Policing offensive behaviour
By Alex Cooper
Policing Offensive Behaviour, a report released just before the October 10 Victorian state election by the Federation of Community Legal Centres shows a widespread abuse by police of their power and the unwillingness of both the ALP and the Liberal-National Coalition to deal with such abuses in a concrete way.
In its law and order policy, the former Kirner Labor government had "adopted the language of those people critical of traditional law enforcement" but had failed to find strategies to prevent crime. In fact, over the last 10 years the police had been given increased resources without being accountable as to how and where they had spent those resources.
Kennett's policy statement, A Safer Victoria, had simply promised law and order through increased emphasis on law enforcement and punishment. Both major parties promised to increase police numbers to 11,000 which would give Victoria one of the biggest police forces in the industrialised countries.
However, it would seem that much of the police's time is taken up on pursuing trivial matters as in the recent case of a motorcyclist who was charged with offensive behaviour after he gave a speed camera a one finger salute. He was then charged and fined $100.
"The use of police resources and taxpayers money to pursue such a trivial incident is just one example of a gross double standard existing between the police and the community they serve. The offensive behaviour of our police is not only an abuse of power entrusted to our police force, but represents the greatest threat to the rights of individuals", said the report.
"Despite many public comments by police officers to the effect that they do not oppose, and in fact would support independent investigations of police complaints, their treatment of the Police Complaints Authority established in Victoria during the mid 1980's makes it clear that they in fact vigourously oppose any independent investigation of complaints against police".
The report says that "it is the experience of legal centres that violent crimes committed by police contribute significantly to violence in the community. It appears that such violence is becoming more frequent and more serious. There are a significant number of people in the community who are deeply traumatised physically and emotionally by such abuses and who live in fear and dread of the police. Police violence which goes unpunished can lead to disrespect for the law and a desire for revenge on the part of those affected".
Police violence is usually hidden and people who are the victims of police brutality have little or no means of seeking redress. word of the police officers involved against one individual. It is a part of police culture to stick together and tell lies to protect each other even under oath at court. People who complain about police treatment or crimes are often falsely charged and harassed".
Victimising the marginalised
It is often the most marginalised sectors of society who are most likely to suffer from police violence. For example, the National Inquiry into Racist Violence heard evidence that many of the attacks upon Aborigines, young and old, were perpetrated by police. Other groups to suffer at the hands of police include young homeless people of whom almost half said they had been physically hurt by police.
"Police enthusiasm knows no bounds when it comes to policing the gay community", the report found. The summary offence "offensive behaviour" is routinely used against gay men frequenting "beats". Police helicopters have been used to swoop down on public toilets. Police chase men in and out of bushes in an attempt to catch "the buggers in the act" despite the fact that two men engaging in consensual sex in the privacy of a bush are not committing an offence at all.
Offensive behaviour as defined under section 17 of the Summary Offences Act depends on "where that behaviour took place and the circumstances in which it took place". According to gay activist Jamie Gardner "what the police refuse to accept is that the decision to chase gay men around the bushes and prosecute is just that, a decision. A decision to spend scarce taxpayers money persecuting gay men".
A survey undertaken by the Federation of Community Legal Centres into police mistreatment included a number of police assault and sexual abuse of women, one of whom said she had been sexually assaulted at a police station after having been picked up by police in an area where prostitutes work.
In a separate incident the same woman reported that while she was standing on the street "police pulled up in a car and said they had a warrant for me. They took me to the police station, and to the cells where they physically abused me, threw buckets of cold water over me and hit me in the face. They held a gun to my head and pulled the trigger, though unknown to me the gun was not loaded".
On the other hand, the police do not seem so keen to intervene when it comes to preventing domestic violence. Time and time again police have refused to press charges against a violent partner. The report describes one gruesome example:
"Shirley was severely beaten by Phillip who pushed her head through a wall and attempted to strangle her. The police attended and took both Shirley and Phillip to the station to be interviewed. They sent Phillip home without charging him and irley with use of a drug of addiction. (She had not been using illegal drugs but was on a Methadone program.) Shirley had an Intervention Order against Phillip. Other police who Shirley had contact with a few days later were so concerned about her injuries that they had her photographed by the police photographer and have stated they are going to charge Phillip".
The Victorian Coalition parties' law and order policy statement ignores the question of inappropriate police attitudes to domestic violence or to domestic violence generally. Their statement before the election that there will be "support for women to enable them to leave violent relationships" ignores the fact that often women have nowhere to go because all the refuges are full and have long waiting lists, the report said.
Shootings
Perhaps the most frightening aspect of the Coalition's policy is its refusal to make the police accountable for the use and misuse of equipment such as handcuffs, batons and most frightening of all firearms, especially in the light of recent controversial police shootings.
"In the two years between 1987 and 1989 Victoria Police shot and killed eleven citizens", according to the report. "In ten out of these eleven shootings the police were not themselves being shot at. In at least seven out of the eleven shootings the deceased either did not have a gun or did not have a gun capable of firing. Four of those shot and killed were shot in the back, three dying of bullet wounds to the back of the head".
The accidental firing of guns by police or deliberate discharge of guns in circumstances that endanger the public occur with alarming regularity, the report noted. For example:
- When police attempted to arrest one suspect for questioning they fired seven shots in a public car park on a weekday afternoon. The detective in charge of the operation did not check whether there were any civilians in the car park before attempting the arrest although he expected a shootout. The police shot and killed the suspect during this incident and the Coroner held an inquest. The father of a two year old girl told the Coroner that his daughter was in a car in the car park when the police opened fire and he believed that the police tactics had endangered his daughter's life.
- A police officer fired six shots in a busy street at a fleeing motorist; one shot landed between two teenage girls sitting on a couch in their home.
- In his 1990 annual report, the Ombudsman described an incident in which a mother and baby narrowly missed being shot when an officer accidentally fired his revolver during a raid.
- A police officer was accidentally shot in the foot by a colleague at Altona police station.
- Officers have been shot and killed or wounded by other police during raids.
- A man and his two children narrowly escaped serious injury when a shot accidentally fired from a police officer's gun hit their car. Only luck has prevented bystanders from being wounded or killed by police bullets.
Guns
Before the election Jeff Kennett promised to ban the carrying of firearms by parliamentary security guards because he found them offensive. But if parliamentarians are to be spared the sight of armed guards why should other Victorians be subjected to the sight of the 10,000 odd police officers, many of them still teenagers, who patrol the streets with guns on their hips, the report asks.
"Most adult Victorians who grew up in the city, never saw a real gun as children but our own children see guns every day of the week carried by police. For many parents trying to raise their children with an attitude that rejects violence as a means of solving problems these guns and their prominent display are an affront. Any policy which purports to address the issue of public safety and gun control must address the way that 10,000 armed police use their firearms".
The Coalition suggested, prior to the Victorian election, that police might be issued with water cannons for use at demonstrations. The report calls this idea "an appalling prospect" because "Victorians have the right to demonstrate in the streets".
The report takes up the issue of specialist squads such as the recently disbanded Major Crime Squad, the Armed Robbery Squad,
the Special Operations Group and the Asian Squad. "These specialist squads are able to act in a total void of accountability to the outside community and to the parliament of Victoria.
The nature of complaints about the operations of these
squads indicate that even the most senior levels of police management have very little control over these sections of the police force. It is the clear impression in legal centres based on complaints made to us thatthese squads have become a law unto themselves.Community legal centres have seen too many people whose treatment at the hands of these squads can best be described as torture. The methods used by these squads are of far greater danger to the community than most of the people against whom they direct their ruthless tactics".
The report says that the 19-week training course currently provided to Victorian police officers is "grossly inadequate". Despite significant increases in budgetary allocations over the past 10 years, the Victoria Police have not chosen to give high ery little work has been done to ensure that they receive adequate training in relation to dealing with young people, dealing with people from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds and the development of more sophisticated and less confrontational tactics when dealing with the public.
Legal aid
Many people facing charges are unable to afford legal costs. According to the report 85% of legal aid recipients are living below the poverty line and many people unable to afford legal costs are not receiving any legal assistance due to more stringent legal aid guidelines.
The Legal Aid Commission has had to increasingly reject applications due to significant budgetary constraints. Under the Commonwealth-State Legal Aid funding agreement the state is required to provide 45% of the Commission's income. Interest from the Solictors Guarantee fund has largely met the states financial obligations in the past. But with the Solictors Guarantee Fund and interest rates at an all time low, the state government has had to dip into its purse to provide leagl aid funds. However, government funding has not kept pace with the increasing cost of cases due to their increasing complexity and length.
People facing criminal charges in Victoria are now regularly being refused legal aid even when they have a sound defence to the charge against them, on the grounds that they are unlikely to go to gaol or receive substantial fines. These people are not in a position to be able to afford the cost of legal representation out of their own pockets, and are pleading guilty and being convicted simply because they have no means by which to present their case to the courts.
The number of people appearing before Magistrates Courts without the benefit of legal representation is rising dramatically probably for the first time since the development of community legal centres in the early 1970's and the creation of legal aid commissions in the early 80's.
However, many people do not even get to court as they receive on the spot fines. According to the report, Labor promised to make a wider range of offences subject to on the spot fines. Many Victorians are faced with heavy fines of this nature at a time when they are suffering great economic hardship. The fines have vastly different impacts on different people because they take no account of a persons income or ability to pay. Another offensive aspect of on-the-spot fines is that ordinary people have no hope of challenging them once they have been issued. Many people complain that some police officers incorrectly or unfairly issue such fines.
It is not possible to get legal aid to challenge the fines and most people are not confident enough to put their story at court without legal representation and with the risk of receiveing an even higher fine. It is true that on-the-spot fines save police he high to freedom of making police officers judge and jury, and ultimately at the cost to individual's freedom.
In conclusion, the report argues that both the Labor and Coalition parties have avoided tackling the real issues in crime prevention and law enforcement.
Trust them?
While Labor does acknowledge a "social context" to crime, the Coalition does not even attempt to state why crime occurs. The noticeably thin Safer Victoria espouses a traditional approach to policing and a paternalistic attitude of encouraging publiv "trust" in the police force. This sets the tone for a document which at best is naive and at worst dangerous.
With the current lack of police accountability the impact of budget increases of 8% (from $600 million) under Labor and 10% promised under the Coalition in terms of increased numbers, powers and resources will ensure that more and more people will experience the kind of abuse at the hands of the police that we have come to associate with military regimes or police states.
Community legal centres are already seeing people whose faith that we live in a society where these types of abuses are not allowed to occur has been shattered. Knowledge of these abuses is not more widespread partly because of the wilful ignorance of politicians who refuse to heed the warning signs and a mainstream media that to a large extent is successfully managed by the million dollar police media liaison bureau.
Policing Offensive Behaviour: A Critique of Labor and Coalition Police Policies can be obtained from the Federation of Community Legal Centres (Vic) Inc, Suite 1, 250 Gore St, Fitzroy 3065. Tel: 03-419 2752.