Dale Mills
NSW Police has called for 3000 extra police over the next three years, part of a nation-wide attempt by police to gain more staff and more funding.
Australia's real recurrent spending on the police service was about $5.5 billion in 2004-05, according to a Productivity Commission report released on January 31. But, according to that report, fewer people than previously in every state and territory believe that the police treat people fairly and equally, fewer believe that the police act professionally and fewer believe that the police are likely to act honestly. Complaints against Victorian police doubled in 2001-05.
The NSW Police Association report contains the official police thinking as to why they need more staff, power and money. The reasons given are "public order crime", the "war on terrorism" and even "the new world order".
Real terrorism (such as bombs being let off on buses) is presented as being largely the same as public disorder (such as during protests). The report states: "The issue of public order crime is potentially one of the greatest threats to the streets of our major population centres".
This approach is encapsulated in the name of the supervisory "Counter Terrorism and Public Order Unit". The police report asks for a quadrupling of core police officers assigned to the "Public Order and Riot" squad that was set up by the NSW Labor government on January 1.
The police may not be happy with an extra 3000 officers: "These numbers may need to be reviewed closer to the end of the three year period to determine whether they are sufficient to have addressed the challenges of twenty first century policing".
The request for an extra 3000 "sworn officers" is misleading because for every five "sworn officers" about one civilian employee is required. The "civilianisation" of the police force has been underway for many years, as civilians replace officers, who are in turn released for "front line" duties. On current ratios, an extra 3000 sworn officers would require an additional 600 civilians. If 3000 weren't enough, the report flags even greater numbers: "To reach New York levels, we would require an extra 19,000 police".
Another way to put more police on the "front line" is to take them off court duties. This was the aim of a pilot project in NSW, which was criticised by the NSW Ombudsman's Office in November 2005. The experiment allowed police to issue on-the-spot fines, rather than taking people to court, for a range of offences including assault and shoplifting.
The pilot project areas included Bankstown, Blacktown and Parramatta, and the financial savings were such that this system is likely to be introduced across NSW soon.
The chairperson of criminology at Bond University, and the author of some 30 books on the subject, Professor Paul Wilson says there's no truth to the claim that Australia is generally under-policed.
In an interview with the ABC's "The World Today" program on January 30 Wilson said that among the many differences between Australia and the United States, where the police to population ratio is higher, were the level of gun ownership in the US, as well as "a created underclass, black minority in inner-city areas".
As for how extra police would have changed the "riots" at Cronulla last December, Wilson said: "I can't really think of any serious commentator, regardless of their sort of ideological position, who would argue that more police would have somehow made a difference in that situation."
Wilson told Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly: "There is no real evidence that the NSW Police are understaffed", adding that extra police would only make things worse. "Police saturating certain suburbs could breed enormous resentment among ethnic groups", he said. Yet this is what the police have in mind.
The NSW government has announced that it will allocate an extra 600 police officers, according to the Sydney Morning Herald of February 1.
Anna Samson from Sydney's Stop the War Coalition told GLW: "Creating a safer society and a more peaceful world does not begin with more cops with greater powers. It begins with active political and practical support for cultural diversity, not invading and occupying countries in the Middle East, and diverting money away from propping up war profiteers into job creation, health care, education and social security."
The NSW Police Association Report can be found at: . The Productivity Commission Report on police services can be found at: < http://www.pc.gov.au/gsp/reports/rogs/2006/justice/chapter05.pA href="mailto:df"><df>
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, February 8, 2006.
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