August 1999 Volume 80 Number 8 "serving the protectors"
Editorial
By Andy Dunn  editor@pasa.asn.au

The Honoured Long-Serving

It was a privilege to celebrate hundreds of years’ loyal police service with recently retired officers in the Hilton Ballroom last June. Thankfully, the Police Association continued its traditional recognition of retirees with a formal dinner. The honoured exuded just as much selflessness and humanity as they had during their distinguished careers.

And during those careers they had, collectively, saved lives, pulled bodies from car wrecks, broken news of deaths to loved ones, apprehended violent, armed killers, rescued victims of natural disasters, and prosecuted vicious offenders. Equally as important, they had supported each other.

Moreover, with extraordinary dignity, they had risen above those within the community, police department and government who failed to value them - and sometimes falsely accused them.

That SAPOL offers its dedicated, long-serving members no more recognition than a certificate of service and an offer of an interview with the “boss”, is intensely regrettable. One can only hope that this insignificant gesture isn’t a true measure of SAPOL’s appreciation for those by whom it has been so humbly served.

But given that, one day, we will reach our own time of retirement, we should all examine the degree of respect which we pay these icons of the SA community.

Couldn’t Do Without Them

Bringing sex offenders to account through the justice system serves the interests of victims - and the wider community. The role that members of the Sexual Assault Section play in that process is, as shown in Bringing the Horror to Light, vitally important.

It’s clear, however, that drawing the shocking details of sex crimes - from female and male victims - can be emotionally-taxing work. But the women who fulfill that role draw on their extraordinary emotional maturity and mental toughness to survive the daily accounts of brutal sex offences.

And, typical of modest, dedicated police officers, they insisted in their interviews with the Police Journal that their work wasn’t tough. Few outside their group would agree.

Beyond the issues highlighted in their story, they must also deal with those victims who form strong emotional attachments to them; those by whom they’re seen almost as saviours. Somehow, they must delicately dissolve such bonds.

Few police officers look to immerse themselves in this or other emotionally draining work, such as Major Crash (Deathly Investigations, Police Journal, January 1999) or family investigations (Witnessing Families’ Pain, Police Journal, April 1999).

The community is indeed fortunate to have the ones who do dedicate themselves to society’s traumatized. The Police Journal congratulates them on their work.

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