Queensland Police survey: Officer outline what service needs to retain staff and improve safety

Officers across the state want senior ranking officials to make sweeping changes to the Queensland Police Service, to help their colleagues get back to the core business of fighting frontline crime.

Queensland police generic.

The majority of Queensland police officers believe their service is heading in the wrong direction, and want sweeping changes to police pursuit rules, GPS trackers for criminals and support to tackle the state’s overwhelming domestic violence workload.

The harsh realities of working on the frontline have come following News Corp’s What Cops Want survey, which heard from dozens of Queensland’s sworn-in police officers across the state.

The anonymous police officers surveyed blasted lenient sentences and said the service’s strength was being drained by the crippling weight of domestic violence investigations, poor staffing and a sluggish disciplinary process.

Nearly every police officer said offender sentences were not meeting community expectations, while 65 per cent said they would not recommend friends or family members become police officers.

A majority of respondents, 72.7 per cent, said they wanted the QPS pursuit policy relaxed so they could chase stolen cars and make arrests, while 76.9 per cent said their job would be made easier if more offenders were fitted with GPS trackers.

The Queensland Police Service has in recent years been under increased scrutiny with its response to domestic violence, as well as fighting an uphill battle against a growing youth crime crisis across all parts of the state.

Two of every three police said their pay was inadequate and did not want to see the mandatory retirement age lifted past 60.

Low morale

The results of the What Cops Want survey are backed up by new data from Work Safe Australia that shows the rate of officers making compensation claims for psychological injury has skyrocketed in the past four years, from 101 in 2019-22 to 254 in 2022-23.

According to the Queensland Police Service Union, the 2023-24 figures are up about 125 per cent on the previous year.

Across the board, police say they want to be better supported by superiors, including the government.

“Policing is such a unique career, one you can’t truly understand unless you live it,” one South East Region officer said

“The government continually expects extraordinary things from everyday ordinary people, police are asked to do so much that we’ve forgotten what policing is actually about.”

Others said the job they have was vastly different to the one they signed up for.

“Police officers are being used as de facto social workers,” a Brisbane Region officer confessed.

“Almost all general duties officers are exclusively responding to domestic violence and mental health jobs.

“Proactive policing does not exist outside rural areas and you will not be able to retain police officers until you allow them to do actual police work.”

A recent Griffith University study that drew on interviews with 1700 police from across the QPS found organisation stress was rife within the QPS.

Leader researcher Dr Jacqueline Drew said police were three time more likely to suffer a psychological injury as result of the work stress than attending fatal crashes, police-involved shootings or other traumatic incidents.

“The things that are cause the most burnout and stress are things that are created inside the organisation,” she said.

“If we know that organisational factors are causing the most harm, they are the creation of the of leaders and politicians.”

Respondents to the News Corp survey called on their superiors to take notice.

“It comes down to strong leadership who support people underneath them which we don’t have,” a North Coast Region officer said.

“We should be dealing with crime as opposed to social issues.

“By that, I mean a majority of our work is in the domestic violence sphere, that’s a societal issue as opposed to a crime issue.”

Domestic violence burnout

The number one issue surveyed police want addressed is domestic violence – both the way it is investigated and how the QPS reviews those investigations.

Police say about 80 per cent of their workload is domestic violence-related, with a big spike in call-outs coming after the QPS 2022 Commission of Inquiry.

While the number of Domestic Violence Orders, that restrict interactions between offender and victims, has remained relatively constant over the past five years, the number of breaches of those orders has almost doubled from 24,142 in 10-19-20 to 40,471 in 2023-24.

But these figures do not include the jobs police are called to that will never result in charges, with police saying the broadening definition of “domestic violence” means they are regularly run off their feet.

“General duty police no longer are free to patrol crime hotspots as they are at ‘he said/she said’ domestic violence incidents,” a Brisbane Region officer said.

“We are responding to every disagreement that someone has, even very, very minor disagreements that someone shouldn’t have called the police over,” another officer said.

“We are doing a lot of work for people who don’t need police interaction and can probably get it from another support agency.”

In the aftermath of the commission of injury, the QPS instituted a review process where all matters that were investigated and deemed to not be domestic violence must be reviewed.

This requires officers to shift through paperwork and re-watch all body-worn footage, with police reporting that every domestic violence call-out is being treated as if it is a potential murder.

At the time, police Minister Mark Ryan said the review changes would require an extra 1000 officers to implement, on top of the 2000 that were already promised.

“The domestic violence policy has taken a very politically-correct context and is not driven by the QPS,” a Southern Region officer said.

“Police going to DV jobs are frightened to make decisions, and victims don’t necessarily want to be dragged through a police process, they want the police to settle it down and move on, but they don’t want Domestic Violence protection order.

“With the review process, we have as much more resources going into reviewing DV than actually responding to DV.”

A Brisbane region officer said a Police Protection Notice took about half a shift to complete, while the review of a matter where domestic violence cannot be substantiated takes about six hours, involving multiple officers.

“It’s a huge waste of time and resources, you either trust investigating officers and supervisors to make decisions or you don’t,” he said.

“Requiring more than six hours of officer time to complete and review each individual occurrence is a waste of resources and a killer of morale.”

Police are calling on other government agencies, like Queensland Health, Child Safety, Department of Corrections and Youth Justice to carry some of the burden.

“We should be left to investigate it,” a North Coast Region Officer said.

“Other departments, particularly those in the social welfare area should be focusing on preventing it and assisting DV victims escape it.”

Role Creep

Across the board police said they were increasingly being asked to fill in the gaps left by other government agencies rather than focusing on core duties.

“A lot of requests are from other government agencies, like the Department of Child Safety, Queensland Ambulance Service, Queensland Health, Probation and Parole, Department of Youth Justice and the local council,” one officer said

“Police inherit so much risk everyday by problems that aren’t the organisation’s problem to begin with, but management have let it happen for so long now the floodgates are well and truly open.”

Several officers said they felt like he was acting as “muscle” for other departments.

“There’s a lack of security and Correctional Services staff at hospitals to take over patients and prisoners who need treatment, so police need to guard them as well,” he said.

“Mental health jobs take up considerable time that are really Queensland Health-related jobs,” a second officer said.

Revolving door justice

With youth crime becoming a major issue at this weekend’s State Election, the vast majority of Queensland Police expressed their frustration at “catch and release” policies.

“We need tougher penalties not only for youth offenders but adults,” one officer said

“People seem to forget that often a convicted rapist is lucky to serve a couple of months behind bars.

“Build more jails.

“It is not the community’s fault there isn’t enough money to house the crooks, instead we suffer the consequences of further crimes being committed.”

One senior officer said the Youth Justice Act needed to change to take into account the cost inflicted by youth offenders.

“There is no consideration for the damage juveniles have caused,” he said

“We have kids who have stolen and destroyed 50 cars but the penalties they get are inconsequential.

“The public would be horrified to see what some of these kids are getting.

“The public thinks if you steal a car you go to youth detention, but that is not the case.”

Despite the complaints across the board police said they were motivated to protect their communities.

An experienced detective said he loved solving crime, a Child Protection Investigation Unit officer said they found investigations and police work rewarding while others spoke of job security and the lush superannuation deal.

“The work we do is incredibly important I tell my people and we’re the only people you ring when there’s a problem,” a senior officer said.

“Even the most hardened criminals call the police in their time of dire need, it’s an important service for the community.”

Originally published as Queensland Police survey: Officer outline what service needs to retain staff and improve safety