Cindy Davids

Policing, Accountability and Citizenship in the Market State

This paper investigates trends in the reform agenda for Victoria Police. These include the implementation of the concept of user pays, outsourcing of ‘non–core’ services, expanded privatisation, corporate sponsorship, customer service, flatter management structures, fixed term contracts for senior officers, and performance targets — changes identified with 1990s economic rationalism, managerialism and the market model. With implications for similar trends internationally, the paper unpacks what these reforms mean in terms of relationships between the community and police (including services, management, and organisation). It raises questions related to what constitutes core tasks of the state, state accountability to the public, public safety, the social costs of economic rationalism, managerialism and the microeconomic reforms of the 1990s. These signal shifts in governance, and changes in the relationship between the citizen and the state.

Conflict of Interest in Policing and the Public Sector

Abstract Conflicts of interest are a key factor in the contemporary decline of trust in government and public institutions, eroding public trust in government and democratic systems. Drawing on two unique empirical studies involving policing and the broader public sector, this paper explores the meaning and dimensions of conflict of interest by examining public complaints about conflict of interest and providing distinctive insights into the nature of conflict of interest as a problem for public sector ethics. The paper analyses and explores appropriate regulatory and management approaches for conflict of interest, focusing on three elements: (1) dealing with private interests that are identifiably problematic in the way they clash with the duties of public officials; (2) managing conflicts as they arise in the course of public sector work (manifested in preferential and adverse treatment, and other problematic areas); and (3) developing ethical and accountable organisational cultures. It is concluded that effective and meaningful public sector ethics in the pursuit of the public interest must be based on an ethos of social accountability and a commitment to prioritise the public interest in both fact and appearance.

Conflict of interest and the private lives of police officers : friendships, civic and political activities

ABSTRACT Dealing with breaches of police ethics that are manifested in the everyday practices of policing is recognised to be a crucial element in preventing upstream corruption. This article considers how a range of identifiable aspects of the private lives of police officers and their off‐duty conduct may have an impact on the performance of official duties. The issues encompass matters relating to inappropriate relationships with criminals, suspects, informers, and persons or businesses of ill repute, the use of the services of a range of regulated industries, such as hotels and brothels, and social use of recreational drugs. Whilst many of these issues seem relatively easy to identify, self‐recognition of the problems on the part of police officers and dealing with them on the part of police management is often more difficult. Central to the problem identified here are the conflicts of interest that are inherent in the divergence between a police officers public duties and their private friendships and involvements. The capacity of private interests to encumber the performance of official duties in a way that leads to the neglect of those duties is at the core of the problem of conflict of interest. The article examines how private involvements in civic, social, and other organised activities, including sporting and social clubs, sports teams, and schools councils can pose conflict of interest problems. More mundane aspects of the private lives of police officers, such as their relationships with friends and neighbours, are also considered. Although a general principle may be argued that as private citizens, police officers should be permitted to engage freely in personal associations and relationships, the article demonstrates how this principle must be qualified in certain circumstances. In addition to regulatory restrictions, it is argued that an enhanced understanding of the problem of conflict of interest is needed on the part of individual police officers and police managers. Recognising various shades of grey in professional integrity and operational decision‐making, and developing an active sense of personal and collective responsibility in complex ethical situations is a necessary precondition to effectively dealing with these problems.

The Global Architecture of Foreign Bribery Control: Applying the OECD Bribery Convention

The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) drew significant international attention to the behaviour of domestic companies doing business overseas with the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (hereafter, ‘the Anti-bribery Convention’, OECD, 1997). Prior to the promulgation of the Convention, although domestic bribery was generally regarded (at least formally) as a criminal offence in most countries (Deming, 2006), the issue of bribery in international business transactions, including those conducted entirely within the borders of another jurisdiction, was rarely considered a criminal offence under respective domestic laws. The USA was the notable exception, having introduced the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) 1977, largely as a response to revelations of domestic and foreign corrupt practices by US businesses (Santangelo et al., 2007). At the time the US government was bitterly criticized by its own companies who argued that the new rules disadvantaged them in the global market (Salbu, 1997). Many observers regard the eventual development of the OECD Convention as, at least in part, a response by pressure from the USA to level the playing field (Baughn et al., 2010). To 2010, 38 countries have implemented domestic legislation in accord with the Convention requirements, criminalizing the practice of pursuing commercial advantage through bribery of public officials in another jurisdiction. This chapter examines and compares the experience of the USA, UK and Australia in terms of the compliance and enforcement framework set down in the Anti-bribery Convention. In the most recent Transparency International (TI) Progress Report on the enforcement record of member states (Heimann and Dell, 2010), it is clear that very few signatory countries are effectively enforcing the Convention’s provisions, with only 7 signatories regarded as ‘active’. While the USA is ranked as ‘active’, the UK was assessed as ‘moderate’ but now ‘active’ (previously described as a ‘laggard’), and Australia is still described as having ‘little or no enforcement’ (see also Heimann and Dell, 2006, 2009).

The Perennial problem of police gratuities : public concerns, political optics, and an accountability ethos

ABSTRACT Despite the perennial nature of the problem of gratuities in considerations of police ethics, many prior analyses of this issue have rested on anecdotal, piecemeal or hypothetical considerations. This paper draws on a unique sample of actual complaint cases involving gratuities, providing evidence of a range of public concerns about the problem. Gratuities are analysed and contextualised by reference to the concept of confl ict of interest, which draws attention to the potential for the performance of public duty to be tainted in fact or appearance. In either case, public trust in the integrity of the police is damaged, giving rise to “political optics” as a key problem with gratuities. The paper argues that an accountability ethos must be developed to promote active responsibility and a preparedness to prioritise the public interest in policing.

Facilitation Payments in International Business Transactions: Law, Accounting and the Public Interest

This chapter considers international dimensions of foreign bribery and the legal regimes that have been put in place to combat this problem, with a particular focus on the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions. The chapter discusses a range of interwoven public interest dimensions of the problem of foreign bribery, with a particular emphasis on the continued acceptability of facilitation payments in some countries. The intersection of accounting and the problem of foreign bribery is shown to be significant in terms of the way certain forms of payment are treated – both in the accounting records of the paying country and in the taxation regimes of their home countries. Accounting “books and records” provisions are also important in the prosecution of foreign bribery matters.

Tightening eligibility for bail for persons on supervision orders in Victoria: repairing a broken system?

Victoria Nourse has observed that political debates about crime legislation are predictable and invariably one-sided because ‘no-one is “for” crime.’1 This certainly appears to be the case with regard to recent proposed changes to the Bail Act 1977 (‘the Act’) by the government of Victoria. The reforms were triggered by the case of Sean Price, an offender with a history of mental disorder, serious offending and lengthy incarceration who was on bail and subject to a supervision order when he murdered Masa Vukotic, raped another woman and assaulted a third person in March 2015. The Premier of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, stated that a bail system that allowed Price to be free and unmonitored was failing the community and pledged to repair ‘a system that is broken.’