Human Rights Policing

Policing services throughout Australia are strongly concerned with human rights policing as human rights policing plays a crucial role in assisting police with their work in solving and detecting crime, maintaining peace and preventing criminal behaviour. This is especially evident within the Victorian Police Force as it is clearly outlined within their Professional standards and conduct policy (2015) and annual reports (2013-14) that employees of the Victorian Police must act professionally, fairly and legally and all times. The motto on the Victorian Police patch also states human rights’ policing is an important factor as the motto states ‘Uphold the Right’ (Victoria Police 2015) which is focused on human rights and community policing.

It is presented in a way in which it reflects the articles within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). For example, according to the organisational values within the Victorian Police Professional standards and conduct (2015) the police must “Act with honesty, respecting the right of fair process for all, Accept diversity with tolerance with understanding and practice tolerance” relates to the articles 1, 2 and 7. By relating the values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) to the Victorian Police Professional standards and code of conduct document, annual reports and mission statements, it allows the Victorian police to have an ethical approach to policing. These types of human rights values within the Victorian Police documents that play a crucial role in assisting police with their work shows how much commitment the Victorian police are putting into community policing and human rights policing. This form of human rights policing and community policing that the Victorian Police Force is focused on helps generate more respect for the police and the people within the community, honesty within the police force and accountability (Neyroud, P, & Beckley, A

This is evident in the Victorian Police’s Professional standards and conduct policy (2015) and annual reports as it states within these documents that community perceptions of policing has either increased slightly or remained stable between the periods of 2013-14. This form of community perceptions of the police has led to the Victorian Police Force adopting the way they go about their work based on the feedback from the community which includes residents, public organisations and offenders. By using the feedback received from the community, the Victorian Police Force is able to then adapt training, policy and procedures and ethical standards based on community feedback of what needs to be improved by the police. For example, an article in ‘The Age’ (2014) newspaper reported a male’s human rights were breached when Victorian police racially harassed the male while subjecting the man to a random stop and search and coercive questioning without valid reason except he looked suspicious. Feedback from the community from such incidents has led to the Victorian Police Force to introduce committees focused on human rights policing through various means such as, human rights policing training, human rights policing policies, service standards and service values annual