ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 examined how police complaints and discipline systems, including civilian oversight systems, developed over time in response to corruption
Independence ...................................................................................................... 251 Alternative Dispute Resolution ........................................................................ 257 Optimizing Ethical Conduct ............................................................................. 259 Conclusions ......................................................................................................... 262 References ............................................................................................................ 263
scandals, judicial inquiries, and government reviews. e results showed how inquiries and reviews typically identied deciencies in internal complaints investigations and discipline as key contributing factors to endemic misconduct and lack of public condence in police. is malaise included inadequate responses to police whistleblowers. ese inquiry and review ndings then frequently led to in-principle support for independent processes. However, nal recommendations tended to pull punches, reverting to a preference for primary police control of complaint responses. e rationale included the need for police to maintain responsibility for integrity and the supposed lack of investigative competency outside policing. In many cases, a reform package that continued to rely on police management of complaints contributed to further misconduct problems. More broadly, continuing reliance on in-house processes meant that persons making complaints (including police themselves) were denied an impartial hearing grounded in an institutional separation of the accused person from the investigating authority. Consequently, an intrinsic “no-win” situation was perpetuated through a straight out denial of natural justice. e view was summed up in an Australian Law Reform Commission (1995) report (pp. 149-150):
Chapter 2 showed how the idea of independence can be mapped across a spectrum: specically the categories of (1) “insiders” (mainly former police from the same force under scrutiny), (2) “insider outsiders” (former ocers from another force), (3) “outsider insiders” (former investigators from allied regulatory agencies), and (4) “outsiders” (“homegrown” investigators from outside groups 1-3, trained in-house). ere is likely to be a strong correlation between increased proportions of investigators in the direction of group 4 and increased evidence of impartiality and objectivity in the complaint investigation and resolution process. However, as evidenced by practitioner interviews in the chapter, while outsiders might be considered ideal, there are signicant benets to be had from the inclusion of carefully selected investigators from groups 2 and 3 in terms of knowledge, skills, and commitment.
