May 2000 Volume 81 Number 5 "serving the protectors"
By Andy Dunn

Truth Behind Evaluation

In its haste to force the name-badge concept upon uniformed police officers, SAPOL has ignored many employees’ strongly-felt concerns.

And the issue now seems essentially closed to debate. Recent SAPOL senior executive group discussions have resulted in an unwelcome decree: that name badges will be forced on “...all uniform employees for wearing at all times whilst on duty”.

Commissioner Mal Hyde supports SAPOL’s stance by citing a six-month evaluation (August ’99 - January 2000) of name badge use. The senior executive group’s decree followed a February examination of findings from that evaluation.

But the evaluation was, at best, grossly flawed, which made its findings wholly unreliable. It evaluated only those submissions which were received during the six-month period, and totally ignored a multitude of input before the evaluation.

The Police Journal understands that police officers were not, in any case, invited to make submissions to the evaluation.

In a letter to the Police Association of South Australia, Commissioner Hyde wrote that, during the evaluation period, only 10 written reports were received from police officers. He claimed these reports related to:

• Privacy issues based on names’ uniqueness (four).

• The suggestion that badges bear first names only (one).

• A personal objection to wearing a badge (one).

• The badge’s attachment pin, which had allowed three badges to be torn from clothing by seat belts and one to come off in a “scuffle” (four).

He also wrote that no reports of physical or psychological injury - due to name badge use - were received. Moreover, he claimed that no threats toward or abuse of officers or their families - from being identified through badges - had been reported.

But given the flawed nature of the evaluation, each of these points is simply meaningless. The Police Association, as well as many individual officers, had detailed a myriad of objections before the evaluation’s August 2 commencement.

To June 3, 1999, the Police Association had written of its concerns in six separate letters to Commissioner Hyde.

High-handed disregard for such concerns can only promote discord between a workforce and its management.

The Police Journal supports officers in their resistance to the use of name badges, and urges SAPOL management to embrace a fair and common-sense approach to the concept.

Time should not be lost trying to reinvent the wheel: a model for fair and appropriate use of police name badges already exists in New South Wales. In that state - which is served by the nation’s largest police force - officers’ use of name badges is their choice.

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