NEWS Plod Haas

[Jason Simmons]

FTP*


fyp

Way ahead of you buddy...

 

[FaceOfMutiny]

That's not the core message I was trying to convey, no. Sometimes text is somewhat limiting especially without writing a lengthy essay and even though this turned out a bit of a mess I've rewritten bits multiple times to try and provide the respectful response you deserve without typing out war & peace. To be honest I'm not entirely happy with the wording but after a few redrafts it's not getting better so to ensure a timely response I shall have to publish and be damned.

I don't hate all coppers, or the institution of the police. Having a police force of some nature is pretty much essential for a community of any reasonable size. What I was trying to say, poorly put perhaps, was there can be genuine reasons why some people have mistrust for or dislike of the police without being criminals. I'm aware police are people just like the rest of us, I have multiple family members in the QPS, but my experiences with the institution have been overwhelmingly negative and I'm not a criminal or the type to have been pursued by them in any matter.

For a better solution I think far higher standards of accountability for police would be a way to go. Given the unique nature of their work and single-sided ability to use force on the general public I think we should hold our police to a very high standard, any police officer who assaults a member of the public should be prosecuted harshly as they did so while acting as an instrument of the law. Coverups and police looking after police are at best a widely perceived problem and at worst a fundamental erosion of the justice system. Whether this is best handled via an overhaul of the internal mechanisms within the force, or giving oversight to a different area entirely, or better reporting, and/or something else is a difficult question. People more qualified, intelligent and loquacious than your humble interlocutor have discussed this for a few thousand years at least and yet quis custodiet ipsos custodes is still a burning issue to this day.

But I would say in the end that not knowing the solutions shouldn't preclude a person from recognising problems, and it's not really accurate to categorise any and all criticism as "hating coppers period" when it would be more appropriately, wordily, and above all uglily described as "has opinions about the negative effect of perceived and real ingroup/outgroup biases within those institutions tasked with maintaining law and order on social cohesion and buy-in with regards to their moral authority and its ultimate effect on public compliance."

To circle this back around to why we were all even discussing this topic in the first place, I'd say while I don't agree with the manner in which Payne expressed his disdain for the police I can in part understand how he came to hold those views. And while part of it is likely to be his upbringing there are certain aspects within the institution's control which could be better managed to give (some of?) the public a more positive view of the police and reduce the likelihood of Haas-style incidents in the future.

Can we just agree that some people have views on the police that others don't? For e.g I have nothing but good experiences with them whereas my girlfriend struggled with an eating disorder in her late teens/early 20's and her experiences involved being handcuffed while having a coppers knee on the back of her neck when she was 30kgs for missing a hospital appointment.

Either way hope Haas cleans up his act because I am sick of the Broncos players being morons and getting themselves into trouble.