<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/sep/12/its-like-theyre-impervious-fury-at-let-off-for-queensland-police-staff-in-racist-recordings>
"Officers recorded making “sickening” racist comments while working inside a
Brisbane watch house have escaped sanction, despite repeated promises by the
police commissioner to crack down on racism and misogyny within the service.
Queensland’s police commissioner, Katarina Carroll, said at a press conference
last year she believed officers making such comments “should not be in the
organisation” after
Guardian Australia exclusively published the leaked
recordings.
The tapes revealed officers joking about beating and burying black people,
referring to Nigerians as “jigaboos”, and raising fears of “outbreeding” by
Muslim immigrants.
They also captured an officer joking to his colleague that a female Indigenous
detainee “won’t give you a fucking blowjob here”.
The premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, condemned the recordings – which captured
comments by watch-house officers (a non-policing role) and sworn police – as
“horrific”.
The deputy police commissioner, Mark Wheeler, apologised at the time for the
“sickening” racist comments and said the “beliefs and remarks have no place in
society, let alone a professional workplace where vulnerable people are held in
custody”.
But
Guardian Australia can now reveal that nine months on, two police
officers and two assistant watch-house officers were dealt with via “local
management resolution”, a controversial process defined in QPS procedures as
appropriate when “a disciplinary sanction is not required”.
“The process does not involve a finding [that] a ground for discipline has been
substantiated but identifies areas for improvement,” it states.
Speaking at last year’s commission of inquiry into Queensland police, Carroll
promised to overhaul the LMR process, and admitted the police disciplinary
system was “broken” after being confronted with examples of officers making
racist and sexist comments and being dealt with via LMR.
“It’s there for little minor errors, you know, minor issues. It’s there for
that right reason of corrective behaviour, guidance, education … The problem is
it’s being applied to issues that I think it should not be applied to,” Carroll
said.
The criminologist Kerry Carrington said it is clear nothing has changed since
the inquiry.
“This is really serious racism within a watch house. It’s like they’re
impervious. They have impunity. They can get away with it and there’s just
basically no accountability,” she said."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
