Police Unwise To Dismiss Survey Results On Police Conduct

“The Horizon Research survey on Police performance, should not be blithely dismissed on methodological grounds”, said Kim Workman, Director of Rethinking Crime and Punishment. He was commenting on the research results, which showed that public trust in the Police had fallen 11.5% during the past five years.

“Justice consumers that we have spoken to in recent times regularly express concern about Police attitudes, a lack of willingness to investigate complaints, and “over the top” operational intervention. While there is still general confidence in Police competency, there is a growing view that the Police are becoming over-reactive, and developing an inflated idea of their worth”.

“One common theme is that if Police are called to exercise a ‘peace keeping’ role, e.g. a domestic dispute, they treat it as though it was a military operation. Instead of two Police, five or six are likely to turn up, complete with a Police dog. It may be that New Zealand is over-policed in some areas, given that the number of sworn Police per capita has doubled in the last 50 years. When there are large numbers of Police available to attend minor incidents, the power imbalance can mean that some Police officers forego the need to treat citizens with respect.”

“In a recent survey by Justspeak and the Children’s Commissioner , 100 young people were asked how well the Police did their job. They generally felt this depended on the individual; most could identify Police officers that had treated them really well and the reasons why. This included, being respectful, going out of their way to be helpful and supportive, enquiring how things were going, and listening to their point of view. “
http://justspeak.org.nz/the-library/papers-and-reports/

“Unfortunately, many could also identify Police officers who hadn’t treated them well, and in many instances this was their first encounter with the Police, affecting how they perceived Police in the future. Negative experiences generally included feeling stereotyped based on their cultural identities or behaviour of other family members or peers. All felt that the Police did a good job at solving crime, catching bad people and keeping people safe. Many felt they could do better at preventing crime from happening.”

“They were also asked whether they felt the Police treated them all the same. They felt this depended on the individual Police officer. The number of young people who felt they were treated differently because of their ethnicity was about equal to the number who felt they were not treated differently.”

“The Police would be well advised not to dismiss any survey on the grounds of methodology. Listen to what people are saying, and take the necessary steps to improve the Police culture”

ENDS

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