When the police force becomes politicised

The thin blue line has succumbed to identity politics.

Graham Ashton said after the Taylors Hill riot that the “traditional” label of a gang might confuse Victorians and make them think of people in leather jackets, such as the New York gangs of West Side Story.

The thin blue line has succumbed to identity politics.

The signs are clear from the preoccupation with spin and semantics to the permissive attitude to lawless gangs of young men who show no fear of consequences because, often, there are none.

Victoria Police’s strategy of ordering frontline officers to “contain” violent, rampaging youth rather than arrest them only emboldens offenders.

You know what is an effective method of “containment” that renders thugs incapable of attacking people and property? Handcuffs.

It is difficult to throw punches or projectiles if you’re in handcuffs and being led to the back of a divvy van. It’s also unlikely that you’ll engage in the same behaviour the following week.

It’s little wonder that so many police working at the coalface are disillusioned.

They know the criminals are gaming the system and are powerless to stop it.

We’ve seen it in places such as St Kilda, Taylors Hill, Werribee, North Melbourne and Footscray where youths have rampaged in full view of the police who make no arrests.

What justification was there for Victoria Police’s failure to adequately staff an event at Collingwood’s Gasometer Hotel that local police had warned was likely to erupt into violence?

“They didn’t want to be seen to be targeting a particular demographic” a police source told the Herald Sun.

Never mind that the demographic is vastly overrepresented in official crime statistics, close to 10 times more likely to be charged with a crime than the rest of the population.

That overrepresentation for Sudanese-born Victorians increases sharply when looking at violent offences such as aggravated burglaries and serious assaults.

Imagine what the statistics would be like if police were actually making arrests during episodes of street violence.

And, the crime figures do not include offences committed by Australian-born members of the Sudanese community who, according to Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton, are even more likely to engage in criminal activity.

And yet the upper echelons of Victoria police are so worried about being labelled racist that they have become a laughing stock interstate.

Even the Prime Minister had a go earlier this month, comparing Victoria’s approach with NSW and finding it wanting.

Read full piece here.