Haldane - The peoples force: a history of the victoria police

PRAISE FOR THE PEOPLES FORCE
2nd edition

Inspector Haldanes book is a must.

Fr Bob Maguire, The Catholic Worker

The story told here is neither sensationalist nor scandal-mongering. Inspector Haldanes methods of detection are unspectacular but effective. He is streetwise, he knows his sources and takes few witnesses on trustmore than one received interpretation collapses before his searching interrogation.

Stuart Macintyre, The Age

a meticulously researched and very readable work that will be of great value to the historian, armchair or otherwise.

Australian Book Review

Robert Haldane writes in an easy and enthralling style and could be just as easily telling a mystery story

Alan Patterson, Australian Police Journal

The production in 1986 of former Superintendent Dr Bob Haldanes history of the Victoria Police, The Peoples Force, marked the 150th anniversary of the first police presence in the Port Phillip district of the colony in 1836. Revised in 1995, his opus has given us the luxury of an acclaimed, scholarly record of the factors contributing to the development of policing in Victoria. Not only has Dr Haldane honestly examined significant events and personalities of the past, but also with the highs and lows associated with them. The Peoples Force enables us to understand our evolution and is essential reading for past and present members of Victoria Police. It also serves to give the general public a better understanding of the development of their police force.

Chief Commissioner S. I. Mick Miller (Retired), Victorian Historical Journal

Dr Haldane has written a book in elegant language The title, The Peoples Force, is a superb one for it is the theme and the hope of the book.

Dr Jim Cairns, Overland

This eye-opening history of the Victoria Police grown through more than a century of governmental obtuseness, left me with great respect for the force and some wonder at its survival as a functioning body.

George Turner, The Age

More than just a dry collection of dates, names and events, the book is a sweeping tour of 150 years of the states social and political history, reflected by the constantly changing police force.

Greg Thom, Herald Sun

the historian of the Victoria Police, Robert Haldane, has presented a view of that force which, while not seeking to hide many unsavoury elements of its history, presents it primarily as the police which the people deserved.

Mark Finnane, Police and Government

Haldanes history ought to be recommended reading for criminologists, national crime commissioners, police chiefs and judges.

Chris McConville, Victorian Historical Journal

[Haldane] narrates events and organisational changes with a commendably high degree of objectivity that makes a convincing end to a worthwhile history.

Brigadier F. W. Speed, Defence Force Journal

a refreshingly honest look at the history of the Victoria Police written with a sensitivity and style unusual for policemen who are usually preoccupied writing in police jargon.

Carolyn Turner, Warragul Gazette

This unlikely combination of the skills of the historian and copper results in a history which is both critical of the police and at the same time written with the benefit of inside knowledge.

Marjory Holt, Agora 1987

this is a valuable and important work. There is an incredible wealth of historical material here. The work was done with care and detail It is an important document for the serious student of policing, or criminology, in Australia.

Kenneth Polk, Australian New Zealand Journal of Criminology

A History of Victoria Police

ROBERT HALDANE

MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY PRESS

An imprint of Melbourne University Publishing Limited

Level 1, 715 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia

www.mup.com.au

First published 1986

Second edition 1995

Reprinted 2012

Third edition 2017

Text Robert Keith Haldane, 2017

Images Victoria Police unless otherwise stated

Design and typography Melbourne University Publishing Limited, 2017

This book is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means or process whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publishers.

Every attempt has been made to locate the copyright holders for material quoted in this book. Any person or organisation that may have been overlooked or misattributed may contact the publisher.

Information in this book is accurate as at the time of writing.

Cover design by Philip Campbell Design

Typeset by Cannon Typesetting

Printed in Australia by Macphersons Printing Group

A cataloguing-in-publication entry for this title is available from the National Library of Australia

9780522864953 (paperback)

9780522862300 (ebook)

Dedicated to those police who created history without knowing it

&

in memory of Aimee Milne and Constable Kenneth McNeil Symbols of the multitude of police and citizens whose deaths across the decades were deemed collateral casualties rather than acts of combative courage, and whose place in the history of the Victoria Police should never be forgotten

&

for Assistant Commissioner (Retired) Gavin Patrick Brown (19432012), erstwhile sleuth, sage, scholar and scribe, who laid the history trail for others to follow

Some said that a serving member of a police force should not write a history of it. He would not be sufficiently detached. He would not be allowed to expose those vested interests of politicians and police officers that cause and cover up inefficiency and corruption. If he attempted first to write it as an academic thesis, said others, his topic was so wide that it would have to be shallow. Whats more, muttered a third group of critics, the Victoria Police should not have chosen a historian who was a yobbo from Reservoir. So attempted insult was added to rigid dogmatism.

Yet a thesis was written, and professors from three universities passed it for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Melbourne University Press saw a good book in it, and accepted the manuscript for publication under its distinguished imprint. Researchers will be glad about that, as they find in the book a context and leads for their own work. And ordinary people will enjoy the book too: it is easy to read and full of interest, but will make them pause to think straight about police and the community. The book does expose vested interests, failures and cover-ups. Over and over again the Victoria Police is shown as being moulded, for good or for ill, by its political masters, its own members, and the general publicor sections of it. Some men and women in the police will think at first that their official history is too critical, but theyand everyone elseshould soon realise that it is notably evenhanded and unflinchingly honest, a good police book.

Inspector R. K. Haldanethe academic and the historianis also a real policeman in his colleagues terms. No mere theorist, he would know how to lock up a drunk. He was serving as a constable at Preston when he began a part-time course at La Trobe University, and later served as a detective at Broadmeadows and Bairnsdale. Over the years, while still a working policeman, he took an honours BA in legal studies, and then his PhD in history, boldly and calmly trying to describenot excusethe police force as part of the people, to understand from within and assess from without. His degree of success was impressive.