Posts by Matthew Poole
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to BenWilson,
feel free to dispute that females on the force might have a positive impact
Who was disputing that? I certainly wasn't. I was disputing that quotas that need to be filled, regardless of the number of applicants who actually meet the current criteria, are any kind of solution to getting women into the police. Quotas pretty much invariably get achieved by dropping recruitment standards, because if they aren't getting sufficient quality candidates in the quota group now they won't be getting sufficient quality candidates in the quota group in future if all else remains equal. The exception is if there's no targeted recruiting activity, which is very definitely not the case with the police trying to recruit women. Making it a place that women want to work, and want to stay (and can stay), is far more useful and long-term sustainable.
Oh, and on the grip strength, men don't need to have twice the strength of a 17-year-old male. You skipped the bit where the police are measuring combined-hand strength while the figures I linked are single-hand strength.
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to Russell Brown,
It’s a job that requires very specific skills in handling victims without re-traumatising them. Skills that do not seem to have been displayed or even possessed by the interviewing officer in this case
And are, I suspect, present in a vanishingly tiny number of sworn officers. It's really a job for psychologists with specialist training.
Talking about how interviewing rape victims needs special skills is spot-on, but ignores the fact that to get to the point of being that interviewer one must first make it through police college, a year of being a traffic cop, and a year of being a general duties cop. Then, and only then, do they get to start down a career path in CIB or whatever. So screening for particular personality traits because they're particularly useful if an officer goes into a particular career stream once they've completed their probationary period ignores all of the other stuff that they have to be able to do in their first two years (and potentially the rest of their career) as a police officer.
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to BenWilson,
And you can’t take crushing grip strength away from people and lock it in a safe.
52kg combined-hand grip strength isn't "crushing" - it's the single-hand point where a 17-year-old male is considered strong (as opposed to being of normal strength for their age). Men have to demonstrate 96kg, which is considerably more power; are you all up in arms about that?
Policing, for all the nice talk about it being about doing paperwork and talking to people, is still a job which places physical demands on those who are so engaged. Take away or reduce the physical testing because it makes people feel good, or lets people through a quota, or whatever, and there are actual, real consequences. I'm sure you'd be one of the first to cry foul if incidences of use of firearms or Tasers increased because officers were not required to meet such rigorous physical standards, but if you don't have the strength the only alternative is to use a weapon.
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to BenWilson,
Quotas in a job which has legitimate physical demands can be really dangerous.
I think that’s overstated in the case of the police. Most of the job isn’t manhandling massive suspects to the ground after a parkour session. It’s going around talking to people, taking good notes, and filling out paperwork. For the violent stuff, they are armed with batons, tasers, pepper spray, body armor, handcuffs, and typically there are guns close at hand, although not usually worn.
Brute physical strength isn’t a huge part of the job of a fire fighter, either, but when you need it you really need it. Having access to a firearm isn’t much use if you lack the grip strength to keep it under control, or if you can’t hold onto someone long enough to get the cuffs on.
The physical testing for a police officer is, aside from the endurance testing, mostly consistent across genders (have to tread water for the same time, dive the same distance to retrieve the same weight brick, swim the same distance in the same maximum time), but women have to meet lower criteria for grip strength and jump height requirements. Grip, in particular, is quite a key part of a police officer’s use of force, and there’s already a 44kg difference between the male and female requirement. -
Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to Jason Kemp,
I hope our faith in the IPCA is justified but given the history so far it would seem little has changed.
The IPCA isn’t, strictly speaking, responsible for the administration of the post-Nichols change programme.
I wonder if there are any women in Senior roles with the Police as it must be a very tough culture
Paula Rose was, I believe, the most-senior woman in the NZ Police at the time of her retirement in terms of rank (after Superintendent the ranks have “Commissioner” in them) and role. There isn’t a single woman serving as a district commander (also Superintendent-rank roles), and the only women on the executive are non-sworn general managers of support functions.
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to Henry Barnard,
A time to consider introducing a quota system to encourage a significant increase in the number of women in the police force?
Quotas in a job which has legitimate physical demands can be really dangerous. There are lower physical requirements for females already, but a quota would potentially see those cut further just to get the numbers; this isn’t supposition, it’s what has been seen in the US with affirmative action for police and fire departments.
If you’re not a white male you’re already higher up the hiring priority list for the police. Making it a place where women want to work and enough apply that the best candidates can be selected is a more enduring course of action. Quotas just raise suspicion that people got in to fill the numbers rather than on merit, particularly amongst those whose numbers are deemed sufficient that they don’t need a quota (ie: white males).And especially at higher levels?
A suggestion I heard fairly recently was to allow re-hires to come back in at a rank above constable, provided they have adequate experience outside the police (or previously within the police) to support the supervisory requirements. NZ is fairly unusual in forcing everyone to start as constable every time they are hired, regardless of previous policing experience. Makes it exceptionally hard for women who take time for having children to climb the ladder.
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to Russell Brown,
Patrick Gower has just said on TV3 that that the Police Commissioner Peter Marshall gave “incorrect information” about the case to the Police Minister Anne Tolley this week. Which is the polite way of saying that he was either lying or has been lied to.
That kind of thing leads to people polishing their CVs in an awful hurry. I wonder how many ways Tolley can refuse to expressly say that she no longer has confidence in Marshall before she has his resignation on her desk.
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to Russell Brown,
It’s appropriate now to start talking about police corruption.
Maybe. It's certainly appropriate to talk about how the Police have, clearly, not made all of the progress post-Louise Nichols that we keep being told they have made. A broken internal culture that engages in victim-blaming when taking the complaint of a 13-year-old rape victim is not corrupt, it's just an utter moral failure from the top down.
If evidence arises that the line of questioning taken was because there's the son of a police officer involved, that is corruption. But being a worthless douche with the compassion and moral compass of Genghis Khan is merely reprehensible. Incompetence (moral, ethical, and grasp-of-duty) is far, far more likely than active corruption. No less excusable, but far more likely. Unless we're taking corruption to mean talking victims out of bringing hard-to-win cases in order to avoid the district's numbers looking bad? -
Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to Danielle,
hypotheticals are VERY IMPORTANT MATTERS. Just as important as, you know, what actually happened to those girls and how the police sat on their hands for two years because the son of a cop was involved.
Now who's dealing in hypotheticals, Danielle? In fact, who's making some really fucking serious allegations of police corruption?
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to Lilith __,
Also, how can this WHOLE ARTICLE never use the R word?? Even once?
When you're worried about lawsuits for defamation, quite easily.
As for arguing the toss, I don't think anyone in here is arguing about whether or not what has gone on is non-consensual sex. We're arguing about whether it's reasonable to conclude that the police have been creatively hamstrung in their approach to the case.