AB justice minister announces special advisor for police reform

Last week, the Alberta government announced that they had appointed a special advisor to assist them in their review of the Police Act.

Temitope Oriola is an associate professor in the University of Alberta’s sociology department. He researches and teaches in areas of criminology, including policing and use of force by police, transnational crimes, terrorism, resource conflict, political violence, and social movements.

Oriola is also joint editor-in-chief of African Security and president of the Canadian Association of African Studies.

He also also written op-eds on the topic of police reform, including the following:

As part of his consultation, Oriola will be considering the feedback received by the provincial government during 13 engagement sessions attended by approximately 200 organizations representing law enforcement, health and social services sectors, municipalities and Indigenous communities, as well as survey responses from nearly 15,000 respondents.

In response to the appointment, Oriola stated that he was “pleased to support the retooling of the Police Act to reduce excessive use of force, ensure officer safety and enhance trust in and legitimacy of police organizations.”

Originally published at kimsiever.ca on 1 March 2021.