When I first became a cadet journalist at The Canberra Times nearly 50 years ago, the first round to which I was assigned was covering the activities of the ACT Police Force, as well as crime, traffic accidents and emergency services in nearby NSW. Roy Wilson, the ACT Police Commissioner, was not much amused. He had traditional law and order views and didn't like me much, for some funny reason.

He rang the chief of reporting staff to inform him that he had spent three years training his men to arrest me on sight, and now he had to stomach my walking freely through all areas of the police station, reading notices and police occurrence sheets, and, what was worse, being obvious about it.

He was told that it was for The Canberra Times, not the police force, to decide who covered them and that they had better not discriminate against me. Wilson was a former South Australian police inspector with traffic responsibilities before being put in charge of the ACT. Despite his dislike of long-haired students and their causes, he decided that if he had to lump me, he may as well cultivate me so that The Canberra Times could serve his ends.

At that stage, ACT police were unarmed. So were most uniformed cops in most jurisdictions, though some forces in NSW were beginning to wear revolvers on their belts. Of course, detectives and, on occasion, uniformed cops could draw a weapon from the armoury if it seriously seemed necessary, but it was rare that they did so, and even more unusual for weapons to be drawn, or fired.

Wilson was adamantly opposed to arming his force. He was, after all, trying to professionalise it, becoming in the process the first Australian police commissioner to insist that new recruits have matriculation certificates. The AFP, most of whose DNA is from the former ACT Police Force, has developed this to nowadays insist that all recruits have university degrees.

But the ACT Police Association was very powerful, and had the ear of local politicians and some of the bureaucracy. It was highly political and, like police associations everywhere, then and now, did not hesitate to leak against police leaders who did not share their agendas. Some of the association thought that they would never command respect, whether from the law-abiding public, the tiny ACT criminal classes, or from other police forces until they were sporting a very visible gun on their belts.

Wilson thought this was a load of crap with a capital C. First, there was very little crime in the ACT involving firearms. There were some violent individuals, including members of outlaw bikie gangs, but Wilson had a team of tough and fearless cops - Frank Harlovich, Brian Charge, Wayne Clark, and a few others more than capable of dealing with any 10 of them, armed with axes, each. They didn't have Tasers; in theory they had nightsticks, but they did not use them. For all of their toughness, however, the art of these men was to stare down confrontations, not bring them on.

Wilson was worried, as top cops in Britain were about the same time, that arming police would encourage serious criminals to arm themselves, and inevitably result in incidents in which shots were fired. He was also, frankly, afraid that a significant number of his men would be a danger to themselves, colleagues and the public by shooting themselves in the feet. He was also aware of some developing scholarship, particularly by Professor Richard Harding, reviewing cases in which police had killed criminals, suspects and innocent members of the public. The research raised questions about the operational training and judgments associated with police use of weapons in these histories. A good many victims were simply trying to escape - a crime, certainly, but not necessarily warranting the death penalty if, say, they were simply suspected thieves. At inquests, cop after cop insisted he had not aimed at the victim, but over his head or to the side. Harding suggested that the public, and criminals, might be safer if police were instructed to shoot to kill.

These were all arguments Wilson pressed upon me to put, in his name, into the public debate. They were, and still are, good arguments. Indeed, contrary to the view that the working environment for cops is now much more dangerous, particularly because of Islamic and right-wing terrorism, I think one could make a good case that life for the cop was much more dangerous 50 years ago. The violent and serious crime rate, for example, was about three times what it is today, in spite of the constant innuendo that rates are increasing.

Police training in dealing with violent criminals - including wife-bashers - or folk in demonstrations much bigger than today's was mostly focused on defusing conflict. It was not in provoking people, or bringing conflicts to a head with Tasers, toxic sprays, guns, water cannons, and the rushing, then shooting, of mentally disturbed people. There is a very good argument that all of the modern police "self-defence" and attack technology serves only to escalate violence and the risk of bad outcomes, including injuries to cops.

The development of more and more sophisticated SWAT teams, the use of squadrons of heavily armed cops at dawn raids, "kettling" demonstrators in narrow corridors for beatings and private punishments, and the absurd and dangerous employment of military rifles at airports and parliaments increases the risk of violence. It does not diminish it.

Roy Wilson was sceptical about his capacity to win the argument about guns. His agenda, in any event, was limited. He would trot out the arguments for publication, but he knew that cold reason had little impact compared with the emotional appeal of guns for young uniformed cops who claimed to feel naked and vulnerable without the means to take another person's life or do him serious injury.

Wilson also passed me some academic literature he was keen to have used in the debate, but not - very much please - to be associated with him. Psychological studies suggested that emotional need for cops to be to be armed was associated with sexual anxiety - particularly as to the size of one's penis. It said that for cops, wearing a gun was a way of saying: "Look, I have a big penis!"

I have no idea how this theory can be extended to the modern day, where many women cops sport big guns alongside their Tasers, handcuffs, batarangs and other toys. But I would be very interested to find out. The modern police uniform seems designed to reinforce a sense of terror, and perhaps guilt - as well as complete separation from members of the ordinary public. For some cops indeed, especially small men carrying very large automatic rifles, the robotic look is accentuated by sunglasses. It would be almost comical if it were not scary.

Other psychological literature Wilson gave me pointed to a very common characteristic of police: a feeling that they were persons of authority, whose very presence commanded - no, demanded - respect. They got it, more or less, from the middle classes and the older working class. But they felt their uniform did not command the respect or authority it ought among the criminal classes, or people (particularly men) who were drinking and becoming unruly, and young men of almost all descriptions, likely to give cheek, ignore polite requests, or employ bravado from the safety of a crowd. Many of them even lacked fear. Guns might swing the balance, they thought.

These were people who had to learn respect. Failing to accord this to a cop, alone or with others, undermined the cop's self-respect and sense of personal security and sense of safety. But disrespect accorded to the least cop also undermined general confidence in the law, the system, and the state itself.

The theory went that cops, and police firmness in the face of disobedience and derision, were all that stood between law and order and anarchy. Good people understood that sometimes one had to administer a little bit of discipline, or, in the words of NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller, instil "a little bit of fear" of police among the young. Modern, trendy and ambitious cops do not say it aloud in public, but the attitude persists.

In the demonstrations, and, sometimes, the police riots in the United States after the killing of George Floyd, one heard such feelings and anxieties from police and their spokesmen repeatedly. Bob Kroll, the tough-guy boss of the Minneapolis police union and a vocal supporter of Donald Trump, thinks that city politicians and police leaders are pathetic liberals, whose weak attitudes have empowered the loss of respect for cops. He himself is no stranger to accusations of violence, bigotry and excessive force.

He explained why his union rejected calls for deferred pay rises to deal with budget shortfalls caused by the pandemic.

"The first thing we said was OK, let's see the budget, let's see the city budget," he said. "And guys, they're pissing away millions and millions of dollars to projects. Like, you know, they're giving $15,000 a year to the transgender co-ordinator of the city."

"The big buzzword they had was 'de-escalation'," Kroll said of police reform efforts. "You're supposed to, you know, even if you're lawful in using force, it could look bad and give a bad public perception."

It was being trained not to use force - to go against their nature - that was causing officers stress.

"Certainly cops, it's not in their nature. So you're training them to back away," he said. "And it's just not natural - that's where a lot of the stress does come from with the cops in not [having] the ability to grab somebody and say, no, step back or you're going to jail and, if need be, by force."

Kroll also mocked the concept of procedural justice, an institutional reform meant to reduce police use of force through diversity and anti-bias training, saying that "it's an opportunity for people of colour to get back at white men".

He said that in his early days of training, the rule was to "ask them nicely to do something the first time", then give them a "direct, lawful order" to do so, and if they refuse - "you make them with force, that's how you get compliance".

"Those days are over," he said. "Now it is 'ask them, love them, call, you know, give them their space and give them their voice'. And this is what they're training new officers. ... Our cops went through that and they're going 'Oh my God'. Yeah, procedural justice. And the theory behind it being that, you know, the white men have oppressed everyone else for 200 years. So it's their opportunity to get back."

Kroll has been much criticised, but it is plain that he spoke for a lot of other cops too smart to say it aloud. And, for that matter, a host of citizens - especially the aggrieved white working man - who think of such measures as pandering to races other than their own. It's a sentiment President Donald Trump is trying to mine when talking about the need for police to "dominate" demonstrators. Or to characterise any want of complete firmness as being weak.

It is a sentiment also common in Australian police forces, although most ambitious police are not so crass as to express their disdain for the customers - or targets - as bluntly, particularly if they are obviously disadvantaged. But it is that disdain that means that years of efforts to change police culture have had very little effect in actually changing police practice when it comes to indifferent and sometimes violent treatment of the "underclass", including Aboriginal people. The practical police indifference to the issue is also a function of the fact that many politicians, especially those of a police background, privately share many of the police cultural prejudices on matters such as the need for respect for authority and those who encapsulate it.

Listen, for example, to the hectoring tone of the Prime Minister attacking those who would compare the Australian system's violence towards Aboriginal people with the American systems. Listen to the NSW Police Minister, David Elliott, and to the authoritarian notes coming from the federal minister for the Australian Federal Police and the militarised Border Force, Peter Dutton. It sometimes seems to me that Dutton wants the same powers for police - including the complete surveillance state - that he criticises as being wicked in communist China.

There are many Australian cops who will be politic and mouth the words of cultural sensitivity and de-escalation, while privately believing in the need to be tough and uncompromising. Situations once managed by a single policewoman without incident, such as a brawl in a pub, are now being dealt with by Tasers, pepper spray and an array of disabling holds and privately inflicted punishments, including excessive, and sometimes fatal, use of force.

A significant amount of police capital is now invested in military-style equipment for sieges and coercive crowd control - control which treats Australian citizens as though they are invading aliens. The results include catastrophes such as the Lindt cafe siege (in which senior police incompetence led to the death of citizens), police raids in which trigger-happy cops shoot each other, and, of course, homicidal police chases which indifferently kill errant drivers, stray civilians and, frequently, cops themselves.

As in America, the instant focus of widespread demonstration activity has been in its closest parallel - Aboriginal deaths in custody, not least those which have been the result of excessive force, chokeholds or failure to follow procedures involving monitoring prisoners in charge room cells. Of the more than 400 deaths since the 1991 report of the royal commission, not one has led to charges against people in authority. Mild criticism occasionally emanating from coroners, usually holding inquests years after the event and relying on briefs prepared by the police themselves, has not, of course, led to any noticeable change of police or prison practice.

MORE JACK WATERFORD:

I do not argue that police should be defunded in the sense that the word is being used in the United States - effectively the complete rebuilding of police forces, with a different, less truculent style of leadership, and with new practices designed to lower, not raise, the temperature in the streets.

The Australian malaise has not come to that. But it will, unless Australian police forces reverse the trend towards increasing militarisation, robocop presentation and the almost complete want of accountability that now prevails. Indeed, I think cops, and the public, would be safer if they were to throw away their guns, Tasers and pepper sprays and relearn old techniques of dealing with tough customers, including, sometimes, terrorists with axes or knives. Frank Harlovich faced both frequently enough without losing any skin. I would leave the big anti-terror jobs to the SAS - better trained, better led, and far less likely to kill civilians.

Who can say that the courts operate as a vehicle of accountability when we are now conducting trials in secret, without even a protest from judges? Or when police commissioners can pick and choose, according to personal preference and their perception of the needs and interests of the political party awarding performance bonuses, which laws they will enforce, and which not? Or which laws - such as some of those against paedophilia - will be enforced as public relations constructs, while others in the same category - involving neglect of legal duty to report known paedophiles - are ignored, because the apparent malefactors have powerful friends in politics and the police?

It may not be time to defund. But it is time to reimagine the role of police, and to humanise them again. Police are continually selling the spectre of all-powerful, all-evil international crime as a cloak to avoid public scrutiny and to demand ever greater powers. What the public deserves first is a competent, demonstrably honest and well-led police force that can deal with everyday lawbreaking in the community. One that does not exile blatant assaults to internal "professional standards" bodies, never to be heard of again, which investigates and clears itself and resists any external or independent scrutiny as vigorously as plainly dishonest politicians. A general royal commission could clear the air, and it would do no harm if it was asked to have a particular focus on how police exercise their powers on Aboriginal people - the group their own activities have made the most incarcerated people on Earth.