POLICE DISCRETIONARY DECISION IN THE DOOMADGEE CASE
Name
Institution
Date
Abstract
The focus of this essay is to discuss how police discretionary decisions work against the Torres Strait Islanders and the Aborigines. Drawing from several research books, articles, journals and other materials, it is evident that this two indigenous people are apprehended, detained or imprisoned due to police discretion which gives them unlawful power to decide who to arrest and who not to. This discretionary decision is facilitated by the entire criminal justice system that comprises of the police department as well as the entire court system. This essay will use the case of Cameron Doomadgee also known as Mulrunji to assess the police discretionary decisions and the outcome. Through reading of external sources, findings of this essay are that the Torres Strait Islanders and the Aborigines are less than 5 % of the whole Australian community thus explaining why they are the police target over centuries since colonization.
Keywords: Police Discretion, indigenous, Criminal Justice System, Aboriginals, and Torres Straight Islanders
Introduction
Aboriginals and the Torres Strait island people live in the queens land part of Australia which has over ten more islands (Atkinson 1996). Aboriginals comprise of the northern American Indians, metis, as well as the Inuit while the Torres islanders are of Melanesian origin. The two indigenous groups living in Australia are similar to the African Americans as they are the main target of racism in their country. Being an indigenous in Australia is a problem as misrepresentation in politics, justice systems, and government is in its highest level. The discretion of the law enforcement officials which comprises of the armed forces and the legal fraternity, are the primary reason why indigenous citizens of Australia suffer racial discrimination. The racial prejudice is evident in the case of Cameron Doomadgee (Mulrunji) who was a victim of police brutality after he tried to defend one of his own people from a police officer. The law enforcement officers operate with the enactment of ill-conceived and oppressive laws towards the Torres Strait islanders and the Aborigines (Milte & Weber, 1977). Doomadgee’s death in the hands of the law enforcement agent SS Hurley proves that the aboriginals agonize from false apprehensions, sentencing, and incarcerations. Cunneen (2001) explains that the behavior of the police as the main reason why the indigenous groups undergo the inevitable problem of false accusations and imprisonment. The human rights committee (2016) also cites that the prison population of the Aboriginals increased by large percent in the year 1995. The high prison population of the aborigines who die in the prison could have been alarming with multiple interventions from the state and legal administrations if it was the white population. Given these facts, this essay will seek to analyze the case of Mulrunji and the police department to show how the police discretionary decisions are in complete contradiction of the interests of the indigenous people, in this case, the aboriginals and the Torres Strait Islanders. To effectively analyze that the police officers discretionary decisions are mostly used towards the small indigenous community, understanding the police duties and responsibilities to the Australian community will be essential in the study.
To begin with in this essay will be understanding the role of the police in Australia. The police have duties and responsibilities that aim to protect and respect lives of the citizens regardless of race, height, gender, and so on which they should uphold. Drawing from several research materials and data, the police in Australia behave differently towards different groups, as the white population receives fair treatment and justice but the minority like the Torres Strait islanders and aborigines receive unfairness due to their cultural diversity. Milte & Weber (1977) cite duties of the police force to comprise of police power and individual freedom, detention and questioning of suspects, conducting interrogations, appropriate use of force, plus search and seizure of criminals. Besides, the law enforcers must be community’s agents and not for the whites only but for the holistic Australian society. The police also have to be accountable for their actions as well as examine their discretion in relation their laws and the people.
Throughout this essay, the behavior of the police in handling matters relating to the indigenous communities, for instance, the aboriginals and the Torres Strait Islanders will be the focus with analysis of Cameron Doomadgee’s case (Human Rights Committee 2016). Aborigines and policing represents the indigenous society which is below 3% of the population in Australia. The extremely high rates of Aborigines and the Torres Strait Islanders imprisonment are due to the police discretion (Davis 1999). The massive apprehension of the people from the Australian indigenous group determines the existence of inappropriateness of the criminal justice system in the country. The police misuse their powers to determine whether to arrest or let go of an individual from either the Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders community. Police discretion gives the law enforcers the power to decide the prisoner to detain or to arrest with false evidence or due to very minute reasons. The police are the greatest hindrance to the advance the human rights for the Australian indigenous people due to how they respond to their issues. The Doomadgee case is the best example to use to explain the discretions of the Australian police in how they deal with the Aboriginals cases the police response to their issues.
The common duty of the police is to arrest criminals, but in the case of the indigenous people, the police convict them with minor offences (Lenton 1996). The senior sergeant Christopher Hurley arrests Mulrunji (Doomadgee’s native name) because he was trying to stand up for his fellow aborigine (Methven 2018). The fact that the law enforcer arrested Cameron without committing any form of crime determines the level of discrimination against the aborigines and the other indigenous group. The arrest which was due to sergeants Hurley’s discretion resulted to force and later on death. The officer killing his detainee and not offering any explanations to other officers is enough to prove misuse of power and authority in the police departments against the Torres Strait Islanders and the Aborigines. Constabularies with perfect training have the ability to determine when to use force and to which extreme on the criminals, but the palm police department does not. After Cameron dies less than an hour with SS Hurley, still other white officers do not treat him like the suspect in the case which he should obviously be. The manner in which the palm island police officers deal with the case is despicable as they do not consider an Aborigine as important thus lacking respect for their indigenous lives (Human Rights Committee 2016). In countries with upright police departments, when a person is arrested by officer in good health, and he delivers the criminal dead, he will be questioned about the happenings, investigated, and will be the main suspect in the case. The police inappropriateness against the Torres Straight Islanders and Aboriginals is evident as Sergeant Hurley was not suspended and warned of not interfering with evidence, by his white colleagues demonstrating their power and control over the minority thus no one can question the officer over the murder. The criminal justice system of palm Island considered the case normal because of their trend of imprisoning the Aboriginals who end up dying in the prisons. The palm island police decision of not treating Hurley as suspect and letting him walk free is against the police rule of protecting lives and property of the people.
Law enforcement agents conduct investigations lawfully but with the incorrectness in the system, flaws are acceptable. The police are to ensure that suspects of the case do not tamper with evidence which was not the case in Doomadgee’s murder investigation. Sergeant Hurley was at the center of the investigations yet he was the real perpetrator of the crime. Hurley’s rank as a sergeant enabled him to know everything about investigations. This evident in Cameron’s investigations as Hurley was the host of the police from Townsville giving him the chance to tell them his own version of his story. Through his lies, the town’s Ville police concluded that the case was closed a day after Cameron’s death. Since it was an aboriginal’s death, the police decision to follow up was to ensure that the case was closed due to lies.
Another investigative measure that the criminal justice systems use to determine the cause of death is autopsy. Autopsy was done on Cameron and the findings were he had broken ribs and other internal injuries around his abdomen, evidence that he was beaten up by the Sergeant. The tampering with evidence works against the indigenous family as they will not be in a position to get justice for their son or relative because Hurley their main suspect and his colleagues made sure they ignored all the Aboriginals who were to testify against him.
In addition, since the courts fraternity including the judges, juries, prosecutors, and parole officers are part of the criminal justice system as well, the inaccuracies also apply to their end against the Aborigines and the Torres Strait Islanders (Davis 1999). The police decision to withhold substantial evidence from the court was against the interests of the Aboriginal family and evidence of police discretion at work in the courts system. The work of the police in an indiscriminating society involves preparation reports of the events in the field and making field notes to aid in investigations. However, the palm island police officers failed to communicate with the relevant authorities in the case which was essential in making accurate decisions especially in court. Timely and accurate information is imperative in all investigations and mostly aids in the judgment of case. The police decided to deliver relevant forms to the case after two days tampering with its timely aspect. The form 1 certificate which was to be used by the coroner was sent two days late with missing information and significant inaccuracies.
The palm island police also have the duty to protect the human rights of the white population as well as for the indigenous communities living in islands of queen’s land of Australia. Despite the police responsibility of protecting the public, they plot to place the palm island under a state of emergency using their discretion hence the suspending of the primary means of transport which are flights. This action of planning and executing the emergency situation was primarily to punish the Aboriginals and other indigenous people in the island. The police declaration of an emergency situation was after the numerous riots and stone throwing practices in the police department office (Human Rights Committee 2016). Given the fact that the officers organized ferries for the white community only, was proof that the state of emergency was called for them to be in apposition to use their discretion to vandalize, terrorize, arrest and scare the Aborigines which was an excessive and unequal use of police force. The emergency team officers searched in the houses of the indigenous people to make numerous arrests and in the process, they were terrifying the children and their mothers making them scared for their lives as the police were less concerned in providing security for their well-being. The effects of such arrests could be damaging to the victims thus resulting to more resilient Aboriginals to fight for their future existence. Mellor (2004) agrees with Watson by stating that police racism controls the emotional and behavior s of the indigenous communities. The police plan was a serious violation of the human rights of freedom to move from one place to the other. Paralyzing flights, controlling the ferry for the white teachers, and the deployment of more police to the island was a serious violation of the Aborigines’ rights and freedom. The law enforcement agencies who are to be in charge of protection of lives are the same ones who are putting the lives in danger with the assumption that the indigenous people cannot protect themselves. Miles-Johnson (2013) explains that the situation the police bring on the indigenous people breaks their trust and confidence in them which are the results of inappropriateness in the criminal justice system in Australia.
Watson (2014) states that the police discretion in dealing with Aboriginal criminal matters inappropriately ,violates their political and social behavior in general as they aim to seek justice for their false apprehensions through riots and media footages thus attracting political intervention which is very slow in case of policy formulation and implementation . The people from the Torres Strait Island and the Aborigines are the main victims of police discretion which results to racist attacks and arrests. The two ethnic communities either learn to defend themselves, to control their feelings on the discriminating behaviours, or to control and fight the racism. In the case of the Doomadgee’s murder, the Aborigines fought back the inappropriateness in the murder case through numerous demonstrations and riots(Human Rights Committee 2016) . Even though their victory was short-lived after sergeant Hurley was found guilty of manslaughter of Cameron, it was a positive indication that they can fight for their rights and stop police brutality and discretion towards the indigenous people. Therefore, the police discriminating actions make them stronger thus the riots and the burning of the police cars and properties indicating that they are ready to fight for their rights as the white citizens of Australia
At the end of every tunnel comes light, Justice Mortimer of the Federal Court was the source of light that the Torres strait Islanders and the Aborigines longed for in the midst of the police discretion practices that were characterised by inaccuracies in reports, inappropriate arrests, unfair judgements, among other forms of malpractices (Human Rights Committee 2016). Justice Mortimer vividly cautions the people in control not to abuse their powers to control the minority groups in society. The judge asks the police to ensure their do their investigative duties without any form of racial discrimination because the inappropriateness in police investigative duties is an assault to the rule of law.
Conclusion
In summary, police discretion in Australia has seen most people from the Torres Strait Islanders and the Aboriginals suffer in the criminal justice system (Atkinson 1996). The discretion gives the police power to make decisions wrongfully concerning an innocent indigenous person thus the high populated prisons. Since the criminal justice system comprises of prosecutors, the police, juries, probation officers, parole officers, and the judges, facilitating the inaccurate arrests with false evidence and ensuring imprisonment and apprehension of the indigenous people is inevitable in Australia.
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