Although two provinces of Canada, Ontario and Quebec, have decentralized police systems, a single force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, has jurisdiction in the rest of the country.
Most fall under one of four categories: (1) complete centralization in one police force; (2) high centralization, with a small number of national police forces; (3) regional centralization under federal authority; and (4) decentralized local policing, with a strong national agency.
The constitution also enfranchised women, guaranteed fundamental human rights, outlawed racial discrimination, strengthened the powers of Parliament and the Cabinet, and decentralized the police and local government.
As mayor, Mr. Torres, 43, said he would try to decrease crime by decentralizing the police force, creating individual precincts at firehouses and assigning only one police officer to a squad car.
The authority for policing was decentralized to the level of political wards and neighbourhoods, which developed relatively autonomous police units.
Condor grew out of a surge in crime that occurred as police officials decentralized the Street Crime Unit, which had been involved in the 1999 shooting of Amadou Diallo, and the unit's gun seizures dropped.
The police are decentralized and generalized to allow a more flexible resource allocation, while remaining under political control.
The Home Ministry with its prewar powers over the police and local government was abolished; the police force was decentralized and its extensive power revoked.
Policing, however, remains decentralized.
Previously the police used a decentralized information technology system developed during the mid-1990s.
