Before he got his scooter license, Stormboy walked. He's always been a roamer. When he got home from school he'd often tell me of his trek 'the long way', deviations over the granite clad mountain and down the other side into the mossy chasm where storms cut into the hill, to our home. He walked, because as the child of a lower income family, when we ran out of fuel before the end of the pay week, all of us walked. He walked because he liked it as well.
Recently I discovered, not from Stormboy but his Dad, that Stormboy had been stopped and searched by police twice while he was walking along a road. My son somehow neglected to tell me this news. Maybe he thought I'd write a post about it or go on some mad campaign or something. Stormboy is sixteen but he is a six foot two white man and looks a lot older than his years.
Predictably, I was completely enraged by this news. When I asked him about the circumstances, he was vague but resigned.
"They do it to all of my mates."
"But it's illegal! Cops can't search someone under eighteen without a guardian present."
"They do it all the time, Mum. They always search us."
Jeez.
Look. This is a kid born into white, middle class establishment. He's not black, he's not brown, he's not socially disadvantaged. His heritage automatically makes him one of the top tiers of our post-racial (ha ha) society. So he has it pretty good when it comes to being a young man walking along the road.
"I hate them. I hate the cops," he said.
All of a sudden I have a big gentle, sensitive son who loves walking and hates the law.
How did this happen?
I researched the stop and search laws in Western Australia. Juveniles (like my son) can refuse a body search if they are stopped by the cops. The kids don't know about this bit. Someone should probably tell them. It is quite legal for kids to be patted down, swabbed etc but the glitch is that police are obliged to let kids know that they need to give their consent ... which the constabulary constantly neglect to do. In fact the police rarely advise kids of their rights before they search them. To shape the whole scenario, the child must be suspected of an offense in the first place. So, Stormboy, while walking along the road, must have been suspected of an offense to justify him being searched. And he's a white kid. Imagine if he were an Aborigine.
When kids kick against it, apparently it's called a perfect law and order trifecta:
Refusing a search. (unsure of your rights)
Resisting arrest.(kicking against the pricks)
Swearing at a public officer. (understanding the English language)
Striking a public officer (the last resort)
Gaol.
Thank goodness Stormboy is such a polite child. Thank goodness he didn't take on the fact they'd clocked him as a criminal while he was walking along the road. Every time he was searched, he dealt with it quietly, he co-operated, and he didn't tell his mother.
I'd take it further, if I wanted my car stickered.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I've heard, Australian police are on a par with the Metropolitans here in the UK.
DeleteI used to have a lot of respect for the police, but that has been squeezed out of me in later age. I dare not say any more.
Wow, so okay. I was going to say maybe a polite visit to the cop shop to let them know this was happening, but if you think there'd be trouble in return, then maybe not. I always get pissed off when I see the police 'talking' to down-and-out looking people down the shops in my suburb. They never stop me for a chat and it's clear 'profiling.' And clearly they are underoccupied? Why not be out doing something more useful, or visiting schools to try and build community connections and a more positive relationship?
ReplyDeleteI did think about a polite visit, when I'd settled down a bit. But my feeling is that this kind of behaviour is embedded within the law enforcement culture, an unofficial policy, if you like, to impress upon young men the state's power and authority nice and early. So, if this is the case (and the evidence speaks to that) then a polite visit would not be productive. I think more productive would be to approach youth agencies and schools about teaching ALL kids their rights when it comes to stop and search laws, seeing as the police seem a bit lax in reminding kids of their rights at all.
ReplyDeleteFor my bit, I've found out what their rights are and run through them with Stormboy, and he is making sure his mates know. It's quite blurry - once kids on foot turn out their pockets they've basically given their consent to a pat down and swabs etc. But they can say, "I don't consent to a body search until my legal guardian is present."
This means the police are obliged to ring me or Stormboy's Dad, stand around on the side of the road, and wait until one of us can get some time off work :~) Which makes the whole process of intimidation and exerting power a little more tedious for them.
If every child knew this (they don't) and politely asserted their rights, I think the outcome would be a building of respectful interactions between kids and the law. At the moment, the unintended consequence of this abuse of stop and search laws is that neither party has any respect for the other.
One session at school, for every year eight student, would be all that is needed.
In my mind I still find myself railing against the authorities, standing up in court and pointing the finger back at the gate keepers, but it's all fantasy of course. You're right, it has to be tackled the way you describe. Shouting objections only makes things worse.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm not surprised by the police action but what I loved about this is you and Stormboy - him growing into an adult and you alongside him.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me started Mr Hat ... I'm still quite mad and wondering what to do about it. But you are right - both of us have grown and learned from the experience. My dismay is that ... well, our society could be better.
DeleteI've been off the net for a bit (sorta), so I'm just going through the posts I've missed. I'm trying not to comment on the older stuff, but I couldn't leave this one be ...
ReplyDeleteUsually when I hear people criticise police in polite conversation, it's couched with something like "99% of them do the right thing, but it's that 1% who get all the attention" etc. I have never known this to be true. I've lived in towns with cops who sold drugs, pinched stock, and covered up crimes for people they were friendly with. Even the "good" ones openly flaunted the road rules. Having said that, most of these places were rural shitholes, where coppers served unofficial punishments for things they'd done elsewhere. A bit like how the church moves a priest who gets noticed molesting kids. So maybe my views are a little skewed.
But my feeling is that this kind of behaviour is embedded within the law enforcement culture, an unofficial policy, if you like, to impress upon young men the state's power and authority nice and early.
I'd be surprised if this was as much about the power of "the state" as it is the power of *the individual*. It doesn't even seem that surprising when you think about it. Getting kids to empty their pockets is a nice easy way to score the odd drug possession, and you get to feel like God doing it. Everybody likes to feel powerful and everybody likes their job to be easy.
What you can't know is how they'll react if you take some of that away. I don't know if this is what you were getting at with the "trifecta" stuff, but consider this: If they stop him on some back-road, and there's no witnesses, and he starts giving them an earful about rights, who's to say he doesn't call one of them a cunt, or spit on them, or maybe even take a swing? Maybe that scenario sounds far fetched to a lot of people. If so, I guess I'm not a lot of people.
Look. This is a kid born into white, middle class establishment. He's not black, he's not brown, he's not socially disadvantaged. [...] He walked, because as the child of a lower income family, when we ran out of fuel before the end of the pay week, all of us walked.
I'm not intimate with the particulars of your situation, but by the sounds of things, we may disagree on what constitutes middle-class establishment. And if the local coppers have pegged your young bloke as some feral kid from the back-blocks, with little in the way of means or recourse, I wouldn't count on his *whiteness* to get him very far.
Stormboy is sixteen but he is a six foot two white man and looks a lot older than his years.
And I wouldn't count on them treating him with kid gloves either.
I'm not saying you shouldn't push back against this; on the contrary, if we don't *all* push back against this kind of thing, it only gets worse; but it doesn't hurt to be aware of the risks either. Standing up to authority can be down right dangerous. Especially if you're on your own on some lonely road somewhere. If the lad has a smartphone, he might look into recording apps made for political dissidents, that stream directly to the internet. And a visit from mum might not actually be a bad thing. How much sway does renowned author and blogger Sarah Drummond have in the local community and on social media? I hate to say it, but that kind of crap can really count for something.
Thanks for your thoughts Alex. I've only just found your comment.
ReplyDeleteI'd say that having a tertiary educated Mum and a Dad with a property portfolio would make you middle class. There were a few lean years and we may be ferals though :~)