The Problem With Policing Our Way Out Of A Pandemic
Hostile policing not only harms its targets, but it also undermines health strategies.
As restrictions slowly ease in Victoria, and daily COVID cases finally plummet, it’s worth remembering that a few million Melburnians have lived through 100 days of lockdown, strictly enforced by a police force given unprecedented powers.
It wasn’t that long ago that an army of cops descended on Melbourne’s public housing towers. Since then, Victorian police were given new “extraordinary powers”, oversaw an 8pm curfew with on-the-spot fines, and even now patrol the street in packs.
All this raises the question: does any of this actually help health-wise? Is giving the police extra powers beneficial? And who bears the burden of this sledgehammer approach?
When you dig into the details, it becomes obvious that every use of force represents a lost opportunity at best, and a failure a worst.
Could Vic police hand out masks rather than fines?
— FitzroyLegal (@FitzroyLegal) July 19, 2020
Punishing Public Housing Residents
Before the police were called, without warning, to occupy the Melbourne public housing towers, residents had flagged their own issues with dealing with the spread of the virus.
Public housing residents pleaded with authorities for months, asking for more resources and cleaning, and some residents even cleaned shared areas themselves. The government didn’t even bother to replace the hand sanitiser when it ran out. Having tried nothing, and all out of ideas, they sent in the police after the towers became a cluster.
They could have sent doctors and peer-workers — but instead deployed cops with guns to keep people under house arrest. There was no humanitarian strategy in place, and people went without food and medicine for days.
Hostile policing not only harms its targets, but it also undermines health strategies.
You know, people wouldn’t be so distrusting of the police if they had sufficient public oversight, that they weren’t armed to the teeth, and that there would be serious repercussions for any abuses of their power. So that won’t happen, that’s why you cannot “reform” them.
— David Mejia-Canales (@dmejiacanales) July 9, 2020
Over-policing like this forces people to fear the police, and their intentions — meaning they might avoid getting tested for COVID, or not be honest with contact tracers, in an effort to avoid the attention and scrutiny of the police force and their punitive measures. This is a real issue, which could help explain the mystery cases that were prevalent in Victoria, despite months of lockdown.
It’s also interesting to note who cops the villain treatment.
In Victoria alone, police have issued around 20,000 COVID fines, worth nearly $28 million. Predictably, they’ve slugged the people they typically target, who already suffer from over-policing, such as Aboriginal people, Sudanese people, migrants, and people with poor mental health.
People saying ‘this isn’t racism it’s public health’ are gonna be shocked when they learn anything about the history of Australia policing disease.
— Jon Piccini (@JonPiccini) July 4, 2020
Police even admitted that some rules were ambiguous — “Victoria Police recognises there may be some genuine ambiguity from the community and police members alike regarding the interpretation of the new directions,” but that didn’t stop them from issuing fines. Not only that, but they’ve refused to withdraw a single one. Most people don’t have a spare five grand at the best of times, let alone during the worst economic crisis in a century, but go off.
Not only is all this unfair, but it’s also somewhat pointless. Fines are unhelpful because they don’t take into account why people break the rules. Punishment isn’t going to help someone who’s confused, who is in emotional or mental distress, or is being coerced into work by their boss.
It’s no surprise that fines haven’t affected the spread of the virus. And why would they? The majority of cases have come from aged care, hotel quarantine, and workplaces. Police attack the symptoms of inequality but not the causes.
What are cops supposed to do about an underfunded healthcare system, fine it?
The way that people are commenting publicly on the Victorian response to COVID and lockdowns tells you everything about whether they see themselves as living in a society or living for an economy.
— David Mejia-Canales (@dmejiacanales) October 18, 2020
Why Are Police Running This Show?
It’s tempting to point to the uptake of people wearing masks as a positive example of policing at work.
The threat of punishment meant that everyone started wearing face coverings overnight. However, many people still wear them incorrectly. This is a foreseeable result of relying on cops to do health work — which we could have avoided.
Many accepted police involvement as a given, even during a global anti-cop movement. Really though, it’s unclear why they should manage a health crisis. The Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for enforcing health rules, but they palmed off the job to the police.
It goes without saying that police aren’t health workers but, then again, their funding is ten times higher than the public health budget. When the cops have a $3.5 billion hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail.
The government said it absolutely had to let police run the show — if this were true, it was because they waited till the last second to act. Victoria’s first case of COVID-19 was in January, around the time WHO started waving red flags. DHHS didn’t publish a plan until March, just days before the state of emergency.
We could have run health campaigns and organised with community organisations. We could have offered financial support for workers and made allowances for special circumstances from the start. Instead, police were the first resort — and vulnerable people paid the price every time.
Do these people have access to paid leave? Secure housing? Can they do their job under safe working conditions? Do they get culturally appropriate health care? have they received health messaging in the language they feel most comfortable with? Do they feel safe asking for help? https://t.co/Z0yfvLO9Dl
— Roj Amedi (@Roj_Ame) June 29, 2020
There’s no evidence that aggressive policing and punishment promote public health. On the contrary, decades of experience with HIV suggests that this kind of approach encourages stigma, undermines trust and creates a climate of fear.
Community health organisations use a different approach, educating people so they can make informed choices. People care about their health, and will look after themselves and their communities if they’re empowered to do so. This is one reason why HIV diagnoses hit an almost twenty year low last year.
This might sound wishy-washy to some, but we know this works.
The key to an effective health response is cooperation and trust, not fear and punishment. Going forward, we can choose to work together and support each other, or we can continue to blindly throw cops at every problem and hope for the best.
Joshua Badge is a queer writer and philosopher living on Wurundjeri land in Melbourne. In their spare time they volunteer in public health policy and tweet at @joshuabadge.