Critical Analysis: Governance and Policing Through Police Oversight

This report critically reviews police oversight in New South Wales, focusing on the recommendations made by the Tink Report, which evaluated the existing oversight bodies like the Police Integrity System (PIC) and the Police Division of the Ombudsman’s Office (PDOO). It assesses the proposal for a singular oversight body, comparing it to models in Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, and Queensland, ultimately arguing against its effectiveness in NSW due to the need for clear bifurcation of powers and accountability. The report also challenges the recommendation to recognize the NSW Police Force as the sole competent authority for investigating critical incidents, citing potential conflicts with commonwealth jurisdiction and the risk of arbitrary power use. The analysis concludes that while the Tink Report raises vital considerations, its recommendations contain gaps that could lead to unregulated scenarios, emphasizing the need for well-defined mechanisms and comprehensive coverage of potential hindrances in any reform implementation. Desklib offers this report and many other resources to aid students in their studies.

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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

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bodies similar to the system in NSW (Findlay, Odgers and Yeo 2015). The author deems this
unstable and recommends that this model would not be appropriate for NSW. The
commonwealth’s oversight system is almost identical to the one in NSW and hence the author
does not interpret this as a credible system for police oversight either.
The above analysis shows that various jurisdictions have implemented single oversight
bodies but would be pretty ineffective in light of the prevailing conditions in NSW. This is
mainly due to the need for a clear bifurcation of the powers and functions. Accountability is also
an issue when all powers and functions are carried out by a single body ad it may give rise to
arbitrary and discretionary use of powers (Cordner 2016). Furthermore, it is clearly visible that
overlapping and improperly defined powers leads to gaps in the overall oversight carried out by
the body. These reasons mandate the existence of multiple bodies each of which can be held
accountable of separate well defined functions.
The second recommendation evaluated here is the 42nd recommendation made by the
author. This recommendation provides for the recognition of the NSW Police Force as the only
agency competent to carry out investigations in case of critical incidents. Critical incidents are
not defined in NSW laws however the definition has developed over the years through NSW
Police Force Professional Standards and stands for incidents that involve law enforcement
professionals and the death or serious injury to a person (Prenzler, Porter and Alpert 2013). This
recommendation however can be deemed to be flawed from its inception. It ignores the
occurrence of the commonwealth’s jurisdiction and the compliance issues it would create at a
federal level.

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The federal jurisdictional issue aside this would also provide the NSW Police force with
an opportunity for arbitrary use of their powers. This mainly follows the logic that if NSW Police
is taken as the only competent authority to investigate a critical incident it would also have to be
under the oversight of the newly formed commission (Palmer and Warren 2013). However, the
singular body that would already be overburdened with various responsibilities would not be
able to adequately deal with critical incidents. This is mainly due to the wide variety of functions
which it must undertake. This would also be counter-productive to the entire concept of
oversight over the NSW Police Force.
To conclude, the Tink Report considers all vital considerations to be taken into account to
create and employ a functional singular body for police oversight. However, there are gaps in the
recommendations that create conflicting situations that could eventually lead to unregulated
scenarios when practically implemented. Thus when employing such a reform all mechanisms
amended must be well defined and must cover all possible hindrances that may come up. The
key would be to identify if a singular body could ideally oversee all police activities without
arbitrarily using its powers.

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Reference list:
Cordner, G.W., 2016. Police administration. Routledge.
Den Heyer, G. and Beckley, A., 2013. Police independent oversight in Australia and New
Zealand. Police Practice and Research, 14(2), pp.130-143.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alan_Beckley/publication/283796290_Police_Independent
_Oversight_in_Australia_and_New_Zealand/links/57aba88608ae42ba52af0ce0/Police-
Independent-Oversight-in-Australia-and-New-Zealand.pdf
Findlay, M., Odgers, S. and Yeo, S.M.H., 2015. Australian criminal justice. Oxford University
Press.
Justice.nsw.gov.au. (2018). [online] Available at:
http://www.justice.nsw.gov.au/justicepolicy/Documents/review-police-oversight/review-police-
oversight-final-report.pdf#page34 [Accessed 5 Apr. 2018].
Newburn, T., 2015. Literature review: police integrity and corruption.
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/68126/1/Newburn_literature-review%201.pdf
Palmer, D. and Warren, I., 2013. Zonal banning and public order in urban Australia. Policing
cities: Urban securitisation and regulation in a 21st century world, pp.79-96.
http://dro.deakin.edu.au/eserv/DU:30055504/warren-zonalbanning-2013.pdf
Porter, L.E., 2013. Beyond ‘oversight’: a problem-oriented approach to police reform. Police
Practice and Research, 14(2), pp.169-

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181.https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au/bitstream/handle/10072/55815/88114_1.pdf
%3Bsequence=1
Prenzler, T., Porter, L. and Alpert, G.P., 2013. Reducing police use of force: Case studies and
prospects. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 18(2), pp.343-356.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Geoffrey_Alpert2/publication/
257525619_Reducing_police_use_of_force_Case_studies_and_prospects/links/
5a254f394585155dd41ef6f8/Reducing-police-use-of-force-Case-studies-and-prospects.pdf