The Argus at KellyGang 9/4/1883 (3)
ROYAL COMMISSION
Final Report - XIX continued
Several of the witnesses representing the constables stated their conviction that sectarian influences were allowed to operate to the undue advantage of some individual members of the force and to the prejudice of others not less deserving of promotion. Nothing however, could be satisfactorily proved in support of such allegations, and there seems every reason to believe that the men in this respect have been labouring under an imaginary grievance or at least one that has been greatly exaggerated.
In the opinion of your commissioners it is undesirable to dispose of the Dandenong Stud Depot, or interfere with it in any way, as we consider it the most convenient and eligible site for the objects required. We therefore recommend that it be permanently reserved for police purposes.
The commissioners deem it inexpedient to confer upon superintendents authority to select or purchase horses for the mounted police. That duty, in our opinion, should be entirely entrusted, subject to the approval of the chief commissioner, to the remount officer, who should receive the rank and emoluments of a sub inspector in the force.
In the prevention and detection of crime and especially in the repression of immorality, the police are frequently impeded in the exercise of their functions, owing to the condition of things in what are called the "back slums" of Melbourne . Here poverty and vice seek shelter in dilapidated habitations, devoid of every adjunct for purposes of health, decency, and cleanliness too often found reeking with filth and every abomination, and wholly unfit for human occupation. Criminals, old and young of both sexes, appear to congregate in those dens, living almost promiscuously, and enabled to associate and combine for vicious objects. Such localities are morally and physically plague spots, foci of disease, and sources of ever active contamination, for the existence of which the Melbourne City Council seems to be mainly responsible. Your commissioners would therefore impress upon the Government the necessity for legislative action in this regard, as by no other means can the metropolis be relieved of the reproach which attaches to the presence of such abodes.
XX - EXTENSION OF RUSSELL STREET BARRACKS
Your commissioners cannot too earnestly urge the necessity for erecting additional building accommodation in connexion with the Russell-street barracks, the internal arrangements of which at present are, in our opinion, most unsatisfactory. It is, we believe absolutely essential to the discipline and effective working of the police of the metropolis that the city superintendent, the plain clothes constables or detectives, and the ordinary police should be, as it were, under one roof. The demoralised condition of the Detective department has been due in a measure to the fact of the official business being carried on in a separate building removed from the immediate and daily supervision of a properly responsible and trustworthy officer. The detectives appear to have considered themselves independent agents, who should be left untrammelled by the rules of discipline or the regulations of the force. The superintendent of the city having a private office, as shown by the evidence, assumed the discretionary powers of a magistrate, and ignored the chief commissioner respecting matters that carne before him. In a general way many of the officers did what they thought right in their own eyes, their example not being thrown away on their subordinates. The only effectual mode of pre- venting the recurrence of a similar state of things in the future is in the opinion of your commissioners, by locating the plain-clothes constables and the ordinary police in the Russell street barracks, and placing the entire establishment under the immediate supervision of the city superintendent.
An increase in the number of sub-stations in suburban localities has been suggested by several witnesses. Those, it has been urged, would not only relieve the Russell street barracks, but would greatly conduce to the more efficient performance of their duty on the part of constables. In this view your commissioners coincide. They consider, for many reasons, that the maintenance of the public peace can best be preserved by having police stations and sub-stations established in every suburb as at present large areas are left for many hours during the day and night wholly without protection, owing to the extent of the beats assigned to constables on duty. Further, your commissioners think it desirable that officers in charge of all stations should, as far as practicable, make themselves acquainted with the householders within their jurisdiction, so that they may be useful as referees in all matters relating to police duties, and acquire special knowledge of individuals composing the less reputable classes of the community.
XXI - THE BENCH AND THE POLICE
The police witnesses, when questioned on the subject exposed unreservedly the extent to which immorality prevails in the metropolis, and unhesitatingly declared the City Bench responsible to a great extent for the same, owing to the licensing of low public-houses, the discouragement encountered by constables when prosecuting, and the leniency shown in the sentences passed upon disorderly persons against whom convictions were obtained. Prior to the passing of the present Licensing Act it was stated that the bench was frequently packed by justices, many of whom were directly interested in the cases that carne before them. It is alleged that even at the present time the licensing magistrates are subject to certain influences, and one witness (Senior constable Bourke) declares (1,087) that it is a mistake for the Government to keep police magistrates too long in the one place. This statement, taken in connexion with the context, could have but one meaning, namely, a serious reflection upon the probity of Mr Call, the chairman of the city licensing bench.
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