Trends and offending circumstances in the police use of drug detection dogs in New South Wales 2008–2018

Agnew-Pauley, Winifred; Hughes, Caitlin

doi:10.1080/10345329.2018.1556280

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…At the same time, the Jackson Reed video showed that mainstream media reports of the policing of major public events reflect police and event organisers’ view of safety at a ‘whole of crowd’ level, while spectators are more concerned about personal safety (Tomsen and Markwell, 2009: iii). It further entrenches mainstream media news and police narratives of deviance based on the unsettled lawfulness of police practices such as the use of drug detection dogs and strip searches (Agnew-Pauley and Hughes, 2019; Lancaster et al, 2016; NSW Coroner, 2019; NSW Law Enforcement Conduct Commission, 2018). Central to the video’s exposure of processes of criminalisation and law enforcement was the revelation through unlawful police directions to stop filming, that civilian filming of police operations in public was indeed lawful (Mahony, 2013).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

More than a trivial pursuit: Public order policing narratives and the ‘social media test’

Ellis

2020

Crime, Media, Culture

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Social media has transformed public discourse on policing and the contest of control over the police image. This article draws on original, empirical research to conceptualise the phenomenon of the ‘social media test’ – the evolution of social media into a legitimate measure of police performance. Through in-depth interviews with police and non-police respondents the article maps the genealogy of, and provides perspective on, one of the first viral cases of bystander video of police excessive force in Australia filmed and uploaded to YouTube. The study shows the video’s impact on hegemonic mainstream and police news media narratives, processes of criminalisation and police accountability and the merit of narrative criminology in unpacking these phenomena. Police alluding to the ‘social media test’ in in-depth interviews shows that digital media in general and social media in particular can no longer be dismissed as peripheral or subsidiary to public discourse on policing in a digital society.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

More than a trivial pursuit: Public order policing narratives and the ‘social media test’

Ellis

2020

Crime, Media, Culture

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“…Yes, consumed drugs prior to entering the festival 60 (20) Yes, got someone else to carry drugs 51 (17) Yes, bought drugs inside the grounds 39 (13) Yes, took less easily detectable drugs 21 (7) Yes, chose not to use illicit drugs 12 Values suppressed due to small cell size (n ≤ 5 but not 0).…”

Section: Sample Characteristics Occurrence and Setting Of Drug Dog En...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Encounters with police drug detection dogs at music festivals amongst people who regularly use ecstasy and/or other illicit stimulants in Australia

Gibbs

Peacock

Hughes

et al. 2023

Drug and Alcohol Review

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Introduction Despite increasing evidence challenging the effectiveness and legality of police drug dog operations, these strategies remain common. We aimed to describe drug dog encounters at music festivals, behavioural adaptations taken in anticipation of their presence and consequences of encounters amongst a sample of people who regularly use MDMA/ecstasy. Methods Data were collected via interviewer‐administered questionnaires in April–June 2019. Australians aged 16 years or older who used MDMA/ecstasy and/or other stimulants monthly in the last 6 months were recruited from capital cities via social media and word‐of‐mouth (n = 797). Participants reported recent drug dog encounters, encounter settings and actions taken in anticipation of and in response to encounters. Results In this sample, encounters with drug dogs at festivals were common (60%), with most participants (92%) reporting anticipating the encounter. Most (86%) of this group reported behavioural adaptations to avoid a detection, with concealing drugs well (57%) and consuming prior to entering the festival (20%) most reported. Only 4% of those who expected drug dog presence chose not to carry or consume drugs. One‐quarter (26%) of those who reported an encounter were stopped by police and 4% were searched (bodily/bag search). Discussion and Conclusion Most participants anticipated drug dog presence at festivals, however, were not deterred from carrying or consuming drugs. Some reported adaptations to avoid detection may increase drug‐related health, social and legal harms. Our study suggests drug dog presence at festivals does not deter carriage/use of illegal drugs, and echoes concerns regarding the efficacy and appropriateness of this policing initiative.

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“…The accuracy of dog indications for the purposes of street-level drug policing has been challenged repeatedly since its introduction, with a slew of studies finding that less than one quarter of searches instigated on the basis of dog indications typically turn up drugs, while the detection of ‘supply’ offences (the ostensible target of the legislation) through this method remains negligible (Agnew-Pauly & Hughes, 2019; Grewcock & Sentas, 2021; NSW Ombudsman, 2006). But far from embarrassing NSW police into winding down their use of drug detection dogs, as has been reported in other countries (Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary [HMIC], 2016), 4 these failures are perversely implicated in the consolidation and institutionalisation of unlawful strip-searching in this jurisdiction.…”

Section: Violable Subjects: Policing Drug Possession In New South Walesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Technologies of abjection: The possessive logics and performative sovereignty of drug dog operations in New South Wales, Australia

Race

2023

The Sociological Review

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This article considers the alarming escalation in the use of strip-searching on the part of the New South Wales police over the past decade and its connection with street-level drug policing including drug dog operations. These strategies mobilise a technology of detection which draws police ever more intently into the orbit of the sexual and sexual violation and in ever-closer proximity to the genital, the vaginal and the anal cavities of those it forcibly produces as suspects. I am especially interested in the symbolic, spectacular, gendered and performative dimensions of these ‘devices of sexual saturation’; their opportunistic deployment to patrol minoritarian populations (Aboriginal people, young people/minors, sexual and racial minorities) and cast aspersions on their self-sovereign capacities. Framed by the law as technologies of drug detection, these operations are better conceptualised as technologies of abjection devoted to the production of violable subjects as part of brutal ongoing efforts to shore up the authority of self-asserted, stolen sovereignty. A narcofeminist lens brings these gendered dimensions of drug policing into better view. Here, the ‘possessive logics’ that Aileen Moreton-Robinson implicates in the performativity of patriarchal white sovereignty on the part of the ‘postcolonising’ Australian state find their pretext and source of legitimation in the rhetoric of drugs and the fantasised sovereign subject it maintains as a requirement for the general functioning of the law: the ‘master of her intentions and desires’, in Derrida’s words. This mobilisation of technologies of abjection under the guise of drug enforcement is part of a longer story about the racialisation of sexuality and the sexualisation of race as biopolitical trajectories that naturalise and maintain settler-colonialism and its worlds. Countering their violence entails forging new solidarities among minoritarian constituencies that articulate, affirm and reactivate the non-sovereign potentials/performatives that inhere in our mutual vulnerability and relationally-constituted capacity for endurance.

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Trends and offending circumstances in the police use of drug detection dogs in New South Wales 2008–2018

Cited by 8 publications

References 16 publications

More than a trivial pursuit: Public order policing narratives and the ‘social media test’

More than a trivial pursuit: Public order policing narratives and the ‘social media test’

Encounters with police drug detection dogs at music festivals amongst people who regularly use ecstasy and/or other illicit stimulants in Australia

Technologies of abjection: The possessive logics and performative sovereignty of drug dog operations in New South Wales, Australia

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