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“Who gets hurt? Normally it takes place late at night, normally it isn’t an issue of endangering children… Usually it’s not even a disruption to the public because even if beats are in public parks or whatever, the most prevalent use is late at night.” “Beats are one of those victimless crimes - if you want to call it a crime at all, and of course it is even debatable under law whether it is a criminal offence anymore,” he says. So despite intense scrutiny from some authorities, beat use is arguably not even an offence, says Morgan. Victorian courts have made similar decisions in cases where police had to search through bushes in order to see men having sex there. “There have been cases in Victoria where men have been in a cubicle with the door shut, having s-x, and police have had to look underneath the cubicle or jump up and look above the door before they can see them having s-x. If the person seeing the behaviour has to do anything unusual to view it, then the behaviour is not public and therefore cannot be an offence. Laws vary from state to state, however judges in Victoria have ruled that sexual behaviour can only be considered an offence if it takes place in a public place and could reasonably be expected to be seen by a member of the public. In reality, Morgan says, it is difficult for police to convict a person for beat use - so much so that Victorian police, discouraged by failed prosecutions, have virtually given up charging men ‘caught’ at beats. I know of circumstances where police at beats have told beat users: ‘Well, you give me something - usually money, but sometimes it’s even sex - and we won’t report you. Morgan says police harassment at beats can include “outright physical abuse”, bribery or extortion: “It speaks to corruption within the police force. It reinforces an ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality which isn’t helpful to either side.” “Also, it makes beat users and sections of the GLBTI community itself very hostile to police generally. “It can lead to more internalised homophobia in other words, feelings within beat users that they are the scum of the earth, that they deserve this sort of thing,” he says. Their behaviour has long-term impacts on both the LGBTI community and beat users, who are already heavily stigmatised and vulnerable. Wayne Morgan, an academic lawyer and senior lecturer in Law and Sexuality at Australian National University, says police have a long history of harassing men at beats.
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The group has also created an independent reporting system to collect information on police behaviour at beats. A core network of users supported by grassroots lobby group Community Action Against Homophobia now hosts regular Saturday night picnics to monitor police activity, raise awareness of the issue and inform beat users about their rights and responsibilities. There were also reports of men being searched, chased, threatened and manhandled by police or visited at their homes the next day - despite not being charged with any offence.īy submitting this form you are agreeing to Crikey's Terms and Conditions.Ĭoncerned beat users began researching the laws governing public spaces and proper police conduct, and sharing what they learned.
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“It is common practice for officers to take down car registration details, and names and addresses when policing beats, even though guidelines indicate they cannot record personal information … simply because men are in an area that is a ‘known’ beat,” he says. “We were concerned it would get back to the days when being a gay man was illegal, when police regularly harassed men at beats and used plain-clothed officers to entrap and charge men,” says project co-ordinator Richard Capuano, who regularly monitors police behaviour at his local beat in Sydney. Initiated by beat users themselves in response to increased reports of police harassment, intimidation and mistreatment of men at beats across Sydney, it now monitors beats across NSW and has forged links with beat users in South Australia. The issue of beats and beat users exploded onto the pages of Sydney’s gay and lesbian newspapers - and to the forefront of queer community consciousness - in November 2008 with the launch of the Sydney Beat Project, now called the Beat Project. The issue is dividing the gay community and stirring debate on homophobia and the role of police.
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A grassroots project that began with picnics aimed at monitoring police harassment of men at beats - public places where men gather to have casual, consensual sex - is expanding, despite controversial beginnings.