“Never About Them Without Them”: The Ottawa Police Service’s Youth Advisory Committee as an Opportunity for Youth Civic Engagement

Abstract

Youth civic engagement literature has suggested that the consistently low voter turnout among the youth demographic is because they are either apathetic to the world around them or they participate in other forms of civic engagement that they deem more practical, such as volunteering. Moreover, to build trust with the community, police services have turned to community policing programs and community consultation to establish a collective responsibility for community well-being and safety. This thesis project explores the dynamics and characteristics of the Ottawa Police Service’s Youth Advisory Committee as a youth engagement program. Further, these dynamics are analyzed regards to its potential to implement a democratization of the police service. In this way, the project uncovers the bureaucratic tensions that may impact the program’s full potential to involve the youth community in the police service. This project has the practical goal to learn more about the characteristics and dynamics of the Youth Advisory Committee within the Ottawa Police Service as a powerful police institution in order to improve other similar initiatives.