ANDREW COSTER: THE MAN CHARGED WITH CHANGE
Police Commissioner Andrew Coster was just two months into the job when George Floyd’s killing sparked global debate about the future role for police. He talks to Sophie Cornish about navigating rapid social change, and ‘‘a holistic approach’’ to gangs.
It’s almost a year to the day since Andrew Coster stood up and addressed a crowd at St Peter’s Church in central Wellington. It wasn’t the usual Sunday service the devout Christian often attends. It was a vigil for a man killed more than 13,000 kilometres away in Minneapolis, Minnesota, three weeks earlier.
The address was almost certainly not easy, but it was undoubtedly necessary. It was the first time the police commissioner had addressed a crowd since Derek Chauvin, an American police officer, had knelt on the neck of George Floyd outside a grocery store for nearly 10 minutes in front of a crowd of onlookers, leading to his death.
The death sparked protests about police brutality and the mistreatment of people of colour in more than 60 countries, including in every major city in New Zealand.
Coster, who was just 44 when he was appointed last year, making him the youngest police commissioner, was just two months into the role. He was leading an organisation of 14,000 staff, and facing intense scrutiny and pressure.
In the week before his address at St Peter’s, there were calls to defund New Zealand Police, with one group describing the organisation as a blood-stained, racist institution. He told the crowd Floyd’s death was an opportunity to address our own situation in Aotearoa and acknowledge that criminal justice outcomes for Ma¯ ori were appalling, something he said he wouldn’t, and we shouldn’t, ever accept.
‘‘Fundamental in this is ensuring that there is fairness in the way we go about our mahi, whether in relation to prosecution decisions, use of force, and how we direct discretionary policing effort,’’ he said.
Last week, police announced those exact concepts – how police stop, speak and engage with people, how and when use of force is justified and how charging decisions are made – will be the initial key areas of an investigation into bias in policing.
The long-term research project is not something ever done before by police and, according to one international policing researcher, Garth den Heyer, isn’t currently being carried out by any other national policing jurisdiction.
Criminal justice advocate Sir Kim Workman, who will lead the independent panel for the project, described it as a ‘‘watershed moment’’.
However, its rollout has faced some criticism, along with many other police actions over the past 14 months since Coster took up the role. Once labelled by National MP Simon Bridges as the ‘‘woke commissioner’’, Coster and his organisation have had far more publicity in the past year than they would’ve liked.
Amid attempting to undertake a significant cultural change within police, Coster and the organisation have faced criticism from the public, the privacy, race relations and children’s commissioners, and multiple politicians and political parties.
Some policing and crime experts told Stuff Coster was the perfect man for the job in the current climate: young, representative of a new generation of policing, with considerate intellect and a driving vision. Others, however, are sceptical about what changes he’ll truly be able to achieve.
A new era
Sitting in his office at Police National Headquarters overlooking Wellington Harbour, Coster reflects when asked why people have labelled his appointment as a new era. He attributes a lot of that to the rapid rate of social change currently being seen in society.
‘‘There is an opportunity as a younger commissioner to lead in a different way.’’ New recruits to the organisation in the past few years see the world differently to when he joined, he says.
After a comfortable upbringing in Auckland, the son of a GP and a nurse joined police at the age of 21 and quickly rose through the ranks to become an inspector at age 30. He went on to become area commander in Auckland City and district commander in the Southern district, before moving to the role of assistant commissioner responsible for strategy and transformation.
He’s often found himself in positions where he is leading people more experienced or older than he is.
‘‘For me, leadership is not about being the technical expert in a particular area, it’s about being able to corral people in the right direction and assemble the right team and build that team to do what it needs to do. That’s an important message for police leaders generally now,’’ he says.
‘‘The people we bring into the organisation now expect a particular kind of leadership and it’s not just about being a technical expert in your field, it’s ‘how are you going to help me to be my best, to achieve my potential, to make the difference that I want to make?’ So that speaks to slightly different qualifications for leadership than we might traditionally have never looked at.’’
While Coster has been labelled progressive, he is a traditionalist when it comes to upholding core police values, based on the ‘‘nine Peelian principles’’. Those principles, based around policing by consent, have received more public attention than usual this year, something Coster attributes to political discourse, the Black Lives Matter movement and Covid-19 lockdown protest clashes overseas.
In the first couple of weeks on the job in Ma¯ ngere, 21-year-old Coster was confronted by the reality that others weren’t as lucky as he.
‘‘Houses with holes in the walls, no carpet on the floor, no food in the fridge, kids wearing clothes that are too small for them, the real sense of poverty. I suppose what was an eyeopener for me is that you can come into a job like this with a pretty simplistic view about crime, and these narratives dominate in public conversation.
‘‘What’s black and white, the good guys and bad guys. Actually, in reality, the truth is much more complex than that,’’ he says. ‘‘And what you see when you go into these homes is just a massive complex range of needs that are leading to tensions in the home. People still have to be held accountable for their choices, but they’re starting from a pretty different starting point than most people start from.’’
A holistic take on gangs
Despite ongoing calls from politicians that police are going soft on gangs, Coster makes no apologies for the plan he has in place.
Operation Tauwhiro, launched nationwide in February, focuses on disrupting gangs and seizing illegal firearms, but it has another element, which sees each police district run a tailored initiative, working closely with iwi, community NGOs and other agencies to identify the underlying causes of gangs and violence and build resilience to them.
Coster says the issues surrounding gangs and their families are ‘‘fiercely complex’’ and require a holistic response.
‘‘When you hit gangs in conflict, it’s the equivalent of a civil armed conflict, and you can keep locking up all of the individuals who use violence, but unless you can address the tension between the groups, then that is going to continue to play out.
‘‘Being willing to be part of deescalation is a good thing, we actually probably did that kind of gang liaison better when I joined the job, than we have done in recent years and so that’s giving back a kind of a capability that we’ve, for whatever reason, let decay over time.’’
The idea isn’t new. Prevention has been a core focus for police for more than 10 years.
‘‘Why is it that there are so many young men who see gangs as a better option than getting a job and positively contributing? We’re trying to work with communities and with other agencies on those things and keep shining the light on that as an issue.’’
University of Canterbury criminologist and gang expert Jarrod Gilbert says the approach shouldn’t be seen as controversial – ‘‘it’s just sensible’’.
‘‘When they’re gonna go kick in the doors and make a large number of arrests, they’re following it with other community agencies, iwi and community groups, to ensure that those arrests aren’t creating more damage than they need to. Because when you drag off dad, that’s going to have an impact on the kids and the household income.
‘‘Cracking down on organised crime is one thing, but we don’t want to inadvertently crack down on kids and wives too, because that has serious flow-on effects in the future,’’ he says.
Bias and the R word
Over the past year, Coster has faced many questions about whether racism or racial bias exists within police.
In December, police were caught taking photos of young Ma¯ ori on the streets for intelligence purposes. It drew outrage and criticism from the children’s commissioner and Ma¯ ori justice advocates, and prompted a joint inquiry by the privacy commissioner and the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA).
In March, an Auckland councillor called for the end of the reality TV show Police Ten 7, saying it promoted racial stereotypes. This led to Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon calling the entire organisation racist, although he retracted and apologised for his statement a few days later.
Coster has opted against using the word racism when discussing the new unconscious bias project. In March, a day after the project was announced, he was pressed on whether the term unconscious bias was white-washing and ‘‘dressing it up using something that sounded slightly less offensive’’.
Coster says when his 14,000 staff hear the word racist, they assume you’re saying they personally hold racist views towards a group of people.
‘‘That is not a great starting point through which to have a conversation. On the other side, when you speak to commentators or experts in this area, they will simply say that if a system consistently gets different outcomes for one group of people than another based on ethnicity, then the system is racist. Those are two completely different understandings. One is about a personal perspective or world view that I hold, and another is about the outcomes that a system has, as a consequence of the way it operates.’’
University of Waikato criminologist and Ma¯ ori justice advocate Juan Tauri believes not acknowledging racism may exist within police and other government organisations is part of ‘‘a 1950s mentality that it’s unNew Zealand to do so’’.
‘‘It’s hard to take them seriously when they can’t bring themselves to say the r-word,’’ he says. ‘‘How can we take these strategies seriously, if they cannot be honest with us about the problem that they have?’’
Ma¯ ori justice advocate Kingi Snelgar says statistics show institutional racism exists, ‘‘which is different to saying an individual is racist’’.
‘‘But that needs to be acknowledged as a first step in unwinding the years and years of different treatment for Ma¯ ori. You can’t have a conversation about unconscious bias without having a conversation about what has been a contributor to unconscious bias and the contributor to that is racism.’’
When asked whether he’s seen racism during his career in police, Coster says he has seen cynicism. ‘‘I think it’s really easy in a job where you are consistently dealing with the same problems over and over again to get somewhat cynical about those problems and that can shape people’s attitudes and mindsets.
‘‘Policing in a sense, is a really difficult environment in which to maintain a strong sense of hope about people, because you’re always seeing the worst of it. So inevitably, some of that plays through.’’
A culture shift
Attempting to overhaul a decadesold culture within the organisation itself may be one of Coster’s biggest challenges.
In March, an IPCA report after a year-long inquiry revealed a ‘‘boys’ club’’ within the senior ranks, which filtered down to create pockets of bullying, cronyism, nepotism and ‘‘an atmosphere of fear and acquiescence’’.
An additional survey of staff found 81 per cent said police was a great place to work and most felt the workplace culture was improving. However, one in four reported experiencing incidents of abuse, bullying behaviour or harassment in the past year.
Those who complained often found themselves re-victimised, with many saying the response from raising a complaint was worse than the impact of the behaviour itself.
The revelations weren’t new; similar reports and recommendations calling for changes to police culture have been made in the past, including the Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct, led by Dame Margaret Bazley, in 2007. However, on release of the recent report, IPCA chair Judge Colin Doherty said that, since Coster’s appointment, ‘‘much has changed’’.
‘‘He and his leadership team have committed themselves to a fundamental change in culture and approach to people management, and have put in place a comprehensive strategy and action plan to achieve that.’’
Coster says the changes seen in the last year are a ‘‘continuation of a journey’’ police have been on for some time. ‘‘People know that we need to keep shifting, the debate always will be how far and how fast do we get there.’’
Changes to long-standing policies in the past year, such as fleeing driver events and the culling of the annual cannabis recovery operation, were significant and never going to gain the support of all staff.
Coster says the debate is healthy and normal. ‘‘As long as I’ve been in police there’s been contention over a whole range of things. Mostly, police don’t shrink away from having an opinion on something, which is a healthy thing. When we make changes, we have to be open to considering and revisiting them.
‘‘Most things can be resolved with dialogue. There’s always a relatively silent majority and the key is understanding where they’re at with things.’’
Gilbert says getting staff who are more used to older styles of policing culture won’t come easily. ‘‘Teaching old dogs new tricks is not an easy task.’’
Every large organisation attempting to do things differently, whether that be in the public or private sector, will have difficulties bringing everyone onboard, he says. ‘‘That’s simply a test of how good the leadership is. That’s a test for all leaders across all jurisdictions, across all platforms.’’
Saying the right things and having the right strategies is one thing, but implementing them is much more difficult, Gilbert says.
Tauri says there will always be a divide between the new generation of officers and what he calls the ‘‘protectors of old school police culture.’’
Coming up against the reality of that will be Coster’s biggest challenges, Tauri says.
‘‘When he came in he made all the right noises that someone like me wants to hear, but of course I’m also looking at it going, ‘seen you guys before’ so we’ll see how this goes. I’m sitting back to see if he will force his way through, or he’ll be pushed back.’’