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| NEWS > 29 December 2007 |
Other related articles:
TV channel focuses on top cop’
MUMBAI — Maharashtra’s controversial top cop P.S. Pasricha, who loves being in the limelight, is ironically discovering that the electronic media is turning out to be his nemesis.
Pasricha’s lucrative trades in properties across different cities in Maharashtra over the past few years have got him into deep trouble, with the state government being forced to order a high-level probe into his alleged accumulation of wealth, and his nexus with builders.
The high-profile Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, who over the past quarter century cultivated an excellent netwo... Read more
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 Article sourced from
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Sydney Morning Herald - Sydney
29 December 2007
This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.
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Police force captive to minist
ONE of the most significant developments for police in the 10 years since the Wood royal commission has been loss of independence due to interventionist, micro-managing NSW police ministers, an independent study has found.
Police numbers, in particular, had become a political symbol, sources both within and outside the police force told the authors, Janet Chan and David Dixon, whose article has been published in the latest edition of the international journal Criminology And Criminal Justice.
"[Ministers] were interventionist and had a tendency to micro-manage, with the result that police operational decisions were no longer independent of political interference," the 11 so-called informants told the authors. "The police, in effect, had become captured by politics."
One informant thought the organisation had become so politically aligned that it had become too weak to resist. "Concerns were raised that political interference has been detrimental to the autonomy and professionalism of the organisation."
The royal commission investigated corruption in the NSW Police Force. Its final report, in 1997, called for a clear distinction between the policy role of the minister and the operational role of the commissioner. It was the only recommendation that the Government explicitly rejected.
The report warned political interference could lead to ill-informed decisions being forced on police. It was hard to see why issues such as the opening of police stations or the creation of a taskforce had anything to do with the minister, it said.
On November 27, the Premier, Morris Iemma, presided with the Commissioner, Andrew Scipione, over the opening of the new Campsie police station.
Changes since the commission include the abolition of the Police Board, which was seen as a buffer between the commissioner and minister. In 2004 police were also stripped of the power to control initiatives with a financial implication.
There has been historic conflict between police commissioners and ministers: in 1992, a breakdown in relations between the minister Ted Pickering and the commissioner Tony Lauer resulted in Mr Pickering's resignation.
Following the Cronulla riots, the Government made a series of law-and-order announcements. One was a trial of Taser guns. The NSW Ombudsman has begun a review of the stun guns, after a string of deaths overseas.
Another was the purchase of a water cannon. As the Herald revealed yesterday, the proposal came from the Government, which was so eager to announce it after the riots that it ignored police advice to carry out trials and conduct broad research.
The Government also passed laws this month taking the power to appoint a temporary police commissioner from the governor and handing it to the police minister. The power applies if the commissioner is sick, on leave or overseas.
Parliament was told the move would streamline a cumbersome administrative process.
The Police Minister, David Campbell, said he had made the operational independence of the NSW Police Force a primary objective since he became minister: "The Commissioner and his force are in place to do a job in protecting and serving the NSW community, and the Government is giving the force the best resources to be able to do it."
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