Judge says police culture is 'sick'

...the NZ Herald today reports on the conviction of a police senior sergeant. So tell us something we don't know?

I've long been concerned about the internal culture our boys and girls in blue have inculcated. Police are by definition a conservative agency, employed to enforce the government's laws.

I think we have a dilemma in who we trust to be our guardians. We hope they're moral guardians. But they're also human; hence some will be amoral or even immoral guardians. I remember being told by an admin worker at the police college in Trentham, a man in his 50's, of the way in which women were subtly denigrated there, and of police parties featuring culture and practices so dubious that they may well have resulted in arrests if they occurred elsewhere. And I could tell other stories of unwarranted police brutality, intimidation of witnesses, intimidation of victims... Granted, it's a difficult job. And there are certainly good policepeople. But the encouragement of a tough, macho, unthinking, dogmatic, sexist, even violent internal culture does nothing to help.

Still, when our whole society functions on the basis of "law" and rules as the best way to change people's behaviour, should we be surprised? That's why i find the teachings of Y'shua and his early followers interesting in this light, in their attempt to found a counterculture based on love and (jargonword alert) 'grace', not law.

'Bout time the cops got training in meditation and flower arranging methinks.

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I won't link to the herald site as i suspect news items tend to move around a bit and the link will be out of date fast. So here's a copypaste of some of it:

03.03.05
By DAVID EAMES

A District Court judge has criticised the heavy-handed techniques of a senior South Auckland police officer and condemned a wider police culture as "sick".

That culture - as outlined in court evidence - included joke photographs of machete-wielding men making death threats, and the photographing of suspects made to wear demeaning signs.

Judge Bruce Davidson delivered his view as he found Senior Sergeant Anthony Laime Solomona guilty of assaulting a 17-year-old on the forecourt of a Manurewa service station in February last year.

And in another article:

03.03.05
by Elizabeth Binning

One of Auckland's top police officers is so fed up with his staff passing material to the media that he has sent out a special memo asking them to dob in the "traitorous actions" of their colleagues.

In a special edition of the internal newsletter CoMmunique, Counties Manukau District Commander Steve Shortland said it was disappointing to see that some staff "feel the need to sneak off to the media and let their work mates and police all over the country down". [snip]

"What sort of person does this?" he asked. "My Ethics booklet (the one you get your ethics training from) suggests a number of reasons why some individuals become traitors."

He then listed the following reasons:
* For money
* For a free lunch and drinks
* Sex
* Stupidity or lack of judgment
* All of the above

Mr Shortland finished his memo by asking police to "expose" anyone they suspected of leaking information.

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Two comments: If the above is truly indicative of the content of the police ethics booklet, need i say more? Secondly, the desire to suppress dissent in this manner is yet another example of an organisational culture gone wrong, and rather suggestive of... heh... a police state.

[/rant]