Review of Police Oversight: A Critique

Running head: GOVERNANCE IS POLICING
GOVERNANCE IS POLICING
Name of the Student
Name of the Universities
Author Note

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Article Review: REVIEW OF POLICE OVERSIGHT- A Critique
The author was commissioned to evaluate police oversight in New South Wales through
Letters Patent in 2015. He submits that such an evaluation would be particularly difficult to
undertake due to the fact the police are expected to take carefully measured steps that consider
all possible consequences however in practicality in an urgent situation the police neither have
the time nor the opportunity to consider protocol due to the risk of failure of apprehension or
worse. This poses a conflicting situation where officers are expected to adhere to protocol yet are
also expected to think on their feet and respond to a situation as quickly as possible. Thus, when
reviewing the actions of the police there needs to be a balance between both these ideas. In New
South Wales police oversight is undertaken by two different bodies the Police Integrity System
(PIC) and the Police Division of the Ombudsman’s Office (PDOO). The author has also
considered the Wood Royal Commission’s first interim report which was published in 1996
which dealt with the New South Wales Police Service (Justice.nsw.gov.au 2018). The author
then goes on to make recommendations based on these considerations. The aim of this paper is to
evaluate the recommendation of forming a singular oversight body and the recommendation
relating to recognition of the NSW Police as the only body that is competent to investigate
critical incidents. The following paragraphs will evaluate these two recommendations and
analyze their effectiveness based on the present scenario.
The outline of this paper, now that the background of the scenario is established, will
delve into the implications of these recommendations in seriatim.
The first recommendation that will be looked at is the most important recommendation as
it forms the crux of the report by the author. The author recommends that the present regulatory

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bodies the Police Integrity System (PIC) and Police Division of the Ombudsman’s Office
(PDOO) be integrated into one regulatory authority for police oversight. In doing so it does not
however consider integration of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) into
this newly formed body. This is mainly conceptualized from police oversight systems outside
New South Wales. The Australian single regulatory body systems considered by the author were
based in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia and Queensland. These systems are
described and analyzed below.
In Victoria police oversight is regulated by the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption
Commission (IBAC) which was established in 2010 (Den Heyer and Beckley 2013). The IBAC
is a civilian police oversight body. The author however, states that if an anti-corruption
regulatory body such as the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) did exist in
Victoria such a broad-based police oversight model would not be required. However, since NSW
already has such a body in place, it would not be appropriate to implement such an oversight
model in NSW. In South Australia three existing bodies regulate police oversight, Office of the
Police Ombudsman, the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption and the Office for
Public Integrity (Newburn 2015). Two of these, namely, the Independent Commissioner Against
Corruption and Office for Public Integrity are established as two wings of the same body. This
body’s primary role is to receive and adjudicate complaints of corruption and various other
police integrity related claims (Porter 2013). There have been recent recommendations for
consolidation of overlapping powers and thus evidently requires amendment. Thus, as stated by
the author this would not be appropriate model for NSW either. In Western Australian and
Queensland the system followed is a broad-based anti corruption approach. Both these
jurisdictions embody special organized crime investigation functions within these anti corruption