Federal Attorney General Daryl Williams
c/- Federal Attorney General's Dept
Canberra
Fax: 06 2734102
Dear Daryl,
I caught your TV interview, especially the part where you were
wistfully talking about the days of unarmed police and security
guards. I could not agree more. This is something I have worried
about, and actively campaigned against, for years.
However, I get the impression you think the arming of Australian police had something to do with the presence of firearms in the community. If that were true then we would truly be lost, doomed to follow the American path.
Fortunately this is not the case; we do not have to somehow remove all firearms from the community before we can reverse the process.
You see, I've watched and campaigned against the whole sorry process, and it never had anything to do with civilian firearms. The rates per 100,00 of deaths involving firearms actually decreased over the same period that Australian police forces were militarised.
Back when I was young police were big men. They did not come hung with guns, handcuffs, clubs, huge torches and other military junk. They spent a lot of time on foot, mixing with ordinary people; they were socially and physically self confident, and with good reason.
It was unthinkable for police, let alone private security guards, to be wandering around with guns. In fact, I find the change in the style of Australian policing alarming. We are starting to look more like South America than Australia.
What mostly drove the process of police militarisation was a combination of abyssal historical ignorance by those who were supposed to be running our police forces, and the culture of American television.
The trouble is that most Australians are more familiar with United States police traditions as portrayed on film and television than our own. The British traditions and institutions of our police have been replaced by that of the combative, para-military, heavily armed American model.
It is bad enough that this has happened in the mind of the public. What is really frightening is that it seems to have become the accepted view of senior police and government officials.
The argument that para-military dress and armament is made necessary by an increasingly violent Australian society is just not supported by statistics. Besides, the British police (formed in 1829 by Sir Robert Peel) from which our traditions descend came into existence at a time of high and violent crime when it was sometimes necessary for law abiding citizens to carry a pistol.
Despite this, as far as I can remember, members of the new British police force were specifically forbidden to carry any weapon except a short truncheon. Being unarmed probably allowed its formation; the public were all too familiar with the para-military style police common in Europe at the time and wanted no part of them.
The new style civilian, unarmed police were not butchered in the streets. They did a surprisingly good job considering the social and economic conditions, and eventually won wide support.
It's rather sad to see the British police now being seduced by the American model.
The "style" induced in a society by a para-military police force probably creates much of the violence it is supposed to combat. Have you noticed the trouble and expense to which American drug and street gangs go to acquire whatever weapons the media portrays as fashionable with the elite law enforcement agencies, despite those weapons usually being unsuitable for unskilled users.
Another very, very serious problem is misuse of firearms by corrupt police. There is emerging evidence that this has been a major problem in Australia.
Then there is the alienating effect on the public. I use firearms, so am not over-sensitive about them, but encountering a couple of police dressed and armed like storm-troopers in my favourite shopping mall utterly "turns me off". Real police carry truncheons, ride bicycles and wear funny hats.
The argument that they have to be so armed to stop mass murderers has turned out to be a fallacy. To begin with, where were the police during the Port Author massacre.
We would be better off with a deliberately civilian, unarmed police force made up of big, strong, experienced (that means somewhat older) people. I am not advocating abandoning them naked on the streets, (poor dears) but rather the development of technologies, techniques and social attitudes that would make policing easier, safer and more pleasant.
For example, there is currently no safe way of handling the increasingly common phenomenon of dangerously out of control people (usually drugs or mental problems) without shooting them or beating them unconscious. This is a far more common occurrence than gun fights.
A couple of technologies, mostly quite old, suggest themselves, nets and shields for one.
For more troublesome areas or situations light, comfortable plastic armour protecting the trunk would be useful. This should be carefully designed to look civilian and friendly, not military, and with a clear, not darkened, pull down face shield.
It would be designed more to stop fists and knives than bullets. If the police are being shot at there is something seriously wrong, something that needs a social, not a military fix.
This armour would allow trouble-makers to be simply grabbed with little risk to the police and less violence to the lawbreaker. Built in communications equipment and miniature video recorders (existing technology) would allow help to be summoned and remove any argument over who did what to who.
Last but most important, if communities want honest, competent, and non violent police they are going to have to take more responsibility for both the control and support of their police at a local level. This is the opposite of what is actually happening.
That way, with a police force that was disarmed, yet more competent than ever at dealing with the common forms of violence, and properly embedded in the community, public trust could be rebuilt. The probabilities are that once the new police image properly flowed through society violent acts against police would decrease.
Then, in time, Australia would start to look and act more like the Australia I knew and loved, and less like somewhere in South America.
Regards
Stephen Heyer