Doreen Langham sought help from 16 separate Queensland police officers before she was murdered.
An inquest into Langham’s death found that had just one of them looked into her ex-partner’s criminal history interstate “they would have realised she was at great risk”.
Langham’s daughter Shayne Probert says more police – in the same system – would not have saved her.
“Had the officers who went to Mum known what to look and listen for, then it would have saved her life,” Probert told Guardian Australia.
“But adding more officers to the force is not going to help fix the cultural issues.”
Langham’s death was one of a few cases that ultimately set in train the inquiry into the Queensland police service (QPS) responses to domestic and family violence. The inquiry found police culture had allowed attitudes of sexism, misogyny and racism to flourish. In its report, it says “a failure of leadership” had allowed that culture to go unchecked.
The findings, released publicly on Monday, are the most significant for the QPS since the landmark Fitzgerald Inquiry in 1989.
But normal service had resumed by Wednesday: debate had shifted from the future of the police leadership, to furious political agreement about the need for more police officers.
These new recruits join our police service as part of the biggest investment in policing in Queensland in 30 years.
— Annastacia Palaszczuk (@AnnastaciaMP) November 24, 2022
The state government’s first statement in response to the inquiry’s findings cited the police union’s claim that about 1,000 new police would be needed to implement proposed reforms. The union and the police service – two voices that initially vehemently opposed the hearings and denied the existence of cultural issues – have used the findings to bolster the case for more resources.
“It was always going to be a case of who can get to the bottom of the barrel quickest in the law and order auction,” says the human rights and anti-prisons advocate, Debbie Kilroy, who is the chief executive of Sisters Inside.
“Their own police force members gave evidence of systemic racism and what happens? The whole police system gets rewarded with another $100m. Why would they ever change?
“I’m not surprised, because it was always going to be the response by this government and any other government. They’re captured by the carceral response – we’re stuck in the cycle of more cops, more courts, more prisons.
“They cannot reimagine our community without the racial, gendered violence of policing.”
Pessimism in the ranks
A meme is doing the rounds of some rank and file police officers in Queensland. It shows a rally car (the inquiry) losing control, flipping through the air and heading towards a spectator (the police leadership). The car crashes into a tree and the spectator miraculously walks away unscathed.
The inquiry did not explicitly call for the police leadership to be replaced – a point used on Monday by the premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, in defence of the government’s decision to keep the police leadership in situ.
Guardian Australia understands the inquiry’s commissioner, Deborah Richards, took the view that calling for sacking of senior officers was beyond her remit. Her report did express clear doubt as to whether the existing police leadership could deliver needed reform.
“Future improvements will require a sustained and dedicated commitment from a strong and respected leadership,” the report found.
“This is likely to be a significant challenge for the QPS.”
The police commissioner, Katarina Carroll, has spent most of the past two weeks on a public relations blitz: answering questions at press conferences until reporters had none left to ask, and starting to talk about reforms. Having made it through the inquiry – and its findings – with her job, there is a sense in police headquarters that the worst is over.
Within police stations across the state, many officers do not share the same positivity.
The report highlighted concerns that rank-and-file officers had “lost faith” in police leadership. Some see the political decision to back the commissioner as clear evidence the inquiry – in spite of its scathing findings and recommendations for reform – will ultimately not result in systemic change.
“The workforce is dejected because no one has been held accountable,” a senior sergeant says.
“This is just another blow for shot morale.”
Another officer, a senior constable, says only “very few officers are happy right now”.
“Some of the older school think the whole thing is woke and that the QPS leadership is caving to political correctness,” the senior constable says.
“Many of us look and think that the response is just whitewash. The inquiry and the report gave us a chance to be heard, but we don’t feel like that now. There are people who wonder what happens when the aegis of the inquiry falls away. How will they protect those who spoke up?”
The former officers Michael Pecic and Jacinta Buchbach – who now run training organisation In Safe Hands Educators In Safety – say cultural change in the QPS “will likely take years”.
“More will be needed than just reframing policies and procedures to set standards of behaviour to change QPS culture,” they say.
“Any meaningful QPS culture change must include a sustained effort that considers the drivers and other risk factors that contribute to these behaviours. To get to the root cause of the issues … that have prevailed over some years, careful consideration ought to be given to applying a much wider lens in root-cause analysis of QPS culture and reporting systems failures.”
A numbers game
The findings of the inquiry acknowledge resourcing issues have affected the investigation of domestic and family violence, which now makes up about 40% of calls for service to police.
It says the QPS is “not adequately resourced to meet the growing demand of responding to domestic and family violence, particularly in relation to numbers of frontline officers and specialist staff and units”.
Specific recommendations would require more specialist staff within the police service. But growing police numbers might prove difficult, given an attrition rate of about 5% and difficulties finding recruits. The ABC reported this week the QPS had cancelled one of its recruit training periods, due to a lack of enrolments.
Carroll has said there is a “pipeline” of recruits, but that “we’ve all got to admit the times are challenging at the moment”.
Officers have questioned whether some recommendations – including requirements for experienced field training officers in every station – are achievable.
“There are stations in central Queensland that apparently can’t even fill a car to cover a shift,” one officer says.
Others question the notion that more officers would be a panacea to addressing domestic and family violence. The criminologist Kerry Carrington says changing the structure and culture of policing is needed.
“What hypocrites,” Carrington says. “They say they can’t address the cultural issues because of a lack of resources, but before the inquiry they wouldn’t even admit there was a cultural issue.”
One worker at a domestic violence service says: “It sets a new leadership standard when you can be publicly exposed and criticised, there’s evidence of incompetence or reckless indifference, and findings that leadership failed, but you get an extra $100m for your organisation.”
Community support services say they are held to high governance standards for government funding, and that there is not enough money to go around. At the same time, the politics of police numbers has become a cop measuring competition.
On Wednesday the police minister, Mark Ryan, stood on the balcony at Queensland Parliament House with charts comparing police numbers under Labor to earlier promises by the LNP.
No one seemed to notice the purple bins nearby – a fundraiser for the domestic violence charity, Hearts of Purple. Politicians and their staff are helping fund their work by recycling cans.
‘Nothing changes if nothing changes’
Kilroy says she had been contacted this week by an Aboriginal domestic violence victim claiming police had “supported the man’s version of events”.
It is the sort of story that happens on a frighteningly regular basis. But hearing about another instance – the week the inquiry is released – seems to underscore the enormity of reforming culture and attitudes.
“Nothing changes if nothing changes,” Kilroy says.
“What they were doing last week they’ll be doing next week. Cops are still coming into Aboriginal women’s homes and charging them. They’re being remanded for breaching domestic violence orders when they are the ones who are the victims.”
The most infuriating thing for Kilroy? “We waste all this money on an inquiry where that money could go to the community. We could do much more for women.”
