Podcast: How ex-cop Dean McGowan "fell through the cracks", reset his life, and served 33 years with compassion and care
Victoria Police process around seven thousand young people every year. If you were an officer, you’d meet them every day – from the kids pinching chocolate from the shops and skateboarding without their helmets, to the less common and more serious behaviour, like breaking into cars. How many warnings and lectures could you give before you started wondering if anyone was really listening?
Dean McGowan recently finished up after thirty-three years with Victoria Police. He’s investigated some of the most complex and distressing crimes you can imagine – but he’s not quite ready to lock up young people who offend and throw away the key.
Dean’s had first-hand experience of needing help from teachers and family to keep his life on track. Experience that has shaped the person he is and the way he does his work.
On today’s episode, he talks about how police can move young people away from the justice system, while still holding them responsible for their actions, about the consequences of impulsivity and bad decisions, and tells his own story, of a wayward youth turned around.
And you can keep scrolling to read the full transcript of this conversation.
Sophie Raynor
Welcome to the Worth A Second Chance podcast, where we explore true stories, challenges and solutions from the frontlines of Australia's youth justice systems. My name is Sophie Raynor.
Victoria Police process around seven thousand young people every year. If you were an officer, you’d meet them every day – from the kids pinching chocolate from the shops and skateboarding without their helmets… to the less common and more serious behaviour, like breaking into cars. How many warnings and lectures could you give before you started wondering if anyone was really listening?
Dean McGowan
Hello ladies and gentlemen, Dean McGowan is my name, I’m a mentor and consultant for the Victoria Police Diversity Recruitment Program.
Sophie Raynor
Dean McGowan recently finished up after thirty-three years with Victoria Police. He’s investigated some of the most complex and distressing crimes you can imagine… but he’s not quite ready to lock up young people who offend and throw away the key.
Dean McGowan
Without mum and dad there I would have fallen through the cracks.
Sophie Raynor
Dean’s had an interesting life himself, and has first-hand experience of needing help from teachers and family to keep his life on track. Experience that has shaped the person he is and the way he does his work.
On today’s episode, Dean talks about how police can move young people away from the justice system, while still holding them responsible for their actions… about the consequences of impulsivity and bad decisions… and tells his own story, of a wayward youth turned around.
Hi, Dean. Can you start by introducing yourself?
Dean McGowan
Yeah, so I'm 51 now, I've been blessed with a 33-year career with Victoria Police. I joined in 1989 and only resigned – ill health resigned in July of this year. I was very, very young when I was joined. I think I was under 18 and a half and had to wait till I hit the 18 and a half mark to get into Victoria Police Academy, which seems like an eternity ago.
Sophie Raynor
So you've told me you grew up in housing commission in Melbourne's north with your parents and your brother. And there's a night that changed the course of your life. Can you tell me about that?
Dean McGowan
The police knocked on the door about 5am; woke mum and dad up, and basically, the long story short was I vividly recall my mum coming in screaming, waking me up out of bed and my brother had unfortunately fallen asleep at the wheel and killed himself at speed… run off the road in Mornington Peninsula… and yeah, lost his life.
And you know, it's those reflections that… we didn't have the pathways that we have now for victims of crime or, or even people in need of assistance. There was… literally, my dad hit the bottle and drink and mum had to deal with her grief for the rest of her life. And I was a bit the same; I found myself in Year 10 at Preston East Tech. I was a talented musician, and I had that Y in the road; you know, the fork in the road where I certainly went down the wrong fork for a period of time, and if it wasn't for some key people at school, particularly some teachers that I have a lifelong in debt to… but you know if they didn't pull me aside and tell me where I was heading, and also point out that I was… you know, could be anything in my life if I just committed myself to good, rather than just giving up and again hitting the bottle and sourcing other means of outcomes. I wouldn't be certainly where I am today.
Sophie Raynor
And today that’s at the other end of your career with Victoria Police. But were you always interested in being a police officer?
Dean McGowan
Well, it goes way back our pop, so my grandfather was in World War Two and from a young age my brother and I – Peter James McGowan, who was five years older than me, he instilled in us not only your sense of duty, but uh, you know that community safety sense that everyone should look out for one another and take pride when you're seeing police, and be respectful, and my brother always wanted to be a police officer. It wasn't until he turned 17 finished what was then HSC and joined the local council with my dad and become a motor mechanic.
I often got asked the question, why did you join? And you often hear people say to help those in need of assistance, or protect life and property, or the mission statement of which Victoria Police affords, but you know, for my purpose was to make mum and dad proud and to fulfil my brother's dream, given he wasn't with us anymore, to join Vic Pol.
Sophie Raynor
And I wanted to ask about the relatively short period between your brother’s death and your entry to the academy. Partly because of his own goals, but was it a police officer who delivered you the news of his passing?
Dean McGowan
Yes, it was. And now that I'm 51, you know that the last 10 or 20 years, you start to realise that you have great influence as a police officer and not only to influence others internally, the organisation, but certainly the community at large and outside. And it's with those steps that I always thought that, you know, there were instances when I was young, that if we got caught what we were doing, there is no way that I would have been a police officer for 33 years and that career would have been lost and my life would have been lost in the sense of, of that, you look back and it was normal in the early 80s to, for people to take mum and dad's car for a joyride on the weekend. It was normal at Preston East Tech there was a couple of undesirables that used to shoplift every day. Thankfully, that wasn't me. But you know, it was, it was where I was put into compromising situations. And what I didn't know at the time, my mentors, those informal people in my life, not mum and dad, because if they would have found out what I was up to, and having sleepovers where I shouldn't have, they would have crucified me. But it's those informal people that you don't realise at the time that give you a lecture, or grab you by the ears and sit you down and tell you where you're at. And that if you continue to go down this pathway, you're not gonna not only graduate from school, you could end up on the wrong side of law. So sometimes it's just the flip of the coin when some young kids get into trouble. And I think that's where I fear at the moment that some young people at the moment have been given a life sentence for exercising their youthfulness, and perhaps pushing the boundaries in certain circumstances. And, you know, giving people a second chance is something that resonates with me and helping them and giving them a chance in life, so that they can get a leg up is what it's all about.
Sophie Raynor
And giving them a chance – you still feel that way after thirty years of being face-to-face with kids doing the wrong thing?
Dean McGowan
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see drugs and alcohol influence crime right across the board, they always have, and given the road toll deaths and the funding that comes from alcohol and licensing and the fees, you know, we focus a lot on alcohol. But what seems to fly under the radar is people's habitual habits and drug tendencies to lean towards harder drugs that get them hooked, and they lead them down a pathway where things turn very sour very quickly. And not only do they become dependent and have a habit and have a drug habit, which they need to fund, that then leads to the broken windows effect of crime. And that is, generally people start off with low-level street crime or shoplifting or leaving their place dishevelled not moving the front lawn, leaving crap all over the place, making it look bad and things start to progress into more serious crime into robberies or, you know, rolling people for their phone down at the railway station and stuff like that. But what I've seen in a change in in policing is that broken windows effect, or that graduation of crime for want of a better word, tended to not be as prevalent because kids are much more exposed to pornography and middle-aged teenagers are seeing stuff that boggles my mind as an old man. And you know, they're also exposed to crime habits or easily more connected to their friends that may be up to no good and when you're bored, or you're not engaged in sport, or music, or you tend to get engaged with others that are perhaps doing the wrong thing. So you know that the internet has been a revelation for want of a better word with the progression of crime. So the last sort of five to 10 years, I've seen kids with no criminal history and no offending graduate to home invasions and doing horrific crimes that we would never have dreamed off as kids, you know, it's a totally different cohort. But now they're just young kids that have made poor – very poor decisions. And there's a lot of other instances or other pieces to the pie that make that more prevalent, but it's also one of them.
Sophie Raynor
And we were talking about some of those other pie pieces a little while ago, and you mentioned to me the importance of good communication and community members being aware of and supportive of one another. Is that something that you’ve incorporated into your policing?
Dean McGowan
We often speak around not only offenders, but also victims that you'd like to think you've had a profound influence on or, you know, the motorists that you'd pulled over and didn't get a ticket, but gave them a lecture and, and how their life turned out.
And that's something where you can't close the loop on in policing. It's one of those challenges where you'll never know, and particularly even at suicides of young kids that have been through a very rough time and chose an unfortunate pathway to do that, other siblings around them, more often than not, people don't interact with the police and you know, on those really, really awful events, you do think of not only the victims, but also of young kids that perhaps made a grave mistake and whether or not their life turned out well… and I think if I reflect back on myself, without mum and dad there, I would have fallen through the cracks. And without my saxophone teacher and another music and drama teacher, there were two of them at the time that didn't give me the lecture. And at the time, you don't know it's a lecture, you don't know what's going to be pivotal in your life either. But with age and with more wisdom, you get to reflect back on some changing moments in your life on who did influence you. And yeah, I've always thought you choose mentors… you choose your own mentors in life, but sometimes it's the people that you least expect to have the most profound impact on where you’re at.
Sophie Raynor
Yeah. So, something that I’m thinking about is that Y in the road that we were talking about earlier, where things for you could have gone one way or another. I know as a police officer, you have some discretion available to you, to decide whether or not to arrest a young person. Can you tell me more about that?
Dean McGowan
There's 1000 scenarios to that, Sophie, and historically it's around whether it's a serious or indictable offense, serious, indictable offense, and unfortunately, even stealing the Mars bar from Coles or the local shop is a quite a serious offense in the eyes of the law. So when it comes to those, really, your discretion is very limited, and you're open to a pathway to put someone before the courts to make a decision. Historically, policing isn't about handing out summary justices or handing out outcomes that the community – which the which the courts represent – do, so from a Victoria Police perspective, it's merely our job to exercise the laws that the governing power or the governing body in in at the certain time has, and if you step back to young kids, if they're minor offenses, and you know, you do pride yourself on having a sixth sense at times whether or not a kid's you know, good and you know, they're riding their bike without a helmet, or there might be up to no good running around running a little mini bike somewhere, whatever it is, but low-level offenses, you certainly do have discretion. But you do record that, that interaction and you make sure that the kid’s on… maintains some pathway. But if you go back to a more formal process, if you have to arrest a young kid over the age of 10, and there's a lot of discussion at the moment that 10 is too young for someone to form mens rea. If you do arrest someone, there are processes that our justice system has in place and that is not only can you deliver a caution or a formal warning, you can also summons him to go to court. And the magistrate or the judge at the time will make do assessment on where the kid’s at, why they committed those offenses and what is in the community's best interest to move forward.
Sophie Raynor
And before we get to that discussion you just mentioned about the age of criminal responsibility, I want to ask you one more question about a kid being set on a criminal path. Worth A Second Chance held a webinar in July where we learnt that it’s not just a prison sentence, or an arrest, that appears on a person’s criminal record… it’s any appearance before a magistrate, including matters that are immediately dismissed. So you could apply for a job and say honestly that you believe you don’t have a record, and they do a check and then think you’re hiding something, because 10 years ago you had one appearance before a magistrate that didn’t go anywhere. It’s harming your job-hunting and your future, without you even knowing.
Dean McGowan
Sophie, you've taken the words out of my mouth, and I only mentioned to my son on the weekend that making runs in cricket, it doesn't say in the score sheet how you hit the four, it just says a four. It doesn't say that you look like Don Bradman or come off an edge got dropped and went for four, but it's the same with that conviction on your conviction sheet or even an exchange with Victoria Police where you've been issued a caution. All it says is a theft. It doesn't tell you the story behind or the words behind why it was a theft and what circumstances were there. And 20 years down the track, someone reading that would literally would dispel you or think that you're dishonest for not disclosing it in in the first place if you're applying for a government or a Victorian Police job or a courts job. And then secondly, we would hold you to account for signing a document that not disclosing it. Whereas, you know, you go back to your 14-year-old kid, you'd think you’d be good for 12 months, and she'll be right, and clearly it isn't. And what we know now is young boys’ minds don't grow of age till they're about 25, I think I've read, and that'd be certainly reflected in the road toll and driving behaviours of kids behaving like idiots behind the wheel. So you go back to a 12-year-old or even a 16-year-old in your instance of 17, going to university with a huge HECS debt, you know, you don't think at the time how you're going to deal with it, what consequences the result of my choice at this point in life. Growing up is a wise thing.
Sophie Raynor
Growing up’s a wise thing. Thanks, Dean.
That was Dean McGowan speaking to Worth a Second Chance about policing, community safety, and second chances.
Worth a Second Chance is a community campaign from Jesuit Social Services. We’re calling for a more fair, humane and effective youth justice system – and we need your help. Learn more, and join the campaign at worthasecondchance.com.au
Thanks to Dean McGowan for speaking with me today, and you can find new conversations every second Wednesday. My name is Sophie Raynor, and this was Worth A Second Chance.