By Julie Ryan
Governments' failure to provide adequate powers and resources to police oversight bodies in Australia has been instrumental in hindering their effectiveness, according to police accountability expert Dr Colleen Lewis.
Dr Lewis, a lecturer in Monash's Centre for Police and Justice Studies, is critical of the role governments often play in disempowering the very organisations they have set up to deal with issues of police misconduct.
"In response to public criticism about the lack of police accountability, every Australian state had, by the mid-1980s, introduced some form of civilian oversight body to investigate complaints against police," Dr Lewis says.
But according to Dr Lewis, the establishment of some of these bodies was a half-hearted attempt on the part of governments - a response to electorate displeasure about a system that had allowed dishonest and unscrupulous police to abuse their power and the community's trust.
She argues that once these independent avenues for complaint are established, they often find their hands tied because governments give them insufficient powers and inadequate funding.
"In most Australian states, police used their considerable influence with governments to limit the scope of civilian participation in the investigative stage of the complaints process," Dr Lewis explains. "Except for very serious misconduct allegations, many oversight bodies are only entitled to become involved after an internal investigation is completed."
A more disturbing aspect to the lack of effectiveness of oversight bodies, according to Dr Lewis, is the funding hold that governments have over them. "Even if governments give oversight bodies all the power they need to work effectively, if they don't provide them with adequate resources they can't fully utilise those powers."
A major reason for governments' lack of follow-through support is that the findings of these organisations are invariably negative. "Inevitably, these oversight bodies are bearers of bad news for governments, either directly, by implicating politicians in misconduct investigations, or indirectly, because the overall accountability of public servants, including the police, rests with governments," Dr Lewis says.
Since these organisations were first set up, police reform has been considerable and ongoing, with the most famous examples, the Fitzgerald Inquiry and the Wood Royal Commission, exposing disturbing information about the extent and scope of corruption in the Queensland and New South Wales police forces.
The Fitzgerald Inquiry resulted in the establishment of the Criminal Justice Commission (CJC), which Dr Lewis describes as possibly the most innovative and advanced civilian oversight model in the world.
According to Dr Lewis, the CJC's uniqueness stems from its holistic approach. Most bodies which oversee complaints against police are confined through legislation and/or budgetary constraints to a reactive role. This band-aid approach treats the symptoms only of police misconduct. The CJC has both a reactive arm and a research and corruption prevention arm, giving it scope to delve into the causes of misconduct and offer solutions.
Dr
Lewis says that for a police oversight body to be truly effective, it must be
given key operating functions, including the capacity to be involved in the
investigative procedure at the start of the complaints process, an appeal mechanism,
and the civil, rather than the more difficult to prove criminal, standard of
proof.
Once independent watchdogs are set up,
says Dr Colleen Lewis, they often find
their hands tied because of
insufficient powers or funding.