grodscorp@grods.comPolice 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.31 (16/9/08)
