Officers recorded making “sickening” racist comments while working inside a Brisbane watch house have escaped sanction, despite repeated promises by the police commissioner to crack down on racism and misogyny within the service.
Queensland’s police commissioner, Katarina Carroll, said at a press conference last year she believed officers making such comments “should not be in the organisation” after Guardian Australia exclusively published the leaked recordings.
The tapes revealed officers joking about beating and burying black people, referring to Nigerians as “jigaboos”, and raising fears of “outbreeding” by Muslim immigrants.
They also captured an officer joking to his colleague that a female Indigenous detainee “won’t give you a fucking blowjob here”.
The premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, condemned the recordings – which captured comments by watch-house officers (a non-policing role) and sworn police – as “horrific”.
The deputy police commissioner, Mark Wheeler, apologised at the time for the “sickening” racist comments and said the “beliefs and remarks have no place in society, let alone a professional workplace where vulnerable people are held in custody”.
But Guardian Australia can now reveal that nine months on, two police officers and two assistant watch-house officers were dealt with via “local management resolution”, a controversial process defined in QPS procedures as appropriate when “a disciplinary sanction is not required”.
“The process does not involve a finding [that] a ground for discipline has been substantiated but identifies areas for improvement,” it states.
Speaking at last year’s commission of inquiry into Queensland police, Carroll promised to overhaul the LMR process, and admitted the police disciplinary system was “broken” after being confronted with examples of officers making racist and sexist comments and being dealt with via LMR.
“It’s there for little minor errors, you know, minor issues. It’s there for that right reason of corrective behaviour, guidance, education … The problem is it’s being applied to issues that I think it should not be applied to,” Carroll said.
The criminologist Kerry Carrington said it is clear nothing has changed since the inquiry.
“This is really serious racism within a watch house. It’s like they’re impervious. They have impunity. They can get away with it and there’s just basically no accountability,” she said.
In most other workplaces the kinds of remarks heard in the recordings would result in dismissal or suspension, according to Carrington.
“It has to be shown to be repeated but if you work for the big mines, for example, if it fits a certain level of gravity it is automatic dismissal.”
Tim Prenzler, a leading expert in police accountability, said the revelations “underscore the need for a much more robust and independent integrity management system for the QPS”.
A Queensland police spokesperson said the force’s ethical standards command had recently created a state case management unit to “centrally manage complaints … including sexism, misogyny, homophobia, racism and bullying”.
“A team of specialist investigators now provide consistent, objective and independent responses to these types of allegations,” they said.
The state’s corruption watchdog, the Crime and Corruption Commission, which oversaw the investigation, agreed with the ruling.
However, Gunggari person Maggie Munn, the national director at Change the Record, said it was “mind-blowing” that the officers involved had avoided serious repercussions.
“These things were serious enough for someone to courageously blow the whistle and it’s only been investigated internally. That’s insufficient,” they said.
“I’m not surprised that an internal investigation hasn’t amounted to any real justice or accountability.”
A spokesperson at the Australian Muslim Advocacy Network said the recordings featured Islamophobic language portraying Muslims as an “existential threat to Australia”.
“Racist nationalists the world over have used that kind of language to justify murder and violence against innocent people. Right here in Queensland, that language has incited violent threats and criminal damage to our places of worship,” they said.
“What integrity can be gleaned from this process of police investigating police and then deciding everything is OK?”
The chief executive of Sisters Inside, Deb Kilroy, said the system of police investigating police must end.
“It’s the same outcome as it always has been, and they get more funding. The racism continues, nothing changes,” Kilroy said.
“I believe it sends a message [to officers] that you can get away with anything you want to do.”
Queensland’s police minister, Mark Ryan, said he expects “the highest standards of ethical and professional behaviour from each and every member of the Queensland police service”.
“Where those standards are not met, there should be consequences for actions,” Ryan said.
He said it was not correct to say the discipline system had not changed since last year, citing the creation of the statewide unit.
“Resolution strategies are delivered to be specific to the conduct involved that will provide the correction, guidance and rehabilitation required,” Ryan said.
“Any complaints about disciplinary outcomes or the disciplinary process should be directed to the appropriate authority for consideration.”
