Queensland policing: Queenslanders deserve better

Are the younger generation problem children? No, but the world could be in safe hands if we help them to benefit from our wisdom: that’s our job, by the way. Some of the controls my generation were influenced by, like religion, are now missing from our society although the flip side of that seems to be that most of the formerly socially-invisible and endemic horrors like child rape and relationship violence are well and truly outed, both very good things. 

A majority of the police I know are of the rank of sergeant or lower and generally do a great job. Some are saints and do a better than excellent job. It is only the odd copper I come across who could use better manners or needs to take a trip to China to see the effects of a society where writers are unable to criticise police. Things have improved in many respects since the bad old days pre-Fitzgerald but there are some things that will never change.

Have violent criminals been given a green light in Queensland? You could say they’ve been welcomed with a red carpet.Let’s talk about violent crimes and the public’s perception that armed robberies on the Gold Coast are completely out of control. Well, they are. For a start, bad guys from all over Australia must be flocking to Armed Robbers’ Paradise because they will all know that the number of cops on the beat on the Gold Coast is pathetic for such a high crime area. Then they will also know that Queensland police aren’t usually allowed to chase anyone who runs away in a motor vehicle. So that’s helpful.

They may also know that in Queensland most police have no specialised training in how to respond tactically to an armed-robbery-in-progress situation that is no less lethal, as we’ve seen lately. Unlike the Australian military where discipline and training for combat situations are everything and our aviators, sailors and soldiers are up there with the world’s elite, there is apparently no specialised tactical training in armed robbery response is being provided to Queensland police stationed from Brisbane’s Northside to the NSW border. Now that’s truly tragic.

The bad guys may also know that the Queensland Police SWAT equivalent, the Special Emergency Response Team (SERT) is confined to barracks in Brisbane. That’s right, we keep our specialist heavily armed SERT team safely confined to barracks so they don’t catch armed robbers? As if that’s not bad enough, the bad guys will also know that Queensland police have no air support. In Queensland there are no police helicopters.

Then there is the lack of technology provided to Queensland police officers. Most Queensland teenagers have smartphones. Police cars should have at least this basic level of technology as standard, but most don’t. What is happening with the Queensland police Mobile Services Project? I don’t know because my local Assistant Commissioner, a former detective who is in charge of that project, won’t meet me to talk about it. Why do some Queensland police officers still have to purchase their own GPS units?

Armed robberies are about opportunistic crime. How do we stop armed robberies? By a range of measures. But firstly, if the Queensland Police Service had a police commissioner who understood evidence-based methodologies he might know that research shows that only 15 to 20 per cent of armed robberies are likely to be solved after-the-event. So throwing all of the Queensland Police Service resources on the Gold Coast at the CIB is doomed to fail and is the predictable and wrong approach of a Commissioner who is no more than a detective who has surrounded himself with other senior officers.

Too many detective mates of the current Police Commissioner are being promoted to positions way above their level of competence and for which they have no recognised public or private sector managerial or ‘professional’ qualifications. That’s got to stop. Unless a detective can show other qualifications that demonstrate development towards professional public sector management, why promote them to the most senior ranks of the Queensland Police Service?

On the Gold Coast there are some 900 to 1000 liquor outlets, add to this the number of 24-hour servos, late-night fast-food outlets and convenience stores, that’s a lot of targets. We need police who are specialists in target-hardening to work with the public in these sitting-duck outlets, to help them to look after themselves as much as possible. That’s being done, but not to the degree it must. Target-hardening needs to be stepped up and if that means pulling back in retired police with this specialist background or paying competent consultants who are not police, then let’s do it.

On the ground, we need to gear up the troops and have seasoned police who have been trained in armed-offender responses doing patrols in hotspots in unmarked cars. These cops need to be vested up, weaponed-up with shotguns like their opponents have, and ready to go in cars that can pursue with GPS units installed and with radios that work. We need to activate SERT. Let’s have these fully-weaponed up highly trained assets mobile and roaming the hotspots looking for trouble, 24/7.

The recently published CMC’s report proves that many drivers of vehicles that evade police pursuits are car thieves who are not to be found at the address attached to the vehicle’s Queensland Transport records. Who does not remember the stolen yellow Holden Monaro sedan that was allowed to ram a police car in a service station then continue to drive unrestricted around the Gold Coast area for at least a week while it was being used in crimes because someone in the QPS came up with a no-pursuit policy?

I’ve written about two situations where criminals driving stolen vehicles have committed crimes only to be ‘observed’ by police, despite late night and low traffic situations being highly favourable for a short chase unlikely to result in anything other than an arrest. Citizens should be outraged. Part of policing is catching bad guys. Part of catching bad guys is chasing them, on foot, in cars, in boats and in the air.

The CMC report also confirms that the customary penalty for drivers who fail to stop for police is about the same price of a big night out for a teenage driver: $300.00. Is that a real deterrent? No. If police are to continue to be stopped from pursuing stolen vehicles which are used to commit crimes, specialist ground-air units to track these vehicles and arrest offenders when they are stopped must be formed, as has been with success in some U.S. states. Until this is done, the no-pursuit policy must be relaxed for competent police drivers who have been trained to chase safely and have performed hundreds of high-speed pursuits without incident.

When an armed robbery happens, police need to be able to hit the area with sufficient officers to be able to mount an effective investigation. The number of police on the Gold Coast is well below sufficient to properly investigate violent crimes and too many police are simply going from job-to-job writing in notebooks. We need to get serious about catching dangerous crooks that put weapons in people’s face. This can be greatly assisted by having enough police on the beat.

In Queensland, senior police have yet to be forced to manage under the clear understanding that there is a nexus between ineffective management and misconduct. Instead, the ‘bad apple theory’ is trotted out at every turn and the top police are allowed to squirm off the hook. The failure to implement a system that develops competent police managers who are held responsible for identifying underperformance and misconduct and doing something about, is what is really wrong with the Queensland Police Service.