ABSTRACT
Police corruption in all its colors may never be eliminated, but each incident caught on camera triggers a flood of calls from the Australian public to hold the police to account. Commentary on police corruption and accountability has featured in countless published books, reports, and academic papers following the three Royal Commissions in 1989, 1997, and 2004, and various inquiries. Rather than chronicling changes in police regulation, a task undertaken by Ross (2007), Prenzler (2011), Finnane (1994), Lewis (2007), and many others, in this chapter, we reflect on the evolution of some recent developments in Australian policing, including changes in management styles and oversight arrangements. Every new incident of police corruption compels the police services to adjust in some way. Our reflections are guided by Luhmann’s notion of “form” that enables us to highlight various distinctions, for example, between internal and external regulations to describe
Forms and Distinctions ..................................................................................... 212 Self-Interest and in the Public Interest ............................................................ 213 Corruption and Accountability ........................................................................ 215 Distrust and Trust .............................................................................................. 215 Written Records/Electronic Communications ................................................216 Instruction on the Job/Training ........................................................................217 Corruption Is Targeted for Attention ...............................................................217 Bad Apples/Rotten Orchards .............................................................................218 Internal/External Regulation: Oversight Agencies ........................................ 220 Shortfalls of Police Oversight: Avenues for New Divisions .......................... 224 Concluding Remarks ......................................................................................... 226 References ............................................................................................................ 226
attempts to address police corruption. No longer are all police investigations hidden, insular, and confined to internal review. Instead, the police in Australian states and territories are regulated variously by external “civilian oversight.” We submit that civilian oversight in some arrangement is now an inevitable appendage or subsystem to police services and deemed necessary in tackling corruption.
