Victoria’s controversial Protective Service Officers (PSOs) have been granted extensive new powers, with a suite of new laws coming into effect last weekend.
PSOs – who have been patrolling Victorian stations since 2012 – will now be able to arrest someone who has breached parole or had their parole cancelled, conduct warrantless searches for drugs on commuters, and apprehend children under an emergency care warrant.
Other powers granted include the ability to request name and addresses from witnesses to indictable offences, conduct random searches for weapons on members of the public, and issue infringement notices for the supplying of alcohol to minors.
“These new laws will help PSOs to reduce harm and improve public safety by giving them a more active community safety role where they are already stationed,” the state’s police minister Lisa Neville said.
“We are delivering on our promise to give PSOs the powers and the flexibility they need to respond to more incidents across our transport network.”
New regulations also coming into effect in April will enable PSOs to operate across the state’s entire public transport network.
Currently, over 1,150 PSOs work on Victoria’s stations, with an additional 100 to be funded by the Andrews government over the next four years.
The government has argued that the PSOs provide “flexibility” to effectively respond to crime on the public transport network and help make commuters feel safer when using transport services and facilities.
However, when the new laws were introduced into parliament last year, calls of alarm were sounded by legal bodies, including the Law Institute of Victoria, which said that PSOs “would need additional training and higher skills” if they were to have these additional powers.
“There is also a danger that additional powers could lead to an increase in harassment and arbitrary profiling of vulnerable people,” the Institute’s spokesperson said at the time.
In December 2016, Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) reported that there had been frequent allegations of PSOs targeting and harassing young women. In one incident, an officer allegedly asked for the personal details of a woman smoking on a platform, later contacting her on Facebook, telling her she had “amazingly beautiful eyes”.
More concerns have been raised recently, following an incident in February this year: video footage – filmed by a train passenger – emerged showing one PSO restraining a man while another beat him repeatedly with a baton on a platform at Merri station in Northcote.
Victorian Police Commissioner Graham Ashton said at the time that the man had resisted arrest and had assaulted the PSOs prior to the incident shown in the footage but indicated that the incident would be referred to the Professional Standards Command “to have a look at”.
Police minister Lisa Neville called the matter “concerning” and said it would be “fully investigated”.
Greens MP for Northcote Lidia Thorpe called on the anti-corruption watchdog to investigate.
“The Victorian Greens have often raised concerns about PSOs on railway stations and the disparity between the training they receive and the powers they hold,” Thorpe said.