Lost the Plot

Herald Sun journalist stated Acting Deputy Commissioner Doug Fryer on Wednesday (26 April 2017) slammed the Community Advocacy Alliance (CAA), saying they were from a “bygone era” and "They are from an era 30 years ago ... It was a long time ago and the world has changed.” This is yet another example of a knee jerk dismissive arrogant response from a police command that would rather look to a media grab than base their comments on the facts and evidence. I am a proud member of CAA who resigned on 6 July 2016 from Victoria Police in disgust over the direction Victoria Police command has taken.

It is a direction that has seen the withdrawal of support for grass roots policing initiatives that engage proactively with their communities. Where there is support at a local level it is ad hoc and under threat. This retreat from engaging with communities has not occurred in other States where the crime rates have been falling, e.g when Victoria Police withdrew police from schools NSW was establishing such initiatives. NSW and Qld each have almost 60 Police & Citizen Youth Club (PCYC) each supported by full time police officers. Victoria has one PCYC not supported by a full time police officer. Are the Police commands in these States also policing from a "bygone era" and out of touch with "modern policing"? If so, there is ample evidence to show that it's working.

It is as clear as the nose on your face that many of the issues we face today, including: youth crime, youth gangs, the "ice epidemic", home grown terrorism, hoon behaviour, family violence and mental health issues, all have a common denominator, that being disengagement of youth from their families, education and their broader communities. For Victoria Police command to not actively support structured face to face engagement with youth just defies common sense.

Acting Deputy Commissioner Fryer also stated: “We operate in a far more complex environment now. In their day there was no mobile phones, social media or ice.”

It seems all generations voice similar beliefs, that today is different, however, whether it be 1829 when the first police force as we know it was established or 2017, drugs in one form or another have been an issue. In 1910 my grandfather was a police officer in Bottle, near Liverpool, England, when he was injured during a police raid on an opium den, he did not recover from his injuries and died of pneumonia. In 1988 I was a Detective Sergeant at Fitzroy CIB when Fitzroy was awash with heroin, largely due to police operations successfully driving recently arrived Rumanian Drug dealers out of Footscray. These "new" dealers were selling street deals at 25% purity whereas these deals had usually been less than 10% purity. In a bid to at least provide a visible police presence I organised a large contingent of police to saturate Gertrude Street, Fitzroy and undertake searches of any person suspected of possessing drugs. Unfortunately less than two hundreds metres from where we conducted our operation further along Gertrude Street, six people overdosed and were hospitalised with two dying. Deaths from heroin overdoses were rivalling the road toll and the Herald Sun Newspaper was posting daily comparisons between the deaths. The Government of the day initiated the Pennington inquiry to search for answers.

There will always be issues for policing to overcome. It is how Policing prevents and addresses those issues that matter.

One of the most influential Police Commissioners in modern times, William Bratton, Commissioner of the New York Police Department (NYPD) stated in March 2014,

In my long police career I have often drawn inspiration from a great hero of mine, Sir Robert Peel. Peel founded the London Metropolitan Police in 1829. He went on to serve as British Prime Minister for two separate terms and earned a reputation as a powerful and effective reformer. In addition to establishing London’s first modern, disciplined police force, Peel articulated “nine principles of policing which remain as relevant and meaningful today as they were in the 1830s. The man had an innate grasp of the challenges police officers face and of the complex interplay between the police and the public that is at the very heart of policing in a free society. Defining the basic mission of police as prevention, recognizing that police must win public approval, favoring persuasion and warning over force, and defining success as the absence of crime and disorder rather than in terms of police action -- these were all cutting edge ideas in the 1980s let alone the 1830s. Peel’s nine principles inform the vision of collaborative policing that I believe is essential to healing the divisions that exist between the police and the communities we serve. They will guide us in our efforts to foster shared responsibility for public safety as we move forward.

Nobody in Victoria Police command has intentionally set out to make this State less safe, but to the detriment of our communities and operational police officers, that has been the result of their decisions to retreat from engaging effectively with the communities they took a oath to protect. They have failed in their commitment to their oath of office that: "I will prevent to the best of my power all offences". A commitment which stems from the earliest principles of policing. Victoria Police command have retreated from those principles and have indeed in the words of former Chief Commissioner Kel Glare, Lost the Plot.