Governance is Policing for New South Wales - myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about theGovernance is Policing for New South Wales. Answer: 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 Ombudsmans Office (PDOO). The author has also considered the Wood Royal Commissions first interim repo rt 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 bodies the Police Integrity System (PIC) and Police Division of the Ombudsmans 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 bodys primary role is to receive and adjudicate complaints of corruption and various ot her 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 bodies similar to the system in NSW (Marks and Sklansky 2014). The author deems this unstable and recommends that this model would not be appropriate for NSW. The commonwealths 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 (Hutchins 2014). 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 commonwealths jurisdiction and the compliance issues it would create at a federal level. 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. Reference list: 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 Hutchins, H., 2014. Police resources in Canada, 2013.Juristat: Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, p.1. https://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2015001/article/14146-eng.pdf Justice.nsw.gov.au. (2018). [online] Available at: https://www.justice.nsw.gov.au/justicepolicy/Documents/review-police-oversight/review-police-oversight-final-report.pdf#page34 [Accessed 5 Apr. 2018]. Marks, M. and Sklansky, D. eds., 2014.Police reform from the bottom up: officers and their unions as agents of change. Routledge. https://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2015001/article/14146-eng.pdf Newburn, T., 2015. Literature review: police integrity and corruption. https://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. https://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.169-181.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