The police in the scenario fail to meet the ideals and expectations in the NSW police policy and NSW legislation. The police involved in the scenario did not act appropriately or accordingly to the two individuals that are involved as they did not treat them fairly nor did they apply appropriate discretion and left prejudice to negatively impact their decisions, resulting in the police not complying with the required policies and procedures that they are to adhere to. There are multiple ways the police could have better addressed the situation they were in and given the right amount of care and diligence that was needed.
The police in the scenario failed to meet the ideals and expectations firstly by not approaching the situation in the right tone. The Senior Constable yells “Hey, what the bloody hell is going on here” instead of approaching the pair with an open and fair mind about what the situation might be. The Senior Constable then also quickly assumes that Lilith is the victim in the situation based off Masud’s descent and also unnecessarily physically pushes Masud back when he tries to talk. This does not comply with the Code of Conduct and Ethics (Code of Conduct and Ethics, p. 1) as he is not treating Masud with the fairness and respect that he is entitled to. The Senior Constable also decides to arrest Masud once he reaches for the knife on his belt to show that Masud is carrying the knife legally as he states it is for work purposes (Summary Offences Act 1988, S. 11c), however, the Senior Constable continues to carry out the arrest. The police then conduct a CNI check via radio which returns to state that Masud has no previous history of any criminal activity and also no intel to his name. The Senior Constable then uses his discretion to continue the arrest instead of letting Masud free to leave.
Discretion in policing is being able to personally decide how you are going to act or carry out a situation based on the facts presented to them at the time. Although it is up to the police officer to decide what he or she may do, the choice still must be carried out lawfully and appropriately. This leaves the officer liable for the actions they have chosen within that situation. Due to police officer’s being able to appropriately use discretion, it is more favourable to the community, it results in police officers being able to prioritise more serious and urgent incidents and it frees up the court to deal with more serious cases. Without discretion, police officers would have to attend to every offence that is being committed and would have to strictly apply the law to each offence without there being any other outcome. With this, it would dramatically slow down policing operations and make it harder for the police to be able to prioritise incidents according to urgency.
Within the scenario, the Senior Constable uses his discretion by perceiving Lilith as being the victim. He instantly associates Masud, being Middle Eastern as the one in the wrong based from prejudice. He also uses his discretion to arrest Masud based on his ethnicity without giving him the chance to explain himself, even though Masud had a clear record and a legitimate reason for carrying a knife. “Police discretion is also one of the reasons behind what some people see as racial profiling, as police officers are trained to use their discretion in line with statistics or perceived statistics. It is often perceived that people of certain races are more likely to be guilty of crimes, and this may factor into police choices. While this is technically illegal, because discretion is not an exact science with specified, codified rules, it is very difficult to prove this in court.” (J. Hirby, p.1). The uses of discretion in this scenario have been used inappropriately. To appropriately have applied discretion in this scenario, the police would have had to take in the relevant facts, in which this case they had not by treating Masud unfairly and not getting both sides of the story. They also inappropriately applied discretion by doing so in bad faith. The Senior Constable based the action he took on a prejudice belief that Masud was “dodgy”.
One of the main barriers to effectively communicating is by judging the person you are trying to have a conversation with. Instead of trying to understand both sides of the story which would better help with underlining the issue and resolving the situation, the senior constable says to Lilith, “is this joker giving you problems lady?”. In this instance, the senior constable would have been better off approaching the stall in a calmly manner by simply stating his and his colleague’s name, their place of duty and the reason they have approached the stall (Law Enforcement (Power and Responsibilities) Act 2002 – s. 202). Simply by doing so, Masud and Lilith would have felt better knowing there was someone there to help with the situation.
More barriers to effectively communicating in relation to this scenario, would be the tone and body language of the police officers. As the officers are walking towards Lilith and Masud, the senior constable yells “Hey, what the bloody hell is going on here” which not only may have startled Lilith and Masud, but also would have attracted unwanted attention from the public which was not necessary. A better way to have addressed the situation would have been to approach Lilith and Masud, complying with Section 202 of the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002, S. 202 and then saying “so can one of you explain what is going on?” and then after letting one person talk, then letting the other give their side of the story to gain a better understanding of what happened. This also promotes being fair to either party and having a higher chance of getting the information needed to be able to assist and resolve the matter.
Lastly, it states in the scenario that Masud has broken English therefor it is possible that Masud could have easily gotten confused. Masud may potentially be foreign to the country resulting in him not knowing the laws in place for carrying a knife. This is another reason the police would have achieved more in this situation if they had better use their communication skills and adhered to the NSW police expectations and guidelines.
In the scenario, neither police officers approached the situation in the right manner. They did not adhere to the ideals or expectations of the NSW police policy or the NSW legislation. The senior constable and constable left prejudice to base their decisions which resulted in them treating both parties unfairly. Both police officers did not appropriately follow procedures and due to this, it affected their ability to appropriately apply discretion and also hindered their ability to effectively communicate and resolve the situation. This resulted in the actual issue to be unsolved.