Queensland police under pressure to break law, civil libertarian says

Updated

The Queensland Council for Civil Liberties (QCCL) says police will be pressured into breaking the law to keep their figures up on scorecards.

As the Queensland Police Service aims to reduce state-wide crime by 10 per cent, officers will be assessed according to their number of traffic fines, random breath tests (RBTs) and street checks.

Terry O'Gorman from QCCL says it is a return to the so-called "kill sheet" quotas of the 1970s and 80s.

He says police will be under pressure to break the law.

"Police under pressure to complete scorecards will cut corners, will bully and bluster people into letting police search their cars when the police have no right to," he said.

"If police are going to be put on scorecards and you've got say 10 police in a squad and four are doing fewer RBTs, fewer street stops than the rest of them, then those four are going to be asked by their superior for a please explain.

"That is a return to the kill sheet."

Mr O'Gorman claims complaints have already been received about the abuse of search powers since the new bikie laws came into effect late last year.

But Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart has defended the scorecard system, saying it is not a repeat of the controversial 1970s and 1980s quota system.

"I expect our people to do their job. Their job is to stop crime in the community, make the community safer and build relationships with our community on a constant and continuous basis," he said.

"There needs to be ways we can measure how that's occuring."

The Adelaide Advertiser reported in 2011 that arrest quotas had been considered by South Australia Police, but was later rejected.

Mr O'Gorman says he believes no other Australian state currently adopts scorecards or quotas on police activity, as they are deemed too controversial.

"What better example do we need than the stories we are seeing at the moment [in Brisbane] about people fined for driving one kilometre per hour over the speed limit, or for leaving a car window down in the hot weather?" he said.

"Australia is frequently going in the opposition direction to the US and the UK, where there have been raging debates about highly oppressive stop-and-searches against people of colour," Mr O'Gorman said.

"In New York there was an agreement recently that there was to be high-level monitoring of stop-and-search activity to avoid racial profiling.

"Police don't go for people in suits, they go for easy targets."

He says a case relating to police discretionary searches was recently settled out of court in Victoria.

"One condition was that there be greater monitoring of records of stopping people, so if people of colour or marginalised people are being targeted it can be identified," he said.

Topics: police, laws, human, public-sector, brisbane-4000

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