NCJ Number
222432
Date Published
November 2007
Length
46 pages
Annotation
This report provides an analysis of complaints to the Criminal Justice Commission (CJC) and the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) about bites by Queensland Police Service (QPS) dogs over the 8-year period from 1999 to 2006, as well as an analysis of QPS bite incident data for 2005-2006 and trend analysis of bite incidents.
Abstract
It was found that there has been a decrease in the number of complaints about police dog bites since the original review in 2000. The following was also found: (1) almost all complainants (99 percent) were male, and about one-quarter (24 percent were Indigenous; (2) in 50 percent of the cases, police dogs were deployed to track or follow human scent, and in 11 percent of cases, they were used in what the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) would term ‘crowd control’ situations; and (3) two dog handlers accounted for almost one-third of all complaints made to the CMC and the Criminal Justice Commission (CJC). In 2007, an analysis of Queensland Police Service (QPS) records of reported police dog-bite incidents during the 2005-2006 financial year showed that there were 73 reported bite incidents. With the QPS having 58 General Purpose (GP) teams, this represents an average of 1.3 reported bite incidents per GP teams. On the basis of the findings, five recommendations were presented for consideration by the QPS Dog Squad. Highlights of the recommendations include: (1) that the QPS define what it considers to be a crowd control situation, a situation in which the presence and deployment of a police dog in a crowd situation would be justified; (2) the QPS differentiate between actual dog-bite incidents and other forms of contact on its summary data sheets; and (3) that the QPS reconsider its method of calculating the bite ratios of its dogs, to allow for more accurate analysis and greater comparability with the bite ratios of other law enforcement agencies. This report presents the results of the 2007 review and assesses whether the issues identified in 2000 have been addressed. Figures, tables, and references