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Editors --- "Zero Tolerance Policing: Implications for Indigenous People - Digest" [1999] AUIndigLawRpr 35; (1999) 4(3) Australian Indigenous Law Reporter 114

Zero Tolerance Policing: Implications for Indigenous People

ATSIC,

Canberra,

January 1999

'Zero tolerance policing' (ZTP) has become a feature of discussions on appropriate police strategies in Australia in recent years. Australian politicians and police from a number of jurisdictions have visited New York to observe the impact of this style of policing on the city's crime rate. Advocates of STP appear to have neglected the likely impact of this strategy on Indigenous people. The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody made recommendations aimed at reducing contact between Indigenous people and the police. ZTP however, has the potential to increase Indigenous incarceration rates and on a more general level, to produce a negative effect on Aboriginal/police relations.

In late 1998, ATSIC commissioned Chris Cunneen of Sydney University's Institute of Criminology to write a report on the implications of zero tolerance policing for Indigenous people. The following Executive Summary is drawn from that report.[1]

Zero tolerance policing relies on the belief that a strong law enforcement approach to minor crime (in particular public order offences) will prevent more serious crime from occurring and will ultimately lead to falling crime rates.

Zero tolerance policing is a strategy directly aimed at increasing arrest rates for minor offences such as public drunkenness, offensive language and behaviour, loitering and other similar offences.

New York is the most ‘famous’ example of the introduction of zero tolerance policing. Australian politicians and police from New South Wales, Victoria and the Northern Territory have been exposed to the New York example, and it is often cited as the model on which any changes in Australia would be based.

There is widespread criticism of zero tolerance policing from criminologists, lawyers and police administrators both in the USA and in Europe. Some have argued that zero tolerance policing is nothing more than an old fashioned punitive approach to law and order, which emphasises the traditional preoccupations of over-policing of poor and marginal social groups. In summary the main arguments against zero tolerance policing are as follows.

There is a lack of evidence of any direct causal link between zero tolerance policing and declining crime figures. In some United States jurisdictions the same reduction in levels of crime are being achieved through other policing strategies. The pressure placed on local commanders to show ongoing reductions in crime has lead to concern about falsification of crime statistics.

Zero tolerance policing is resource intensive. It requires either increased police numbers or the allocation of existing resources away from other areas of enforcement. Thus zero tolerance policing strategies are seen as invariably short-term and expensive.

Zero tolerance policing emphasises offences in public places – street offences. It is apparently not concerned with other and potentially more major areas of violence such as domestic violence, or other facets of property crime such as fraud. The notion of ‘quality of life’ is itself defined to only include a narrow section of ‘public’ life. Corporate crime and environmental crime, for example, have large-scale effects on ‘quality of life’. Crimes, which occur in the private sphere (such as domestic violence), are not seen as ‘quality of life’ issues at all.

Zero tolerance policing represents a return to the pro-active policing strategies (common in Britain prior to the inner city riots of the early 1980s, and common in parts of Australia during the 1980s and early 1990s, particularly with the use of tactical response police).

Zero tolerance policing may increase the level of public disorder because it is pro-active. It contradicts the results of major inquiries into public disorder such as the Scarman inquiry in the UK, which stressed policing based on community consent, trust and participation. It will also worsen relations between particular communities and police.

Zero tolerance policing undermines principles of community policing including commitments to crime prevention, problem-solving and closer community partnerships. In this sense, zero tolerance policing is antithetical to policing by consent – the supposed hallmark of policing in a democracy. Policing priorities are defined external to the community.

Zero tolerance policing strategies have been consistently implicated with violations of civil and political rights.

By targeting street offences, zero tolerance policing is aimed at essentially the poor and the homeless. Racial and ethnic minorities are also concentrated in these groups. Zero tolerance policing will lead to greater discrimination – either directly through the targeting of minorities or indirectly through their greater presence among those arrested.

Zero tolerance policing will lead to far greater levels of criminalisation. In particular, minority groups, which already have large proportions of their male population with criminal records, will see even greater degrees of criminalisation. This will further compound social and economic marginalisation.

Zero tolerance policing will bring about an increase in complaints about police misconduct and brutality particularly from minority groups.

Zero tolerance policing will require greater court resources to deal with increased arrests; it will impact eventually on the prison population (through greater criminalisation, increased fine defaulters and sentences of imprisonment).

Zero tolerance policing rests on a spurious assumption that the law is neutral and can be enforced in all situations – that complete enforcement is a possibility. However, public order and the actions which constitute disorder are broadly defined and open to constant interpretation and discretionary decisions by police. By pretending that zero tolerance is possible, the more important question of who gets arrested is obscured.

Zero tolerance policing, were it to be adopted along the lines developed in New York, is likely to have the following impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people:

Increased Criminalisation

Nationally, nearly one in three Indigenous people placed in police custody are there because of intoxication in public, irrespective of whether it is a criminal offence or not. Zero tolerance policing will make any reduction in this number difficult to achieve and will likely lead to an increase in police custody for public drunkenness.

Nationally, nearly half of all people placed in police custody for public order offences (excluding public drunkenness) are Indigenous. The focus of zero tolerance policing on increasing arrests for public order offences will have a dramatic and discriminatory effect on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

The increase in the number of Indigenous people arrested and held in custody will cause an increase in the number of Indigenous deaths in police custody.

The increase in the number of Indigenous people arrested will flow through the criminal justice system with increases in court appearances, fine defaults, imprisonment and deaths in prison custody.

The increased criminalisation of Indigenous people will further exacerbate their social and economic marginalisation.

The international experience strongly suggests zero tolerance policing leads to an increase in the incidence of police misconduct, including violence and a corresponding rise in complaints against police. This is likely to result in a serious deterioration of Aboriginal - police relations.

Zero tolerance policing undermines successful Indigenous community responses which provide alternatives to arrest, custody and criminalisation. It is contrary to national strategies reflected in the commitment to Aboriginal Justice Plans.

Breaching the Royal Commission Recommendations

Zero tolerance policing is contrary to recommendations of the Royal Commission which advocate the following:

  • Indigenous self-determination (recommendation 188);
  • community policing (recommendations 88, 214, 215 and 220);
  • arrest as last resort (recommendations 87);
  • non-arrest for trivial offences (recommendation 86);
  • alternatives to arrest for juveniles (recommendations 62, 239-242); and
  • diversion from police custody for pubic drunkenness (recommendations 79-85).

Failure to Comply with International Standards

Zero tolerance policing is potentially in conflict with sections of the following human rights standards:

  • the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;
  • the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights;
  • the Convention on the Rights of the Child;
  • the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; and
  • the Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice.

Zero tolerance policing also conflicts with several principles set out in the draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The Northern Territory

One of the main proponents of zero tolerance policing has been the Northern Territory Chief Minister.

Zero tolerance policing will have a direct impact on Aboriginal people in the Territory. In 1996, 72 per cent of all adult court appearances for public order offences involved Aboriginal people. It is inevitable that there will be significant increases in Aboriginal people before the courts as a result of zero tolerance policing. The likely impact, if public drunkenness were recriminalised in the Northern Territory, is evident when it is considered that at present 90 per cent of people placed in police ‘protective custody’ for public drunkenness are Indigenous people.

Aboriginal people already comprise 81 per cent of people sentenced to imprisonment in the Northern Territory. Zero tolerance policing will clearly have a discriminatory impact, further exacerbating Indigenous over-representation in the prison system.


[1] The full report can be found at

www.atsic.gov.au/ztp/ztpintro.htm

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