Tara Willoughby, Canberra, Australia, SSH Blog Correspondent

[Content Note: links include descriptions of violence and harassment]

It is difficult to write about street harassment in Australia without writing about the criminal justice system and ultimately, police. Whether as responders or as harassers, police often take a central role in media discussions of street harassment. In my final post as a blog correspondent, I hope to outline where police fit in with people’s experiences of street harassment and also make an argument about what they should be doing to deal with this issue.

Do people report street harassment to police?

As has been discussed many times (including in my March blog correspondent article), the types of behaviours that constitute the majority of street harassment in Australia are often not easily reported to the police. Of the countless stories and conversations I have been a part of concerning street harassment, only once have I heard of someone reporting an incident of street harassment (being ‘egged’ from a moving car) to the police. And even in those serendipitous circumstances where the victim happened to have a notepad and pen on hand and the car happened to move away slowly enough to catch the licence plate number, the process of reporting was still a considerable investment of time and effort.

Do police act on street harassment?

Police can only take substantive action on individual instances of street harassment if they are against the law. While many types of harassment are crimes in Australia, many are not. The responses of police to reports of even criminal street harassment can be quite mixed. International law firm DLA Piper (writing in conjunction with iHollaback! And Thomson Reuters) note that “in practice, “one-off” incidents of minor street harassment, such as using offensive language in public which is not threatening, will often not be investigated by the police.” Police in the incident I described above spoke with the young man responsible for throwing eggs to tell him to ‘pull his head in’. Other reports describe police responses as anything from non-existent to actively hostile.

In a broader sense, police in Australia have taken some steps to address street harassment as a larger phenomenon. This includes speaking out about sexism and violence against women and acting in partnership with local government and communities to attempt to design safer public spaces. However, to date, police have not taken any high profile stances targeting street harassment specifically.

Do police commit street harassment?

Short answer, yes. Like any large group of people, within the police there are those who behave inappropriately and deliberately harm the people around them; at the beginning of 2014, 1 in 40 New South Wales police officers had been convicted of a criminal offense. Police forces around Australia have well documented issues with sexist, racist and homophobic violence.

What SHOULD police do?

There are two main reasons why police ought to take action on street harassment.

Firstly, addressing street harassment is within the stated goals of the police. NSW Police, as an example, states its goals thus: “We aim to protect the community and property by preventing, detecting and investigating crime [and]… maintaining social order”. The many forms of street harassment which constitute crimes in Australia fit directly into this credo, and if we acknowledge those which don’t as part of a self-perpetuating spectrum of violence, then addressing these forms of street harassment must be part of effective policing.

Secondly, interactions with police around harassment (either reporting harassment from other members of the public or experiencing harassment from police themselves) are identified as the key area where relationships between police and young people have become confrontational and hostile. Maintaining functioning relationships with the community is vital to effectively fulfilling the role of the police, since they rely on people trusting them and providing them with information.

How?

As addressed above, addressing individual instances of street harassment on a case by case basis has not been effective for police or victims so far, and it will not help to change the attitudes that allow people (including some police) to engage in street harassment with relative impunity. Police are one of many influential public entities that can help to create change in our society. In order to actually make a difference to this issue, they must commit to working with the wider community in partnership to eliminate the prejudices and violence-tolerant attitudes that support street harassment in Australia today.

Tara works with AWAVA (the Australian Women Against Violence Alliance) indulging her love of social media. You can find her on Twitter as @angelbird72 or @Tash_Because or being silly as one half of the ‘slice-of-life’ podcast Heaps Funny But.