What could possibly go wrong here?
Protective Service Officers in Victoria – who are absolutely not cops despite playing dress-up to the contrary – are set to have their powers expanded to include the ability to arrest and detain people outside of train stations, thanks to new laws set to be introduced into State Parliament.
The PSOs currently patrol Melbourne‘s train station platforms to ensure passenger safety, but the new expanded powers will give them the ability to venture outside of station boundaries, “respond” to incidents that occur “near” stations, arrest people who have “breached their parole,” and search people for illicit substances.
The expanded laws, which are set to be introduced into Victorian Parliament this week, will also allow PSOs to request names and addresses from people who witness crimes occurring.
Worryingly, Police Minister Lisa Neville asserted that PSOs would not be required to undertake additional training – outside of the training they already do – once their new powers come into play.
“PSOs have identical training to what police officers have, we’ve already made significant changes to PSOs’ training anyway to ensure they have the right training. They all do re-training every six months anyway, so there is ample opportunity to have their skills upgraded.”
Expanding PSOs powers but not having all pre-existing officers be fully trained in them for the first day they come into play. That is terrifying, frankly.
PSOs have repeatedly come under fire for a series of violent incidents involving accused fare evaders, and these new and expanded powers to “arrest people who have breached their parole” and “search for illicit substances” feel profoundly vague and ill-defined at best.
PSO Officer Jake Lindus spoke to ABC News and expressed frustration over a prior lack of ability to physically act in the event of an incident.
“You feel frustrated at times, you wish you could do more and wish you could be seen doing something.”
“It’s frustrating when you look up the road and there isn’t a police van there and you could get there quicker.”
I mean, it’d really only be frustrating in the sense that PSOs are Not Cops, so yeah. Frustrating.
It’s the lack of additional training for PSOs that’s most worrying, and the Law Institute of Victoria is pulling no punches in expressing their concern.
“We believe PSOs would need additional training and higher skills to enable them to have the power to arrest a person who has breached their parole, conduct searches for illicit drugs, and request names and addresses from people who witness crime.”
“There is also a danger that additional powers could lead to an increase in harassment and arbitrary profiling of vulnerable people.”
Yep. Nail on the head there.
There’s no arguing the PSOs serve a reasonably valuable purpose, particularly late at night.
But increasing their powers without mandatory and immediate training is more or less starting the stopwatch until one of them fucks up spectacularly.
And still, only twelve weeks of training.
It boggles the mind.
Photo: Jeff Greenberg/Getty.
