Police crisis a crock
 | Posted by Bridgit Gread on Wednesday 9 April 2008, 12:14 pm Categories: Media, Society Tags: Tags: ChristineNixon, crime, police, surveys |
Now we all know that polls and surveys are the tabloid media’s stock-in-trade; they love them as much as Ant loves his Fleshlight gags. But basing whole stories - or worse, a sweeping coverage of a significant issue - on a single survey is lazy, unimaginative and fundamentally dangerous. Today the Herald Sun is running a spread on the ’findings’ (ie. whatever controversial stuff it can extract) of a recent survey of serving Victorian police officers. A precis of some survey results can be downloaded here (note the filename). In short, the survey expresses a need for greater police numbers (fair enough) a need for more men in the force (the ratio of female officers has soared to 23 per cent!) and a lack of confidence in chief commissioner Christine Nixon (she’s a woman too, you see).
And how many serving police officers responded to this optional survey? A total of 3459, or 30 per cent. That’s right, 30 per cent. This posturing, fulminating attack on the hierarchy, composition and methodology of our police force is based on the views of less than one-third of its members. Out-bloody-standing.
There’s a good portion of police members in Victoria hark back to the days of ‘Squizzy’ Taylor, larrikins and pushes, when policing was more simple and criminals were confronted head-on. Courts were strict, prisons were brutal, the coppers were a paramilitary group who took on villians en masse and knocked ’em all over the heads with truncheons. Policemen were tough because they had to be, so the force was gruff, insular and - because it was ugly business with no place for ladies - it also became strongly misogynistic. Thankfully those days are over and the police force has become far more professional and community-minded, a fact that some police members are yet to come to terms with. In offering this survey as evidence of the state of our police force, even though it reflects the views of 30 per cent of all police, the Herald Sun is pandering to the views of a dubious minority and inviting panic, paranoia and a loss of confidence in Victoria Police itself.
I now invite the Herald Sun to commission an independent survey of all its employees, where they will be asked questions about their working conditions, processes, application of journalistic ethics and, importantly, confidence in senior editorial staff and Uncle Rupert. And if a disgruntled minority at the Herald Sun - and believe me, there is one - come to dominate the survey, will the organisation report this as representative of a crisis in its own ranks?
GrodsThink Ep.29 (26/8/08)
Wednesday 9 April 2008, 12:19 pm #THR
Vic police has some extremely insular and reactionary elements within it, and it sounds like it were these guys who were given a voice in this survey.
If the Hun were truly concerned about a ‘crisis’ within police ranks, they might’ve turned their attention to OHS and industrial issues within the force. Vic police are the highest source of Workcover claims in the state, and, in spite of some attempts at industrial campaigning, some metro and country areas (particularly around Wyndham Vale and the Mornington Peninsula) are ludicrously understaffed.
But ‘Commissioner Nixon putting more gays and women in force’ has more of a ring to it.
Wednesday 9 April 2008, 12:22 pm #Bridgit Gread
There’s no doubt that the police are horrendously under-resourced, that has been confirmed by independent research. But that’s a matter for the Victorian state government and budgeting, not Christine Nixon, who has to work with whatever she’s given.
Wednesday 9 April 2008, 12:29 pm #THR
Agreed, but the media tends to go after Nixon for one pseudo-crisis after another. This isn’t the first time the above agenda has got an airing in the Hun.
The industrial issues would be more relevant, and more indicative of a ‘crisis’, IMO, or even the persistent (and sometimes confirmed) rumours of dodginess that plague the Vic police.
Wednesday 9 April 2008, 12:35 pm #Bridgit Gread
It’s the Hun that really has the daggers out for Nixon though and it has almost since her appointment, when there was a common belief that the new chief commissioner should’ve come from the ranks of Victoria Police itself. So the anti-Nixon stuff is not wholly misogynistic, though it’s often expressed as such.
Wednesday 9 April 2008, 12:54 pm #The Editor
When they finally release the findings of the News Ltd. survey it will be called juornolists.pdf
Wednesday 9 April 2008, 1:37 pm #Zombie Mao
I just giggle at the leader of the recalcitrant 30% having the name Mullet.
Wednesday 9 April 2008, 1:49 pm #Wah
What I find annoying is if Mullett ran any other union the Herald Sun would want his blood.
Wednesday 9 April 2008, 2:28 pm #Chade
Er… wouldn’t 30% be a more than large enough sample size?
Or am I missing the piss-taking?
Wednesday 9 April 2008, 3:08 pm #Chuck A. Spear
Shit like this is personal. Mullet & co (with some help from an associate editor of the hun) are trying to take down Nixon.
It smacks of a vendetta.
Wednesday 9 April 2008, 3:13 pm #Bridgit Gread
Er… wouldn’t 30% be a more than large enough sample size?
Chade, it’s not a question of sample size but of whether the sample is representative of all views and opinions. And in a large organisation, who is more likely to respond to a voluntary survey: the general population or the hardcore this-job-sucks brigade?
Wednesday 9 April 2008, 3:18 pm #THR
If the survey is indeed based on self-selection, then the sample size is pretty irrelevant. Like you’re average newspaper poll, for that matter.
As for Mullett - nobody in Australia this past few years has been more vocal in saying that Vic police don’t need a Royal Commission.
Wednesday 9 April 2008, 4:30 pm #Chade
Yeah, I should’ve mentioned I was thinking of a random sample. Not self-selection…
Wednesday 9 April 2008, 6:11 pm #Spock...
My respect for the police is declining everyday unfortunately…
I think it’s sad that there are the people who are attracted to the career because of their power complex. And Mullett… *shakes fist*
Wednesday 9 April 2008, 6:37 pm #Mikey
I loved that pic that Crikey noted of the plods cruising around with their assault rifles … that had no magazines in…
Wednesday 9 April 2008, 11:19 pm #Suburban Marxist
Aha…and here we have it…further motivation for the Hun’s campaign to launch a coup d’etat against the Nixon leadership.
Nixon may have called for restraint on the day of the G20 rally (or rather, the anarchists involved in that action took the pigs by surprise) but she certainly didn’t the day after when the ‘thin blue line’ attacked a group of protesters peacefully protesting and dancing outside the Melbourne Museum using batons and which resulted in protesters being hospitalised.
Is this what the officer below means when he (and I think I can be safe in presuming its a ‘he’ given the circumstances!)talks about not being allowed to ’stomp’ out any violence..?
“THIS photo confirmed to many that Victoria Police had gone soft. A small female in a pink tutu wrests a baton from a burly police officer clad in full riot gear, then threatens him with his own weapon.
It happened during the G20 protest in November 2006.
Many responding to the Herald Sun police survey accused force command of letting them down by ordering a restrained approach to such protests.
“The ’softly softly’ approach to policing must be scrapped,” one officer said.
“We have become a joke, and the G20 riots, where command just sat back and let the thugs run riot, was an embarrassment. Victoria deserves a better response than ‘Don’t hurt them or we’ll be sued’.”
[...]
“(She let) operational members be injured at the G20 summit, as she would not allow police to . . . stomp out any violence by actually doing our job and arresting people who were behaving abhorrently.”
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23509402-5014265,00.html