School of Social and Political Sciences - Theses
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ItemBlue army: paramilitary policing in Victoria( 1998)This thesis focuses on the changes to law enforcement precipitated by the establishment of counter terrorist squads within State police forces during the late 1970's. It looks at the impact of Victoria's specialist counter terrorist squad, the Special Operations Group (SOG), on policing in Victoria and asks whether the group has led to the development of a more 'military based' approach to policing. The research demonstrates that the SOG has been the harbinger of more military styles of policing involving high levels of confrontation, more lethal weapons and a greater range of weapons and more frequent recourse to deadly force. The establishment of groups like the SOG has also undermined Australia's democratic traditions by blurring the boundaries between the police and military and weakening the safeguards which have in then past prevented military force being used against citizens. The SOG has acted as a vanguard group within Victoria police, anticipating and leading progress towards a range of new military-style tactics and weapons. The SOG, although relatively small in number,, has had a marked influence on the tactics and operations of police throughout the force. The group was never contained to dealing with only terrorist incidents but instead used for a range of more traditional police duties. While terrorism has remained rare in Australia the SOG has nevertheless expanded in size and role. Because the SOG is considered elite and because the SOG are frequently temporarily seconded to other areas of policing, SOG members provide a role for other police and have the opportunity to introduce parliamentary tactics into an extended range of police duties. The parliamentary skills developed by the SOG have been passes on to ordinary police through training programs headed by former SOG officers. In addition, the group has effectively been used as a testing ground for new weapons. The structure of the Victoria Police Protective Security Group and the way public demonstrations and industrial disputes are viewed in police and security circles ensure that parliamentary counter terrorist tactics will be used to stifle dissent and protest. The move towards paramilitary policing is necessarily a move away from the police mandate to protect life, keep the peace and use only minimum force. The interrogation of SOG and SOG tactics into everyday policing has occurred without any public debate or recognition of the important democratic traditions that have ensured that military force is not used against citizens except in the most extreme circumstances. Although the SOG is not formally part of the military it is nevertheless a significant parliamentary force virtually indistinguishable in terms of the weapons and levels of force at its disposal from the military proper.
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ItemBlue murder: press coverage of fatal shootings of and by police in Victoria( 1994)This study is a qualitative content analysis of two newspapers' coverage of three fatal shootings in Victoria in October 1988. The shootings are those of Graeme Jensen, killed by the Armed Robbery Squad on 11 October 1988, and Constables Steven Tynan and Damian Eyre who were killed by offender/s unknown the following day. Qualitative content analysis consists of a detailed reading of a text in order to provide an interpretation by drawing out the latent meaning of the text. In conducting the analysis the overriding concern is not with whether the reports are true or false, but how meaning is created and to what effect. The newspapers studied represent the killing of Graeme Jensen as unproblematic, depicting it as lawful and necessary. Graeme Jensen is represented as a dangerous criminal living outside the community; his death is presented not as a tragedy but as the fulfilment of his life's destiny. Other ways of viewing the shooting, that are at least as well supported by the evidence, are given little space. In contrast, the killing of the two police officers is represented as a terrible crime. The great emphasis given to the brutality of the killings and killers, and the innocence of the police victims, constructs the officers as martyrs whose dead bodies provide the rhetorical base for police demands for greater powers, resources, and harsher punishments. The press coverage of the shootings supports the organisational legitimacy and interests of the police; there is little evidence of competition for meaning within the reports, and alternative viewpoints are only included to give the illusion of a contest.