Victoria’s police force must rid itself of predatory men who are targeting women colleagues with sexual harassment, the commissioner says.
Announcing a review into sex discrimination within the organisation, Ken Lay said he was “very, very confident” that young women were being singled out for harassment.
“We need to get those men out of our organisation,” Lay said.
Examples of harassment include indecent assaults, threats against women, suggestions that women would not be promoted unless they complied with certain demands, which were often sexual, harassment via text messages and social media, and sexual abuse, Lay said.
In many cases, people had witnessed or suspected the inappropriate behaviour but failed to stand up for the victim or report the perpetrator, he said.
“That’s happened for 161 years,” he said. “I suspect everyone who has been in Victoria police for a long time has seen behaviour that is questionable and I don’t think we’ve been good as an organisation at calling that behaviour out.
“I stand up all the time [talking] about men needing to own this problem, they need to address it and behave decently and appropriately. I can’t continue to do that unless we make sure we’ve got our house in order.”
The review would be carried out independently by the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission and would begin early next year, Lay said.
He told reporters on Thursday morning there had been 20 investigations into sexual harassment in the police force in the past three years, of which all of the perpetrators were men. But Lay said he believed the issue was underreported.
“Four of those investigations were proven, and while seven are ongoing and nine haven’t been substantiated, in my experience in sexual assault and family violence, women very rarely make these complaints without truth attached to them.
“We need to make sure these investigations are absolutely and thoroughly [carried out] – I’m not sure we have that at the moment.”
The state’s police force has 17,500 members, and 26% of uniformed officers are women, up from 9% a decade ago. Lay said a culture of sexism still existed.
The review will be led by the Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commissioner, Kate Jenkins.
The chief executive of Domestic Violence Victoria, Fiona McCormack, said she was impressed by how candidly Lay was addressing the issue. She said similar reviews should be carried out by all organisations.
She was particularly impressed by Lay’s emphasis that women rarely fabricate claims of sexual assault, that investigations often let women down, and that men need to take responsibility for their actions.
“This is what we need leaders of all fields need to do, to be courageous and look at the situation square in the face,” McCormack said. “With Ken Lay it’s not smoke and mirrors. He’s committed.
“When we talk about violence against women, people often default to thinking about family violence, but the reality is women generally experience so many forms of violence every day.
“Yet we’ve been so poor at responding, we have a track record of [disbelieving] women’s stories.”
