Life at the Bottom:
The Worldview that Makes the Underclass

Theodore Dalrymple,
RRP: $49.95 hardback. Available from News Weekly Books (Melbourne): www.newsweekly.com.au
Reviewed by John Ballantyne

Few books describe the lower reaches of society as graphically or as compellingly as this one.

The author, Theodore Dalrymple, is a doctor based in one of Britain’s general hospitals. His work regularly takes him into nearby slums and a prison.

In his practice he encounters the worst forms of human depravity: abortions procured by abdominal kung fu; children who have children in profusion; serial step-fatherhood resulting in the physical and sexual abuse of children on a mind-numbing scale.

Dalrymple has also worked among the very poor in the Third World. But he does not hesitate to assert that “the mental, cultural, emotional and spiritual impoverishment of the Western underclass is the greatest of any large group of people I have encountered anywhere.”

He believes that this underclass is created not primarily by poverty or racial discrimination, as is popularly supposed, but by the crackpot social theories of university-educated intellectual elites (“the chattering classes”, as we in Australia would call them).

One of their most harmful theories is that of “non-judgmentalism” – that is, the belief that criminals are somehow the innocent victims of society and should not be held responsible for their actions.

Dalrymple – who writes regularly for London’s Spectator and the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal – has often attended dinners where well-fed intellectuals scoff at calls for a tougher line on law and order, and shrug complacently when confronted with overwhelming evidence of social breakdown.

Their baneful influence, unfortunately, has triumphed in government circles, the universities and the media. And not just in Britain.

The tragic outcome is that while criminals go free, the poor, the aged and the vulnerable in deprived urban areas become virtual prisoners in their own homes. “The poor,” says Dalrymple, “reap what the intellectual sows.”

Good policing and law enforcement could protect these members of the underclass from crime.

However, the mere existence of police offends the sensitivities of the intellectual elites.

Worse still, says Dalrymple, police chiefs these days “are now so desperate for the approval of the liberal critics that they often seem more focused on public relations than on crime prevention and detection – on protecting their reputation rather than protecting the public”.

When police unionise
the politics of law and order in Australia

Mark Finnane,
Institute of Criminology, University of Sydney. RRP $33
Reviewed by Bernard O’Neil

So what does happen when police unionise? The popular view of police as an arm of government is challenged, as officers – in conflict with their minister or government – battle for their “rights”. Who would have predicted the popularity of the Pay Justice For Our Police bumper sticker during the successful PASA campaign for a wage increase in 1991, under a conservative Labor government?

Mark Finnane, a professor of history at Griffith University in Brisbane, is the author and editor of several works on police and criminal justice in Australia. His view, in essence, is that police unions have always been political, though rarely in an overt or party-political sense. But they have been militant and political when it has suited them. Unions cannot be apolitical – we live in a political world, where power games are played. So police unions have contributed to the political process.

Police campaigns have occurred without regard to the persuasion of any government in Australia. Governments have had to confront conflict over police pay, conditions of employment and work, operating procedures (such as complaints and summary offences provisions), allegations of brutality, calls for inquiries and royal commissions (especially over corruption and malpractices) besides industrial and staffing issues, and changes in approaches to criminal and civil justice.

A valuable feature of Finnane’s work is that it indicates origins, continuity, and change across the country, and in some international context (both in what is happening elsewhere and what Australian police unions can show those overseas). He raises questions such as:

• What is the correct role for police (including the transition from a master-servant relationship to one of employee-employer)?
• Who does a police force support through its ideology, activity and concerns?
• Why did a union originate?
• How can police achieve industrial and wage goals?

The relationship between the Crown (government), Commissioner of Police and the police is explained well in chapter 4. A police force is quasi-military (with uniforms and an authority structure), but officers are more public servants than military personnel. Until quite recently, commissioners often had a military background. He also explains natural justice concepts flowing slowly to police forces and the use of due procedures, both matters of interest to PASA members as highlighted in A victory for justice (Police Journal, August 2002).

The author offers critiques, criticisms, praise and understanding, and in a generally positive fashion. Some readers, particularly past and present union members and officials, might react negatively to such questioning and to some of Finnane’s assessments. Nonetheless, his work does make the reader think, reflect and assess.

Among the many issues and topics of general political concern raised in When Police Unionise are:

• The gradual steps taken to form a national federation.
• The question of affiliating or not with the labour movement.
• The role of women in police forces and unions.

Membership, equal pay and equal opportunity – in regard to women – are commented on. For example, wage justice was not sustained for female police officers in SA when, in 1952, the government exempted female officers from a wage rise. The pay of female officers fell to 75 per cent of the male officers’ wage.

In describing peaks and troughs in the evolution of police unions, and in seeking to answer questions of why and how things occurred, Finnane invites readers to reassess their own opinions and ideas. He dates the popularity of the device of “law and order” elections from the 1963 campaign of Robert Askin in New South Wales. And the decade of the protest movement that followed contained violent episodes of anti-conscription campaigns, Vietnam Moratorium marches, political dissent, trade union disputation, the Springbok visit and so on. While traumatic events, such as the Fitzgerald enquiry (Qld), the Wood Royal Commission (NSW), and the Mundingburra by-election (Qld) are discussed in the book, they are perhaps still too recent to be assessed fully in a broader context.

Finnane puts police unionism in the context of Australia’s conciliation and arbitration (and industrial relations) systems. He reminds readers that these systems were new and evolving, too (with pensions and industrial rights as two examples). Indeed, the police unions can trace their origins from the labour and industrial relations circumstances they endured in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Their origins and initial concerns with mainstream labour issues (wages, conditions, pensions, health and safety) revealed political elements from the outset.

The evolution and development of police unions in Australia has not been simple or straightforward. Australia’s police associations and unions were among the earliest in the world – PASA (formed in 1911, almost 75 years after SAPOL was established) was followed by the WA Police Union of Workers (1912), the Queensland Police Union (1916), the Police Association (Victoria) (1917), the Police Association of NSW (1921), the Police Association of Tasmania (1922) and the Northern Territory Police Association (1939).

Police regulations had prohibited associations: “...there were formal rules of exclusion from the political process”. As the unions became institutionalized they were enabled to be involved in matters beyond industrial or union issues – legal reform, social issues, and penalties for civil and criminal offences. They became part of the power game – union versus management, union versus politicians and unionist versus unionist.

Police grievances undermine good governance, yet for a government to concede could cause flow-on effects. Police strikes appear to be radical, but they can be conformist: they cannot maintain the status quo as they are required to do when others strike. Political activity by police unions means that police can resort to tactics they normally police. One may sarcastically say they are at least putting to use their training and observations! But if police cannot strike, what can they do? Implement work bans, withdraw services, work to rule, disrupt the court system, refuse to collect fines and revenue, refuse to issue infringement notices, seek sympathetic hearings, rallies…

One endeavour is for police to be elected to parliament, but this does not necessarily mean the interests of the police will be pursued. There have only been a few cases of serving and past police officers becoming politicians. The career of one of those, Constable Bill Hayden, climaxed in a term as Governor-General of Australia some three decades after he was elected to Federal Parliament in 1961 (chapter 5). Locally, one-time PASA secretary, Sam Bass, was elected to State Parliament as a Liberal member in 1993 and served until 1997.

A sense of detachment is evident in When Police Unionise because the author has presented an overview for all the police unions. Therefore, the time devoted to each has varied. Nevertheless, those being examined should not feel threatened or misunderstood by “the outsider” seeing some things differently.

Finnane’s perspective means he has been able to describe things as not necessarily for better or worse, but as experiences and situations from which one can learn. In any case, the role of the historian as an outsider is not that much different from the way facilitators, motivators and the like are used by organizations – they, too, seek to understand and explain organizations and practices.

So criticism and comment are not inherently bad. Finnane’s thought-provoking analysis and commentary should be welcomed by police and their unions, even if they are unwilling to embrace the views or to acknowledge the notion that they might play political games and have had a reactionary role. Reacting to events rather than leading them can mean taking a defensive attitude. Has that been the reality for police unions in Australia?

On a mundane level, I was surprised to find several misspellings and editorial infelicities in a university publication. The index was less complete than that for which a more-than-casual reader would wish. A chronology would have been helpful, so too a list of main office holders across the unions.

Police departments may have more to worry about from this book than might the unions. The book should have practical application in training courses as a way of explaining historical trends in policing.

The value of Finnane’s book lies not in whether he right or wrong, although some readers will react on that basis. His approach in explaining and seeking to understand should stimulate debate, raise questions and issues (rather than presenting answers and solutions) and provoke thoughts (which may lead to action). For members of the unions, there are many insights to be gleaned and contemplated.