the Center for Open Science. “There is no perfect study.” Requiring regulators to wait until they have (nonexistent) perfect evidence is essentially “a way of saying, ‘We don’t want to use evidence for our decision-making,’” Nosek said. Most scientific controversies aren’t about science at all, and once the sides are drawn, more data is unlikely to bring opponents into agreement. Michael Carolan, who researches the sociology of technology and scientific knowledge at Colorado State University, wrote in a 2008 paper about why objective knowledge is not enough to resolve environmental controversies. “While these controversies may appear on the surface to rest on disputed questions of fact, beneath often reside differing positions of value; values that can give shape to differing understandings of what ‘the facts’ are.” What’s needed in these cases isn’t more or better science, but mechanisms to bring those hidden values to the forefront of the discussion so that they can be debated transparently. “As long as we continue down this unabashedly naive road about what science is, and what it is capable of doing, we will continue to fail to reach any sort of meaningful consensus on these matters,” Carolan writes. The dispute over tobacco was never about the science of cigarettes’ link to cancer. It was about whether companies have the right to sell dangerous products and, if so, what obligations they have to the consumers who purchased them. Similarly, the debate over climate change isn’t about whether our planet is heating, but about how much responsibility each country and person bears for stopping it. While researching her book “Merchants of Doubt,” science historian Naomi Oreskes found that some of the same people who were defending the tobacco industry as scientific experts were also receiving industry money to deny the role of human activity in global warming. What these issues had in common, she realized, was that they all involved the need for government action. “None of this is about the science. All of this is a political debate about the role of government,” she said in the documentary. These controversies are really about values, not scientific facts, and acknowledging that would allow us to have more truthful and productive debates. What would that look like in practice? Instead of cherry-picking evidence to support a particular view (and insisting that the science points to a desired action), the various sides could lay out the values they are using to assess the evidence. For instance, in Europe, many decisions are guided by the precautionary principle — a system that values caution in the face of uncertainty and says that when the risks are unclear, it should be up to industries to show that their products and processes are not harmful, rather than requiring the government to prove that they are harmful before they can be regulated. By contrast, U.S. agencies tend to wait for strong evidence of harm before issuing regulations. Both approaches have critics, but the difference between them comes down to priorities: Is it better to exercise caution at the risk of burdening companies and perhaps the economy, or is it more important to avoid potential economic downsides even if it means that sometimes a harmful product or industrial process goes unregulated? In other words, under what circumstances do we agree to act on a risk? How certain do we need to be that the risk is real, and how many people would need to be at risk, and how costly is it to reduce that risk? Those are moral questions, not scientific ones, and openly discussing and identifying these kinds of judgment calls would lead to a more honest debate. Science matters, and we need to do it as rigorously as possible. But science can’t tell us how risky is too risky to allow products like cigarettes or potentially harmful pesticides to be sold — those are value judgements that only humans can make.

History of policing Pre-confederation Mostly informal policing by community residents First police officers Quebec city, mid 17th century Upper Canada, early 19th century Mandate Police conflicts between ethinc groups and employes/labours Maintain moral standards (drunkenness, alcoholism) Apprehend criminals Provincal Police Force Response to disorder resulting form gold strikes in 19th century Replaced by RCMP during 20th century Currently, Ontario,Quebec and parts of Newfoundland have their own provincal police force History of RCMP North-Wesr Mounted Police Founded in 1873 Maintain law and order Ensure orderly settlement in prairies Many problems: desertion, resignation and improper conduct Replaced by Royal Canadain Mounted Police Police Today About 70,000 police officers across Canada 199 police officers per 100,000 population Lower than Scotland (337), England(244), U.S (238) NUmber increased over past decade NUmber of female officers increased 1 out of 5 officers is a women Contemporary Policing Structure of policing Four levels Federal, Provincial, municipal, and First nations Also public transportation police (railway, airport, and transit) Some municipalities have own forces E.g, Peel, Toronoto Others use provincial force detachments or RCMP detachments Royal Candanin Mounted Police Governed by Royal Canadian Mounted Pollcei Act (1985) Broad Range of policing activities, including federal policing and international peacekeppiong Contract Policing Provincial, territorial and municipal level Concerns about local oversight and accountability In but not of communities-difficult to ensure that RCMp detachments are responsive to communities Provincial Police Three forces Ontario Provincial Police Surete du Quebec (SQ) Royal Newfoundland Constabulary (RNC) Other provinces contractually use the RCMP Responsibilities Police rural areas and areas outside municipalities Enforce provincial laws and Criminal Code Regional Police Amalgamated Forces E.g Peel region police and Halton Regional Police Force Provide Police Services to over Half of Ontarians Advantages Cheaper, more servies Disadvantages To centralized, not in touch with community Municipal Police Responsibilites Enforce Criminal Code, Provincal Statues, municipal by laws, some federal statues (e.g drugs) Largest number of officers of any level My be contracted to RCMP or Provincal force Costs are paid by the municipality First Nations Type of policing is negotiated by First Nations Commnity Autonomous reserve based First Nations Officers from RCMP or OPP Responsibilites Enforce Criminal Code, federal and provicanl statues, band bylaws Accountability Reserve based police commission or band council Private Security Services Two main types 1. Private Security Firms 2. Company based, in house security officers No more legal authority than ordinary citizens But can arrest and detain people who commit crimes on private property In Canada, Private security officers outnumber police officer by four to one Parapolice Extension of activities Lack of systems of oversight like transitional police Police Work POlicing The activities of any indivual or organization acting legally on behalf of public or private organizations or persons to maintain security or social order Pluralization of Policing The sharing between public and private security Legislative Framework Carry out tasks within a number of legislative frameworks, define role, powers/responsibilites Canadian charter of rights and freedoms- most impactful on power/actvites of police Provincial and municipal legislation - Status such as motor vehicle administration acts, highway traffic acts, liquor acts and provincial/musincpal police acts Democracy Governance Categories of Policing Recruitment and Training of police officers Police recruitment Recruiting Visible Minorites and Aboriginal People Special initvates and programs for youth, women and visible minorities PEACE (Police Ethnic and Cultureal Exchange) OPPBound (particpate in variety of activate with officer) Toronto POlice recruitment of Somali Officers Edmonton police uniforms that include a hijab Police Training Residential/non-residential academies, centralized and decentralized Physical and academic instruction, socilization into the police occupation Operational field traiing Hands-on application of principles learned in the academy Mentoship form senior officer Working Personality of Police officers Challenges of Police Work Work Enviroment Long hours and shift work Exposure to stressors, especially in high demand environments PTSD and burnout Work Organiztion Harassment of female officers Cumbersome of system of internal redress Summary A number of misconceptions arounds police work, including th emotion that most police work involves crime control A variety of influences on the roles and activities of the police Four levels of policing: federal, provincial, mnicipal and First Nations, each with different responsibilities

The Criminal Jusctice System CJS- all of the agencies, organizations, and personnel that are involved in prevention or, response to, crime including Persons charged with criminal offences Persons convicted of crimes Criminal jusctie professtionals Volunteers who work in the criminal jusctice system The CJS includes Crime prevention and crime reduction Arrest and prosecution of suspects Hearing of criminal cases by teh courts Sentencing and teh administration and enforcement of court orders Parole, forms of conditional release Supervision and assistance for ex-offenders released into the community Role and Responsibility of Government in the CJS Each level of government plays a role Division of responsibility, federal and provincial governments in the Constitution Act, 1867 The federal government decides which behaviours constitute criminal offences Provincial/territorial governments responsible for enforcing and administering the justice system Criminal Justice Administration Two competing perspectives on teh value systems underlying the administration of criminal jusctie 1. The Crime Control model: An orientation to criminal jusctise in which the protection of the community and the apprehensions of offenders are paramount. There are two competing perspectives on teh value system underlying the administration of criminal juscite 2. The due process model An orientation to criminal justice in which the legal rights of individual citizens, including crime suspects, are paramount An adversarial system of criminal justice Canadian criminal justice system is an adversarial system Defence lawyers/prosecutor present their cases before a neutral judge/jury The standard of proof is proof beyond a reasonable doubt Task Environments The task environment is the cultural, geographic and community setting in which the CJS operates, criminal justice personnel make decisions Media and Public Attitudes For most Canadians, news media stories primary source of information about CJS. Shows may oversimplify complex issues Tens to be biased toward sensational crime, simplify issues and public generalize from specific events Different Effects of the CJS Studies of the deterrent effect of criminal law suggest the law can serve as a deterrent only when certain conditions are present 1. Legal Sanctions (severe) applied if individuals engage in certain behaviours 2. Certainty of punishment 3. Sanction is applied swiftly when a crime is committed Restorative justice Restorative justice, alternative framework for responding to criminal offenders. Focus on Problem-solving Addressing the needs of victims and offenders Involving the community on a proactive basis and Fashioning sanctions that reduce the likelihood of reoffending There are a number of entry points in the criminal justice system where restorative justice approaches can be used Summary The criminal jusctie suystem (CJS) contains all of the agencies, organiztions, and personnel that are involved in teh prevention of, and response to crime There are 2 competing models of criminal justice administration: 1) due process and 2) crime control. The flow of cases through the justice system can be illustrated with a “funnel,” reflecting the fact that there is significant attrition in cases through the criminal justice process The role of discretion, ethics and accountability are pervasive considerations within the CJS CJS personnel work in various task environments that affect teh challenges faced There is variation in the oversight and accountability of criminal justice personnel For most Canadians, teh media is the primary source of information about the CJS Restorative justice has a number of features that distinguish it from the adversarial system

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