hearing loss and the criminal justice system - Australian Indigenous ...

Senate Inquiry March 2010_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Steven, a man in his thirties, had a longstanding hearing loss. In spite of his hearing loss,Steven held a senior position in his employment and had almost finished a law degree.Here, Steven describes his experience with the police.“I’ve been pulled up by police when I was younger and I was sort of mumbled out aresponse and they say ‘Quit your mumbling, you know, blah, blah, blah’, start tomake fun of me, you know. And I’m still so offended, made me out to be some sortof – treated me like I was a second class citizen, or a dumb person. This is the wayhe, this particular policeman (responded) and that gave me a negative view of him Iguess. But then you do mumble sometimes, to you it doesn’t sound like that toyou.”Steven described how the police officers ‘offended’ him by the way they spoke to him abouthis ‘mumbling’. For many other Indigenous people with hearing loss such an encounter mayhave escalated into an argument and arrest.Alternatively, people with hearing loss may speak more loudly than is needed in order forothers to hear them. Their difficulty with hearing, especially in the presence of backgroundnoise, means that they need other people to speak loudly so that they can hear andunderstand what is being said. They often speak to others at this same high volume, butothers find it too loud. Their loud speech may be seen as being aggressive.For example, one young Indigenous man with hearing problems, with whom I worked wasperceived by a group of non‐Indigenous women as being aggressive when he used a loudspeaking voice to communicate with them in their noisy work environment. He was thenapproached by management about the aggression he was displaying towards his workmates. He vehemently denied that he had been aggressive and stated that he had simplybeen speaking normally. Since he knew he had not been intentionally aggressive he felt thattheir complaint was spurious and based on racist attitudes. He responded antagonisticallytoward them and soon afterwards he left the job.Communication problems associated with speaking too loudly may occasion complaint,which prompts involvement by the police. When the police enter the situation, theloudness of speech may be equated with aggression, and result in arrest. Alcoholcompounds the problem, partly by further reducing hearing acuity but also by lesseningpeople’s inhibitions, in which case they are more likely to express past or currentfrustrations. Frustrations that are often related to their hearing loss.The potential exists to, almost immediately, provide for better outcomes in the types ofsituations we have spoken of above. If training were to be put in place to enable policeofficers to be aware of the communication issues around hearing loss and give them theskills and knowledge base to manage these types of communication more effectively, Ibelieve there would be immediate positive results.When these cases are considered, and compared with the statistics relating to the use ofpolice discretion, it suggests that one important way to diminish the number of arrests ofIndigenous youths would be to train police officers about the communication issues around_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________11 Phoenix Consulting