Unusually High Number of Complaints Against Police

By the time Police smashed down the door of the US embassy woman’s apartment in Kingston she had been well and truly raped by Mr Christopher Henderson:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200609/s1735661.htm

Police, more Police can’t be on the spot to protect you, seepi.

All that will protect you, assuming you’re an average Joe like the rest of us, is the removal of bad people from the community.

I don’t think the residents of the ACT realise how vulnerable they are to human predators because of the progressive attitudes held by the
administrators of the ACT Criminal Justice System.

I have heard horror stories of what happens when Neanderthal forgets to take his medication!

And then the boffins say: “Oh well, you win some,
you lose some, back to the drawing board” as they implement another phase of their experimental rehabilitative program.

Put simply, the ACT Criminal Justice System devalues our lives. It puts the interests of ratbags ahead of ours. And the blame for this
situation can be fairly and squarely focused on the Canberra Times.

There is an unfortunate confluence of ideologies between the ACT Government, the ACT Supreme Court and the Canberra Times.

Could you see the Daily Telegraph or the Herald Sun standing by as people were used as guinea pigs in a vast State-operated laboratory as
is happening in the ACT?

No, neither could I!

like the fashion sense of a plain clothes officer!

I was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and linen shorts with some slip on loafers the other day.

My friend noted that I looked like an undercover cop from the cast of point break.

From the ABC piece:

“The report on government services says about two-thirds of Canberrans were satisfied or very satisfied with their police services, well down on the national average…” and they’re worried about this?

I can just imagine the question: Sir, when thinking about your level of satisfaction with the ACT police service would you say that you were a) extremely over-the-moon satisfied b) extremely satisfied, c)very satisfied or d) satisfied…

miz that would have been an interview obo the Australasian Centre for Policing Research? I used to run this survey and can tell you the reason you didnt get asked the more pertinant questions like WHY you felt very safe/unsafe in your local area, or how you felt about staffing levels is because thats not what the poll is for. It’s designed to track very general and subjective community opinions and how they change over time – eg. “has satisfaction with the Victorian PF dropped since the recent corruption allegations?”

People make complaints about the police because the can.

That said, I’ve heard some police officers say some pretty silly things over the years.

There might be a few complaints that are a joke, but shit service is shit service.
In my experience you get treated very differently from uniform police depending on what class you are from – I know that from experience.
and they defintely change their tune when they find out my Dad is their bosses, bosses boss.
Its bullshit and before you pipe up vg I know it is not something that is unique to the police force – even I would plobably treat someone better if I knew my boss was their parent, but the fact remains that there have still been many instances in which I would have had valid course to complain about the cops.
Just to set things straight though – I couldn’t be bothered complaining and never have complained – If I ever have to deal with the police (through work) I just speak with a posh accent and I get treated better.

Maybe DJs family have been whinging?

So, let me get this straight, VG, is there no quality control on the old complaints registration? So if I were to be a looney and start calling the police complaints hotline to raise issues with the conduct on “The Bill” or “CSI” or whatever, it’d be included on the stats?

The problem is there are not enough police.

Thus people reporting minor crimes get ignored or fobbed off. This builds feelinhgs of resentment, and also leads to people feeling unsafe – you start to wonder if there will be any police around if something really bad happens.

More police would fix the problem.

Change it then to skew your stats like the other states.

It’s not a brainteaser…

Perhaps the moral of the story is that the ACT was a little slow off the boat when responding to a question about complaints and didn’t realise the implications.

….ah no they wouldn’t. They don’t operaste under the same complaints legislation in NSW, or the same Professional Standards regime……but what would I know?

There is no ‘benchmark’. It all depends on the local legislation

I’d say the same things would count as complaints interstate VG. There would be a benchmark for what does and doesn’t count as a complaint for counting purposes.

“oo much “call centre cops” I reckon. Attempting to report a high speed two car smash resulted in the call centre asking me to check whether the drivers had “had too much to drink or appeared be under the influence of drugs”.”

Or, of course, you could always say that you didn’t know. Its just a question, not asking you to be Columbo

People would be stunned if they knew what is considered a ‘complaint’ in the ACT and some of the absolute bollocks that is complained about……like the fashion sense of a plain clothes officer!

Yes, someone complained about it….only in the ACT

Too much “call centre cops” I reckon. Attempting to report a high speed two car smash resulted in the call centre asking me to check whether the drivers had “had too much to drink or appeared be under the influence of drugs”.

The community will be asked to do SWAT duty soon I’m sure…

While those stats are by state and per 100,000, I think a better apprication would be comparing Canberra to a breakdown of metropolitan and rural results.

While those stats are by state and per 100,000, I think a better apprication would be comparing Canberra to a breakdown fo metropolitan and rural results.

ED was being sarcastic.

The interesting stat should you be able to find it would be the number of complaints against police substantiated per 100,000 of population. I would be surprised if the ACT doesn’t come in the lowest in the country.

I don’t think, as the ED suggested, “obviously the fault lies with the public”. Although investigating unjustified or unsubstantiated complaints can take up a large amount of police time and resources and can be extremely stressful to those involved, on occasion prompting otherwise excellent officers to take positions where they have limited dealings with the public or even to resign, an unaccountable police force would be a far more scary thing. It is a good thing that any police force is held to the highest standards but I do feel that the high number of complaints per population in the ACT is due to having an educated, affluent and to be honest self-righteous population.

I was surveyed a few months back about policing. Did I feel safe? etc. Now, I have been pretty happy with the way a couple of incidents have been dealt with and said so. But I found some of the questions pretty problematic, and I had to go out of my way to ensure they included comments to the effect that the odd ‘somewhat less favourable’ response was only due to the MASSIVE understaffing/under-remuneration probs here. There was no question like, do you think there are enough police in your area, or, do you think police in your area are given the resources and support they require to satisfactorily do their (damn hard) job?

are we just more likely to complain?

Jill Circosta was always a class act in my experience.

And still on Law & Justice, here is something from today’s Canberra Times about the ACTs troubled Supreme Court:

“It’s understood the relationship between the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Registrar’s Office under Mrs Circosta had broken down, amid claims she was unhelpful towards prosecutors.Director of Public Prosecutions Richard Refshauge wrote in the office’s 2005-06 annual report: “There remains challenges in the Supreme Court where the work of the office sometimes seems to be met with apparent antipathy.”

Not sure why the post is protected. No doubt I pressed the wrong button. I knew I was a blonde in another life!

And check out the Gary Hughes blog in the Australian for more discussion:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/?from=ninews_leftnav