Regulation 603

“To assist me in conducting this investigation, I intend to ask you a series of questions to assist me to fully examine your behaviour, conduct, honesty, integrity, performance and competency. Under Police Force Regulation 1979, Regulation 603, I can order you to answer my questions. Accordingly, I now order you to answer my questions, and the answers and information you provide will be used to determine whether you have engaged in non-criminal unprofessional conduct.”

The wording above is a substantive part of an order, routinely imposed upon members who are directed to participate in managerial interviews that relate to allegations of misconduct. Examples of complaints of misconduct can range from the use of excessive force, unlawful arrests, inappropriate language or computer access to name a few. Compulsive managerial interviews are audio recorded and conducted with police witnesses.

The full wording, blunt style and even existence of this type of adversarial interview makes several implied assumptions about the interviewee.

• That they are unwilling to participate in a two-way, honest and open discussion about their conduct in response to an allegation;

• That they will likely be evasive, misleading, or untruthful;

• That they are more likely to be guilty of the allegation than innocent; and

• That they have limited understanding of the importance of appropriate conduct or the difference between appropriate conduct and misconduct.

Members are often stood down or stood aside, ordered to surrender their phones, banned from police premises, ordered not to discuss the matter with colleagues and while the burden of proof is reversed, the agency adopts a standard-of-proof only on the balance of probabilities. In other words, you’re probably guilty.

The truth is that members understand that they must maintain a high standard of conduct and when police discipline falters, it can diminish public confidence in police. When compelled to attend a managerial interview and ordered to answer questions, members frequently feel patronised, belittled, undervalued, disenfranchised, and that their reputation is tainted and career forever damaged.

It would be fair to say that the way police officers are managerially interrogated (and be in no doubt, these are interrogations), is mirrored by the way in which criminal offenders are interviewed, with the notable exception of the right to silence. Otherwise, they are more or less identical in terms of formality, interview planning, recording, conducted by an investigating and corroborating officer, and questions are firm and often unfriendly. Other similarities include conducting interviews in small, bland interview rooms ordinarily designed and used for suspect interviews. The oppressive, intimidatory settings are palpable.

A substantial and less obvious difference is that members are presumed guilty until they prove their own innocence. Members are often stood down or stood aside, ordered to surrender their phones, banned from police premises, ordered not to discuss the matter with colleagues and while the burden of proof is reversed, the agency adopts a standard-of-proof only on the balance of probabilities. In other words, you’re probably guilty.

With the advent of mobile phone cameras, proliferation of CCTV and the now full-time accompaniment of body worn camera, scrutiny of police officer behaviour is more intensive, intrusive and rigorous than ever before. And the likelihood of being exposed to the tyrannical, harsh, and dispiriting managerial interview is ever-present and more probable.

In addition to the stressful, disheartening and demoralising nature of these compulsive interviews, occasionally described as beating a peanut into submission with a sledgehammer, is the subsequent sharing of the interview content with third parties.

In addition to the stressful, disheartening and demoralising nature of these compulsive interviews, occasionally described as beating a peanut into submission with a sledgehammer, is the subsequent sharing of the interview content with third parties.

Even though members respond to the order to answer questions with a union caveat which states in part:

“I do not consider I have any other option but to answer the questions put to me. I do not give permission for any record of this interview to be disclosed to any third party outside the WA Police Force”,

The word fight is lost when afterward, the managerial interview introduction concludes with:

“The Western Australia Police is an agency which is bound by various statutes which may require the release or disclosure of your answers and as such, any request received by the Agency will be dealt with on its merits in accordance with the relevant legislation.”

This plays out badly for our members in several ways. Through Freedom of Information (FOI), defence counsel seeking to attack the credibility of police witnesses are able to acquire managerial interview transcripts, complaint histories of police officers and use it for completely unrelated matters. A recent exchange in court between a serving police officer and defence counsel went something like this:

Counsel “So Constable, is it true that you have had a number of complaints levelled at you regarding excessive use of force?”

Officer “Yes but they weren’t…..”

Counsel “Just answer the question Constable, is it not true that you have been internally investigated on multiple occasions for using excessive force”

Officer “Yes”

Counsel And you were interviewed by Internal Affairs?

Officer “Yes”

Counsel “And those complaints pertain to incidents involving arrests where you used force?”

Officer “Yes”

Counsel “And the force you used in those incidents was just like the force you used against my client, the accused, when you arrested him?”

You get the picture.

Other examples of ‘information sharing’ of managerial interview transcripts include people using FOI to obtain information in support of restraint orders and civil action against police officers including lawsuits and family court matters.

The defensive argument for retaining this outdated disciplinary relic is “if you’ve done nothing wrong, then you’ve got nothing to worry about ”. This rationale doesn’t stand up because it’s the actual interrogation process that does the harm, especially when matters are not sustained or unfounded.

While we are yet to see any acknowledgment at all on the part the Police Minister or the police executive that a morale problem even exists in WA Police, the routine use of Regulation 603, along with the manner in which it is used, is but one of the morale sapping tributaries going toward the ongoing attrition explosion.

Regulation 603 came into being almost a half century ago and despite the subsequent establishment of external oversight bodies who investigate serious misconduct, such as the Ombudsman and Corruption and Crime Commission (which has compulsive powers), the practice by WA Police of forcing people to sit meekly, be interrogated and answer questions about minor misconduct continues, and to the detriment of members forced to endure it.

The defensive argument for retaining this outdated disciplinary relic is “if you’ve done nothing wrong, then you’ve got nothing to worry about”. This rationale doesn’t stand up because it’s the actual interrogation process that does the harm, especially when matters are not sustained or unfounded. The obvious answer is to get rid of it.

Regulation 603 causes more harm than good and ideally should be repealed. This might encourage WA Police to replace it with a process that treats its employees with some of the core values it advocates such as respect, empathy, care and trust, and one that is delivered within a contemporary, civil and balanced employee relations framework.