Qld cops face restructure after DV report
Marty Silk |
The Queensland Police Service will be restructured after a report found its “inconsistent” and “inadequate” domestic violence response is leaving victims unprotected, and perpetrators emboldened.
However, Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll will keep her job after the report found “a failure of leadership” has fostered a culture of sexism and racism and misogyny in the QPS.
Judge Deborah Richards’ report, handed down on Monday after a three-month Commission of Inquiry, also said the QPS had not trained officers properly or provided enough resources for domestic violence policing.
“The impact can be significant. Negative experiences can leave victim-survivors and their children unprotected and unlikely to seek police assistance again in the future, and perpetrators emboldened,” the report said.
“The difficulty is that many do experience a negative response from police and that, overall, police responses continue to be inconsistent and, at times, inadequate.”
Judge Richards said the culture of sexism, racism and misogyny is a significant problem within the QPS, and “these are not just a few bad apples”.
Bullying, harassment, abuse and even sexual assaults within the force are under-reported, the report said, due to a “culture of fear and silence” among victims and witnesses.
The police complaints and disciplinary system is also “unfairly biased towards the officer facing investigation”.
Judge Richards criticised Ms Carroll for her lack of reform to deal with cultural and structural problems since taking the role in 2019.
“It is a failure of the leadership of the organisation that this situation has been allowed to continue over many years unchecked,” she wrote.
Judge Richards made 78 recommendations to restructure the police force, including more training, more officers and resources for domestic violence policing, hiring more liaison officers for domestic violence, First Nations and LGBTQI communities.
She also called for a new unit in the Crime and Corruption Commission to probe all police complaints, and for a domestic violence victims’ commissioner to review victims’ complaints.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the report has “ripped the Band-Aid off”, and promised to restructure the police force, supporting all recommendations “in principle”.
“These will be nation-leading reforms, nation-leading,” she told reporters on Monday.
“The Commission of Inquiry has put a spotlight on some dark places in the QPS and as I said, identified cultural issues going back decades that need to be addressed.”
However, Ms Palaszczuk has backed Ms Carroll and her deputy Steve Gollschewski to oversee structural and cultural reform within the QPS.
“This is going to be confronting and it is going to take every ounce of her strength to bring about all of this reform, and I am confident that she is the right person to do it,” the premier said.
Ms Carroll said she was committed to reform, and apologised to domestic violence victims who had experienced negative police responses, and QPS staff who had suffered after making internal complaints.
“Knowing that police officers had said and done terrible things is very difficult,” Ms Carroll said.
“When I hear them come up it’s like someone stabs you in my heart because you don’t want to hear anymore.”
AAP
