The evolution of police oversight in Australia

Abstract

This paper reviews developments in police oversight in the last decade in Australia's eight jurisdictions. Significant variation remains in the structure and responsibilities of oversight agencies, but there has been an ongoing trend towards replacing an ombudsman model with a public sector-wide commission model. There has also been a general convergence in terms of increased powers and an enlarged range of anti-corruption tactics. Change has been driven by ongoing revelations of misconduct or concerns about potential misconduct by police, public servants and politicians. Despite improvements it is argued that there is considerable room for better practice, especially in enlarging the scope of independent investigations and adjudication by integrity commissions.

Corruption in sport: From the playing field to the field of policy

“…As Caiden (2001) rightly points out, neither definition leaves space for 'noble cause' corruption -where power is abused in the pursuit of a public, rather than personal gain. To illustrate, noble cause corruption occurs whenever police purposely use unlawful techniques to secure evidence of a crime; it follows from a legal perspective that any conviction manifesting from such a process is corrupt (see Prenzler, 2009Prenzler, , 2011Sherman, 1978Sherman, , 1974. Similarly, Barcham, Hindess, and Larmour (2012) demonstrate that variation in what is commonly understood to be corruption is rooted in particular societies and particular times.…”

Corruption: Classification and analysis

“…Corrupt organisations have been built on corrupt cultures as we saw in the state of Queensland (Australia) in the 1970s and 1980s where ministers and civil servants took huge financial benefits from corporations they were regulating; where police ran gambling and prostitution and were protected by politicians who also benefitted, and who legislated the very poor policy that created opportunities for the corrupt culture to flourish (Condon, 2013;Prenzler, 2011;Wanna & Arklay, 2010a;Williams, 1991). Cultures of "pay to play" have influenced policy directions and gaming of systems has distorted policy and created cultures of corruption (Lessig, 2011;Salter, 2010).…”

“…Over the years there have been a small number of experiences of politicians making corrupt and inappropriate decisions, taking payments from corporations, engaging in activities that demonstrate conflict of interest, and when instances of such behavior become public they receive a great deal of media attention and community abhorrence (Condon, 2013;Prenzler, 2011;Wanna & Arklay, 2010b). In 1988 the state of New South Wales, the largest state (by population) established an anti-corruption agency, the ICAC, (modelled on the Hong Kong ICAC) and over the next 25 years each of the states established an anti-corruption authority of some sort.…”

Making Corruption Disappear in Local Government

“…State level integrity systems have been further scrutinized in other work , particularly in relation to NSW (Cripps, 2008;Smith, 2008), which led the way since the establishment of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) a quarter of a century ago. Similarly, Queensland with a rich history of political and police corruption has been carefully scrutinized over the years (Prenzler, 2009(Prenzler, , 2011Whitrod, 2001;Williams, 1991), while Victoria has been he subject of more recent research (Graycar, 2014).…”