Police gay unit to fold?
Victoria Police’s Gay & Lesbian Advisory Unit (GLAU) looks set to close after plans were announced to amalgamate numerous specialised units into a new generic community engagement model.
The Mental Health Project, Human Rights Unit, Youth Advisory, and Multicultural Advisory Unit are also set to close in the review of the Operations Coordination Department which oversees all the specialised units.
Greg Adkins for the Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project (AVP) said expertise and specialisation are gone under the new model, and that the GLBTI community will have to compete with multicultural communities for attention.
“This final report diminishes us as a community and relegates us, along with multicultural communities, to interest groups,” Adkins said.
“The negative impact on reporting of homophobic and transphobic violent crime could be disastrous under this shake-up.”
A Victoria Police spokeswoman refused to confirm or deny to the Star Observer that the GLAU would no longer exist separately from the new ‘Community Engagement Police Research and Strategy Unit’, only that it will be established with a “multidisciplinary team with expertise in a broad range of community engagement areas such as multicultural, Indigenous, youth, human rights and other diverse communities”.
She said that the GLAU sergeant will retain the same role but become a project officer in the new unit. Gay and Lesbian Liaison Officers (GLLOs) will remain in the new plan.
“We now risk losing people with expertise because they have to go through a process of competing with anyone in Victoria Police using this as a career pathway to getting a sergeant position, and who won’t necessarily have knowledge or a background working with the community,” Adkins said.
The review has taken 18 months and included consultation with the communities previously given specific units.
The AVP was one of a number of GLBTI organisations representing the community who were consulted for the report. Adkins said signs weren’t good even with the release of the review’s first draft.
“We weren’t even referenced in the first draft, so there was clearly no evidence the issues we raised were even considered,” he said.
The AVP has nailed it. The focus by the new conservative government on its law and order campaign ( its budget blown on armed PSO’s on Railway stations, todays announcement of complusory 2 year minimum sentences for youh offenders in some circumstances, its low level war with Police Command ) all mean the resources are having to be diverted from those areas that contribute to cultural change and tolerance that make us all safer. When overlaid against their rolling back the EEO Laws, scrapping the Human Rights Charter and playing disgraceful wedge politics on the acknowledgement of traditional owners we get a taste of what a nastie right wing outfit this new government really is.
I’ve served on the GLAU for a few years. Despite my frustration with its failure to address lesbian-specific issues, it is really depressing that all the goodwill built up between Victoria Police and our community is going to be dissipated, despite the best endeavours of the policepersons who sat on the Committee. ‘Mainstreamed’ officers, who have not had long years of interacting with our community, simply have no proper understanding of the issues that affect us. I won’t be surprised if lack of trust, engendered by Command’s approach to this unit, decreases future reporting rates of lesbophobic violence (which were very low, anyway). :-(
Actually, the new structure, depending of course on how it’s actualised, may not be so disastrous. I disagree with Greg Adkins’ belief that the GLBTIQ community will have to compete with multicultural communities for attention and that actually seems a bit of a divisive viewpoint to make (I’m certainly not saying it was intentional on Greg’s part). That view suggests that there is no crossover between GLBTIQ and multicultural communities, and no mutual issues of interest. The new structure could actually allow for better collaboration and understanding across different areas of community engagement rather than having a silo mentality.
I am extremely concerned about the loss of expertise and am in broad agreement with Greg Adkins’ comments on this point.
In fairness, the process of review started before the change of government. It is a police operational decision, probably brought about by the emotive fear-driven law-and-order types wanting more police on the streets and taking anyone else away from inaccuarately labelled soft policing roles.
More reasons why we need a well resourced and supported peak body for our community
The Victorian Liberal/National Party is on a roll cutting the GLBTI Unit in the police force. This comes after they have introduced legislation to sack people because of their sexuality. You know the jobs, those who work in soup kitchens, or helping people who have a disability, those who wash you when you are too ill to wash yourself. I am not surprised they would cut the GLBTI Unit from the police force. So far they have taken a baseball bat to our community reducing protection we had in the Equal Opportunity Act based. Why would we ever expect justice from the Liberal/National Party, they are run by the same fundamentalist that now inflict violence against us at equality marches.