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 |  Subject: OZschwitz gulag: Top cop's plan to stop arresting people worked  Mon Feb 22, 2016 9:50 pm | |
| Celebrated Queensland Police officer Inspector Corey Allen once worked in a field that prided itself on high volume arrests.
As a tactical officer his role was to go into situations where the idea was to make as many arrests as possible and he was well known for it.
When his career took a turn and he wound up as officer in charge of the busy City police, things changed.
Instead of searching for high arrest numbers he was encouraging his officers to make fewer arrests.
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"I was very focused on tactical," he said.
"I worked in high volume arrest squads and the public safety response team.
"So for me to come from that background to 'let's stop arresting people and start helping them' was quite a surprise to people.
"People would say to me 'you used to be this arrest machine and you actually ended up helping more people by not arresting them'."
It wasn't some sudden lack of interest in putting people in prison that saw this turnaround, but a unique approach to Brisbane's most vulnerable people that was led by his own experiences.
At 19 years old Allen had found himself homeless.
After a range of bad decisions and an inability to go home, Allen split his time between sleeping rough and crashing on friend's couches.
He knows how easily his life could have gone in another direction.
"All it would have taken was a run in with the wrong police officer at the wrong time and I would have wound up with a criminal record... or worse," he says.
Eventually he successfully applied to join the Queensland Police and worked his way up the ranks until he was officer in charge in the City, one of Queensland's busiest stations and one with a large homelessness population.
While he never used his own experience to encourage his officers to behave differently towards the homeless ("I was a bit embarrassed about my personal situation to be honest," he said) he could help them to see the situation differently.
"What I did do was personalise the situation," he said.
"Instead of just asking police to go out and put them in the watch house for four hours so they could have a bed and a meal, we asked officers to go and talk to people, find out about them, sit down and ask them questions."
The results were astonishing.
Not only did it keep vulnerable people out of the watch house, it gave officers an opportunity to get to know the people they were dealing with and that provided some very happy outcomes.
"One young copper got to know one of the homeless guys in the city and found out he had family in New South Wales, so he was able to contact the family and they were reunited, the man now lives near his nephew down there, so that worked out really well," Inspector Allen explained.
"Personalising the vulnerable people in our city by having the face to face contact made it hard to just go and arrest them."
The benefits for the homeless were obvious. Less time was being spent in the watch house, their relationship with the police was changing and police were helping them access the services they needed rather than just dealing with the immediate problem.
But even Inspector Allen was surprised by the impact it had on his officers.
"If you can talk to a really difficult disengaged homeless guy you become a pretty good communicator and problem solver," he said.
"They actually started to do that with other cases and were using those solutions for everything else they were doing."
Inspector Allen said being able to help vulnerable people find pathways to a better life was at the very core of what police work is.
"Most people become police because they want to help people," he said.
"A few years ago police had nothing to offer vulnerable people but now there really is something they can do to help."
After more than eight years as officer in charge at the city police station he took a promotion to inspector and now helps guide the next group of young police into their career at the academy.
It is the perfect place for him to shape the young minds of a new generation of officers.
"I am lucky I (am working in) a really good area with the first year constables," he said.
"They are out they start learning the culture and it is good to be looking at shaping people's behaviour and values and implement some of the ideas where we got police to participate in something that had really good values that align with the Queensland Police Service values as well as their own personal values."
Inspector Allen will discuss his involvement with vulnerable people through the Queensland Police at the TEDx South Bank on February 27.
He will be joined by a host of local speakers including Dr Scott Boland, who is an expert in using artificial intelligence in education, Lee Crockford, who works in men's mental health and suicide prevention and J.M. Donellan, who fended off a pack of rabid dogs with a guitar in India.
The event will be streamed live so even if you are unable to be there in person you can watch online.
Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/top-cops-plan-to-stop-arresting-people-worked-20160222-gn0ovc.html#ixzz40xJaVqgB |
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