Police and opposition leaders are calling for stronger sentencing and bail reform after several officers were assaulted and teenagers at large on bail or good behaviour orders committed further crimes.

Assaults on police officers

In two separate incidents on the same Saturday night (1 March), police officers were assaulted while on duty — one was kicked and another injured his hand while responding to a disturbance in Mackellar; and another broke his leg while arresting a couple in Civic.

Sixty officers were assaulted in the 2023/24 financial year, and Chief Police Officer Scott Lee expects similar numbers this year.

The Australian Federal Police Association, the police union, wants mandatory sentencing for assaults on Commonwealth law enforcement officers, while Mr Lee called for a presumption against bail for defendants accused of assaulting police officers.

Recent sentencing decisions for assaults against police and frontline personnel fail to deter attacks and instead demoralise officers, the AFPA believes.

“Many within the ACT judiciary fail to recognise police officers as victims,” AFPA president Alex Caruana said.

Last year, for instance, a police officer suffered a mild traumatic brain injury in an assault, but the offender received only a 12-month good behaviour order, three months of probation, and no recorded conviction — an outcome Mr Caruana called “simply unacceptable”.

Mr Caruana criticised the Director of Public Prosecutions for not arguing the case, and suggested that the Australian Federal Police and ACT Policing should appoint police prosecutors to protect their members’ interests.

Mr Lee said he was “optimistic and positive” that ACT Policing and the government could work together on bail reforms.

Reoffenders

Police Operation Minlaton, set up in February, arrested seven teenagers last month for burglary and stealing motor vehicles. All were on bail or good behaviour orders at the time. Police had apprehended the alleged offenders more than 190 times, and one boy five times already this year; one youth had been charged with more than 70 offences; and two other youths had breached their bail conditions 11 times.

Shadow police minister Deborah Morris MLA (Canberra Liberals) blamed “Labor’s broken bail system” for enabling reoffending, which made hundreds of Canberrans victims of crime.

“Every day our police officers put their lives on the line to keep our community safe,” Ms Morris said. “They are slugging their guts out rearresting offenders who are out in the community on bail.”

Opposition leader Leanne Castley MLA said the government preferred to protect law-breakers rather than the community from offenders.

Bail reform

Last month, the new Attorney-General, Tara Cheyne MLA, disbanded the Law Reform and Sentencing Advisory Council, an independent expert body established in 2023 to advise on law reform. She said the decision was made due to budgetary constraints, but promised that “bail reform would continue”.

Chaired by ex-magistrate Lisbeth Campbell, the LRSAC was tasked with reviewing the Bail Act 1992, which establishes the legislative framework for courts and police to decide whether to grant bail, and the bail system for recidivists. It handed down its report on sentencing for dangerous driving last year.

ACT Greens leader and former Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury MLA, who established the LRSAC, criticised its abolition. He claimed that Labor had last term undermined and now this term dismantled LRSAC’s evidence-based law reform.

A recently established Legislative Assembly inquiry committee would replace expert panel of LRSAC’s academics, police, First Nations people, victims’ advocates and lawyers with “political exposition and hot air”, Mr Rattenbury said.

He warned that bail reform now being in the hands of the politicians — “not a real substitute for an evidence-based advisory body” — would lead to “more ‘tough on crime’ rhetoric aimed at longer sentence and more restrictive bail approaches, rather than responding to evidence-based approaches that encourage rehabilitation”.

The Liberals also criticised the government’s decision to dissolve the LRSAC.

“Labor’s intransigence on this issue [a review of the bail laws] has come home to roost,” Ms Castley said. “Clearly something is wrong, yet Labor scrapped the planned review of the legislation. They simply are out of touch and not reflecting community expectations.”

Ms Cheyne defended her decision: the LRSAC was disbanded before any substantive work on its bail review had begun. However, last year’s Legislative Assembly inquiry into the Bail Act would provide a starting point for the reform work, she said. Ms Cheyne hoped that the government would now be able to move faster while still consulting and engaging stakeholders and considering evidence.

The government is committed to reducing the rate of offending by people while on bail, Ms Cheyne said. She was confident that decisions to grant bail were made according to the law — considering factors such as public safety and the likelihood a defendant would reoffend — but acknowledged that no bail system could guarantee that people granted bail would not reoffend.

Bail support services funded by the government include supervising alleged offenders on bail; housing and mental illness support programs; and a therapeutic support panel for children and young people at risk of harmful behaviour, addressing its underlying causes to keep children and young people safer and healthier, Ms Cheyne said.

Independents for Canberra MLA Thomas Emerson was concerned that the ACT had the highest reoffending rates in Australia, and suggested that prisons alone were not working. After hearing from “frustrated” police officers who believe systems are inadequate to change young offenders’ lives, Mr Emerson called for early intervention, prevention and breaking cycles of offending.

“It’s clear that our criminal justice system isn’t effectively rehabilitating a significant portion of offenders,” Mr Emerson said. “Throwing more people into prison is likely to lead to more reoffending. Scooping up the same offenders over and over without any effective intervention isn’t ideal either.”

Sewage leak at police station

A sewage leak at the City Police Station this week, “with faeces and urine seeping through the building”, is another instance of government neglect and slow action on commitments to police, the AFPA claims.

This was the second sewage spill at the station within the last few weeks, the AFPA said, while the station’s prison, the Watch House, has also had sewage problems. The station was closed from March to June last year due to water damage and asbestos; the ground floor was refurbished then.

The sewage problems were caused by wear and tear on pipes, police minister Dr Marisa Paterson MLA said.

Plumbers will begin fixing the “ageing sewerage infrastructure” for all parts of the station on Monday 17 March, ACT Policing said.

Public access to the station and the Watch House will not be affected, and police patrols will continue normally.

The AFPA had called on police working at the station to vacate the building, but no officers had to be moved.

ACT Policing and the government are planning a new ACT Policing Headquarters and City Police Station. The government has budgeted nearly $3.5 million over two years for a feasibility study, business case, and infrastructure assessments in Woden and Molonglo.

However, the AFPA is unsatisfied.

“Two years to ‘plan’ for a new City Police Station is too long,” a spokesman said. “We’re not sure the station and Watch House will last another two years. All the ACT Government does is continue to put Band-Aids on the building, which won’t solve the issues. […]

“The members of City Police Station needed a proper ‘fit for purpose’ police station yesterday. The estimated project time of five years is far too long, and the ACT Government needs to do better.”

The AFPA has threatened legal action to shut down police-occupied buildings that they consider pose work health and safety risks. The union complained about delays to making Gungahlin Joint Emergency Services Centre a police station (the project is scheduled to be completed this year); that Winchester Police Station, Belconnen, was “unfit for purpose” (it leaked in January’s rain); faulty air-conditioning at Woden police station; and a training building in Fyshwick closed due to asbestos.

Dr Paterson said: “ACT Policing has taken proactive measures to ensure the safety and wellbeing of officers and staff at all stations, addressing concerns as they rise.”

ACT Policing confirmed that the air-conditioning at Woden, for instance, will be replaced next month.