Policing ‘Vancouver’s mental health crisis’: a critical discourse analysis
Open accessAbstract
In Canada and other western nations there has been an unprecedented expansion of criminal justice systems and a well documented increase of contact between people with mental illness and the police. Canadian police, especially in Vancouver, British Columbia, have been increasingly at the forefront of discourse and regulation specific to mental health. Drawing on critical discourse analysis, this paper to explores this claim through a case study of four Vancouver Police Department (VPD) policy reports on "Vancouver's mental health crisis" from 2008-2013, which include recommendations for action. Analyzed is the VPD's role in framing issues of mental health in one urban space. This study is the first analysis to critically examine the VPD reports on mental health in Vancouver, B.C. The reports reproduce negative discourses about deinstitutionalization, mental illness and dangerousness that may contribute to further stigma and discrimination of persons with mental illness. Policing reports are widely drawn upon, thus critical analyses are particularly significant for policy makers and public health professionals in and outside of Canada.
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Laws and policies render particular experiences stigmatized and prone to carceral responses, including trauma, mental health challenges, HIV nondisclosure, substance dependency, sex work, homelessness and citizenship.
“Laws and policies render particular experiences stigmatized and prone to carceral responses, including trauma (Balfour, 2013), mental health challenges (Boyd and Kerr, 2016;Michalski, 2015), HIV nondisclosure (Kilty andOrsini, 2019a, 2019b), substance dependency (Boyd et al., 2018), sex work (Krüsi et al., 2014), homelessness (Gaetz, 2013) and citizenship (Côté-Boucher, 2014;Bergen and Abji, 2019”
From Decolonizing Research on the Carceral in Canadian Political Science (2023) · cites this paper as Boyd and Kerr, 2016
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- Authors
- Boyd, J., & Kerr, T.
- Affiliations
- University of British Columbia (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Boyd, Jade
- Venue
- Critical Public Health
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2015-02-09
- Volume
- 26
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 418-433
- ISSN
- 0958-1596 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-3682
- PMC
- PMC5423726
- OpenAlex
- W2050953811
- Cited by
- 52
- References
- 43
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 3
- FWCI
- 32.52
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- correction (2015-03-05)
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Critical Public Health (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- cIRcle (University of British Columbia) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (R01DA028532)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Policing Practices and Perceptions
- Social Sciences › Law › Criminal Justice and Penology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health Treatment and Access
- Keywords
- mental health crisis, deinstitutionalization, mental health stigma, discrimination against people with mental illness, urban mental health, Vancouver
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