Nine
To Noon
Russell
Palmer, Political Reporter
An advocate
supporting people with complaints about police misconduct
says bringing in an Inspector-General is a knee-jerk
reaction that may not make much difference.
The
government revealed on Tuesday it plans
to set up an Inspector-General of Police as part of the
Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA), which will be
expanded to become an Inspectorate, with additional
resourcing and powers.
The National Integrity Unit in
Police has also been bolstered with six additional
investigators, and a lawyer has been tasked with
investigating current police employees involved.
The
moves are a response to the damning
IPCA report into the failures of police leadership to
investigate or follow up complaints of sexual offending by
McSkimming.
The complaints are thought to have been
made by a woman 20 years younger than McSkimming, who he had
an affair with.
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The founder of the Police Conduct
Association, Shannon Parker, told Nine to Noon host
Kathryn Ryan she set up the NGO after her own difficulties
making a complaint about police.
“I found the process
very difficult, and basically didn’t know what I was doing,
and I felt that many people would have the same problem,”
she said.
She said the move to bring in an
Inspector-General was a knee-jerk reaction and several
avenues for investigating police conduct already existed:
the IPCA; the Police Professional Conduct Group inside
police; and the National Integrity Unit also within
police.
“In my mind, all [were] set up for the purpose
of protecting the police reputation as opposed to protecting
victims of police conduct … I can’t see how an
Inspector-General of Police is going to make any difference
if you put that person sitting at the IPCA.”
She said
the IPCA had admitted there were times it could have stepped
in sooner or done more to prevent the McSkimming scandal,
and an Inspector-General would only know what they had been
notified of.
“If someone’s instructed not to forward
an email on, not to notify someone, how is it going to have
made any difference? … he only knows what he knows. He
only knows what he’s notified of.
“What’s the
difference between that and any other avenue they already
have for communicating anonymously?
“I think it’s
another thing that’s going to cost a lot of money that is
not going to offer the victims or complainants of police
misconduct any value.”
She said the internal groups
like the Professional Conduct Group sometimes referred
complaints back to the police district the complaint
originated from – and whether they were acted on often
depended on “how much that person is willing to
do”.
The problem with the McSkimming case was the
correct processes were not followed, and Parker questioned
whether having an Inspector-General would affect
that.
The same was true of the idea of setting up an
anonymous portal for complaints.
“We’ve got
whistleblowers process, anyone can set up an anonymous email
… they could have gone to CrimeStoppers, again that’s
anonymous.
“I’m not saying that they should have to,
or that that should be what they should have done – but I’m
saying there’s already ways and means of doing
that.”
More resources for IPCA a ‘great next
step’
Parker said the IPCA only investigated a small
portion of the complaints they received, with many instead
being sent back for police to investigate
themselves.
More detailed investigations by the IPCA
were typically only undertaken for very serious cases like
police shootings, fatal pursuits, and sexual offending, she
said.
“Other than that, they are usually left with the
police.”
She said some complaints were only
successfully raised because the complainants had “pushed and
pushed” and asked further questions.
“The bulk of
those, if I’m honest, have actually only been taken
seriously or relooked at after we have gone to the media and
it’s got – or about to get – public attention. And that
concerns me. That shouldn’t have to happen.
“It makes
me wonder how many people just give up at the starting gate
… because it’s too stressful, it’s too hard, or they just
don’t know what to do next.”
Another difficulty with
the IPCA was any complaint made would automatically be
notified to the police.
Greater powers for the IPCA
would be “a great idea and would be a great next step”, she
said, but the priority was more resourcing.
“They are
very limited in what they can do, and I do understand that
… but I think they definitely need greater
resourcing.
“In some cases I know that they would like
to take things further and they just can’t – but not having
the time and the resources to be able to go through these
with a finer-toothed comb definitely has a big
impact.”
She said complainants sometimes filed
“incredibly long” complaints with irrelevant details that
could take up police and IPCA time, and which may be
exacerbating problems with ignored or lost
complaints.
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