Victoria Police

• Australian publisher Hachette has withdrawn from publication the memoir of a retired police officer, after concerns were raised about its accuracy.
• Christophe Glasl spent 16 years in Victoria Police before writing his tell-all memoir, Special Operations Group, named after the elite force he was a member of for four years.
• In one chapter, Glasl writes of his involvement in the 1996 Port Arthur massacre.
• The case raises a number of questions: chiefly, what kind of fact-checking processes, if any, do publishers use when commissioning and editing non-fiction books, especially memoirs?

How do book publishers check facts?

• Book publishing doesn’t have the same intensive fact-checking culture as journalism – partly due to the resources it would involve.
• The first element is trust, Andrew Wilkins, who has been a book publisher for over 25 years and was editor of industry publication Books & Publishing, told The Conversation.
• Read more:
  How can publishers support the authors of trauma memoirs, as they unpack their pain for the public?
• “But in practical terms that would be very difficult to do, with so many different publishers involved and the sheer length of a book manuscript compared to a news story.”

• Despite the Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton acknowledging structural racism when appearing before the Yoorrook Justice Commission in Victoria, Victoria Police have denied racial profiling in response to this report.
• Currently, in Victoria, police investigate over 99% of complaints about police misconduct, and most complaints are “not substantiated” by investigators.
• This is why our submission, and many others, outlined the need for an independent, robust and culturally appropriate police complaints body, instead of relying on police investigating police.

Victoria Police abuse of power

• First Nations people in Victoria are more likely than non-Indigenous people to be arrested by police, and report higher rates of police assault.
• In May this year, an audit by the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission found predatory behaviour exists within Victoria Police.
• Deaths in police custody and at the hands of police, such as those of Yorta Yorta woman Tanya Day, Walpiri teenager Kumanjayi Walker, and 95-year-old Clare Nowland, are reminders of the power held by police over our lives.

Police are rarely held accountable for misconduct

• The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission is the only body outside of police that can investigate police complaints in Victoria.
• In most cases police find no wrongdoing by their colleagues, with the substantiation rate of complaints against police in Victoria being somewhere between 2% and 9%.
• At Yoorrook, the Victorian government acknowledged “limited police accountability” has perpetuated mistrust of police in Indigenous communities.
• Even with the national crisis of Aboriginal deaths in custody, no police officer has ever been convicted.

Independent and culturally appropriate police accountability

• Those who have suffered from Victoria’s lack of police accountability, including Aunty Doreen Lovett and Eathan Cruse, and a coalition of community groups, have called for the establishment of a fully independent body to investigate police complaints.
• The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission and Victoria Police do not prioritise and support the needs of complainants or protect them from police retribution.
• One change needed is the end of police investigating police.