From Incident to Crisis: the Case of Police Oversight in Quebec and British Columbia
This article looks at police legitimacy crises in the context of external police control reforms in Quebec and British Columbia. Using detailed analysis of three cases, it aims to identify the drivers of the social dynamics that lead from the serious incident involving a police officer to the crisis of legitimacy. Starting from the observation of an inequality of the incidents in terms of their effects, the article identifies the characteristics which allow some of them to constitute themselves into a focusing event. It also looks at the crisis itself, in order to identify the elements allowing the incident to fulfill the role of a catalyst for change in public action.