ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that viewing the problem of misuse of police information as part of the broader problem of conflict of interest facilitates a clearer perspective on the relationship between these concerns and issues of public trust, police integrity and accountability. It also utilises the social accountability perspective enunciated by Boyce and Davids. The broader concept of social accountability invoked in this chapter takes a bottom-up social, rather than a top-down organisational, perspective in order to address ethical, organisational and cultural dimensions of organisational management. The chapter suggests to include interests such as associations with criminals, commercial or off-the-record relations with journalists, and identifiably problematic forms of outside or secondary employment or business arrangements. Overall, a social accountability framework seeks to nurture proactive accountability through the development of responsibility as both a shared and personal and subjective sense of rightness and good conscience, while accountability judgements can be made by applying an objective standard.
