Wed, 24 Jun 2026 23:23:38 +1000WeeblySat, 04 Jan 2014 09:34:16 GMThttp://www.stevebishop.net/police-scorecard-system-is-a-throwback-to-corrupt-era/-police-scorecard-system-is-a-throwback-to-corrupt-era The proposed Queensland Police score card system is not a throwback to the corrupt Joh years and Commissioner Terry Lewis – it goes back to an earlier premier and his corrupt commissioner Frank Bischof.

A judge delivered a scathing attack on that system in which detectives were required to achieve a certain number of arrests if they wanted to be considered for promotion.

The judge said the system was a “dangerous thing” which alarmed him.

Police Commissioner Ian Stewart is reported in the media saying he wants to reduce crime by 10 per cent this year and that score cards will be introduced across the state to assess the performance of officers.

How the system of scorecards will contribute to a drop in crime is not explained in media reports and today I could find no reference to the plan on the Queensland Police web site.

But we should be very worried if the system encourages police officers to charge people and make arrests in the belief that if they don’t they will fall behind on the promotion ladder.

In 1962 Supreme Court Justice Roslyn Philp severely criticised what were then known as kill sheets.

He was summing up in a case in which the defendant was alleged to have confessed to police that he had burned down a house. The alleged confession was the only evidence against him.

The judge told the jury: “We have heard a somewhat alarming thing – alarming to me and I am sure to you – in this case. We have heard that it is to the interest of detectives to get convictions.

“We have heard…that the head of the criminal investigation branch…made it plain that a man’s promotion in the criminal investigation branch depends on the number of arrests.

“Now, it would be no use a detective making an arrest unless he had evidence and unless it was real evidence or bogus evidence to support it, so the inference I draw from it is this: the head of the criminal investigation branch is saying that it is in the interest of a detective to have evidence.

“Well, gentlemen, that seems to me to be a very dangerous thing because if it is to the interest of a detective to have evidence then he will be inclined to manufacture evidence and so, as I say, that is an alarming thing.

“However, this fact remains that the head of the department thinks that promotion should depend partly upon the number of arrests a detective makes. Perhaps it is just as well that we, the public, have been made aware of this.

“It is just as well that you and I have been made aware of it because if there is an inducement to detectives to lie, then your liberty and my liberty are in jeopardy, let alone the liberty of people with a criminal record, against whom false evidence can be so easily brought and which is so difficult to refute.

“Normally, gentlemen, I would have said to you that a police officer has no interest in getting a conviction. I think judges have been saying that for years but things seem to be different now.”

The jury found that the police had manufactured evidence  and decided that the defendant was not guilty.

Today’s police service is very different from the Bischof police force in which verballing was an art form. The 1976 Lucas Inquiry found that many police officers fabricated evidence in an attempt to secure convictions.

There is every reason to believe that we have one of the most honest police services possible today in Queensland.

But what happens if a police officer is working hard each day but is failing to secure his or her quota of arrests – if that is, indeed, what the scorecard system demands?

The system will provide a temptation for some to cut corners. The lesson of history is there for all to see.

The commissioner says that there will be safety in numbers because there will be an emphasis on group assessment rather than individual assessment.

But there is a risk that a group could put pressure on its members to achieve quotas by underhand means and to maintain a united front that all is in order.

Queensland Council for Civil Liberties vice-president Terry O’Gorman is warning that the system is open to abuse.

Police Commissioner Stewart wants the system to result in 23,000 less property offences and 3,100 less offences against people each year based on the last set of official statistics.

The target is admirable. The method is open to abuse. And while a blitz of this sort may lead to more arrests that does not necessarily result in a reduction in crime.

Is the approach likely to lead to a reduction in the number of assaults when so many attacks are the result of alcohol-fuelled morons exposed for years to violent video games and gore-filled Hollywood homages to machoism?

I remember being appalled when I reviewed the first Rambo film for the Sunday Sun at a public showing and the audience applauded and whooped when a “baddie” was blown to smithereens.

Because of the nature of this crime there is already a 75 per cent clear-up rate but the number of serious and random assaults seems to be increasing.

It strikes me that while we accept violence to be valid entertainment and while testosterone-filled young men believe it is a rite of passage to drink themselves stupid we are unlikely to see a sizeable reduction in assaults.

But when it comes to property crimes less than a third of crimes are cleared up.

Can kill sheets reduce property crime when police usually have very little if any clues to go on?

Far better than trying to catch elusive thieves would be more emphasis on educating the public on crime prevention to cut the number of thefts.

Meanwhile, as Justice Philp warned, we should be alarmed by the scorecard proposal.

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