Australian Police Forces
Profiles

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Two West Australian police officers. Supporting www.toxicpolice.com focus on addressing Australian police toxic culture and misconduct

TOXICPOLICE.COM - EXPOSING AUSTRALIAN POLICE MISCONDUCT

Twenty-first century toxic Australian police behaviour and misconduct is a national problem. Who are the police forces and the other stakeholders and organisations involved in the management and perpetuation of the toxic behaviours?

On this page we maintain published profiles of the state police forces and Australian Federal Police and their key stakeholders.

Police Forces

Each Australian state and territory (except the ACT) funds its own police force, governed by the respective state legislation. In addition, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) investigates Commonwealth (federal) crimes across Australia, as well as crimes that occur in the ACT. The ACTPOL agency is the community policing arm of the AFP.

Here are a few key statistics representing the Australian police forces, to put things into perspective. The numbers are presented as accurately as possible based on publicly available information, which is inconsistent between some forces for some measures.

There are approximately 61,000 sworn officers across all forces.

Total Operating budget across all forces is approximately $19 billion.

Other

Statistics

of interest

More detailed profile data for each of the forces is shown below.

Police Commissioners

Each police force is headed up by a commissioner. They are career cops and the highest-ranked police officer in their force. They are responsible for the overall management, strategic planning and policy of their force and are accountable to the relevant state or federal parliament and a designated government minister.

They also oversee the force's operations and are charged with ensuring it effectively serves the community and upholds the law, as well as being involved in community engagements, public communication and media relations. Typically, commissioners have risen through the ranks of their force, or another one, and bring with them all the inbred Australian police cultural values and behaviours.

Police Ministers

The role of each police minister is to oversee the police force within their state or territory. It involves ensuring it effectively fulfills its duties, and representing the police in government and public matters. The police minister is accountable for the overall performance and management of the police force in their jurisdiction. This includes strategic planning, funding and resource allocation, and ensuring the police force is operating effectively. They play a key role in developing and implementing policies related to policing and law enforcement. They also work on legislation related to policing, often in consultation with their department and other stakeholders.

They represent the police force in government and to the public. In some cases, the police minister may also be involved in coordinating with other government agencies or jurisdictions on law enforcement matters. Police ministers generally do not get involved in public discussions about toxic police behaviours, preferring that to be handled by the appointed Crime and Corruption Commissioner (or similarly titled police oversight organisation) or Police Commissioner.

Police Professional Standards Units

In Australia Police Professional Standards Units (PSU's) are responsible for investigating allegations of misconduct by their own police officers, both criminal and professional. They are meant to play a role in maintaining police integrity and accountability by investigating complaints, identifying misconduct, and recommending disciplinary actions. These units also work to prevent misconduct through training, policy development, and promoting ethical conduct within the force.

In practice, as the PSU’s are staffed by serving sworn police officers from the same force, the pervasive organisational focus on protecting the force’s reputation at almost any cost makes it difficult for the PSU’s to conduct objective internal investigations: individual PSU officer’s internal relationships and careers are at risk if they adversely find against fellow officers, except in the most serious of cases. In the cases we describe below there are numerous examples where this lack of true independence and objectivity is demonstrable. PSU’s will generally side with accused officers, by default.

The Australian police practice of investigating themselves is probably the most serious impediment to stamping out toxic police behaviours. Why not extend it and let criminals investigate their misdemeanours? Or speeding motorists decide if they were speeding? It’s the same thing. The police fox is investigating the police fox in the chicken coup. What could possibly go wrong?

Independent Watchdogs

Independent Watchdog organisations oversee and investigate the Australian police forces to ensure integrity and accountability. They investigate allegations of serious misconduct, corruption, and organized crime, and have the power to review police actions and conduct investigations.

A major issue in Australia in relation to toxic police behaviours is that police commissioners are not legally compelled to respond to recommendations from their independent watchdog bodies. The latter can investigate misconduct and make recommendations, but they typically don't have the power to directly enforce those recommendations. Since Australian police forces utilise their internal Professional Standards Units to investigate complaints about their own force’s toxic police behaviours, Australian Crime and Corruption organisations are largely toothless in addressing toxic police behaviours. The farmer can’t shoot the fox in the chicken coop, and this is another major impediment to rooting out police toxicity.

Police Unions

In Australia, police unions advocate for the rights and welfare of police officers, influencing policy, and promoting professionalism within the police force. They act as industrial representatives, providing legal and welfare support, and engaging in political lobbying to improve pay, working conditions, and resource allocation.

Police unions defend members against disciplinary actions, legal challenges, and public criticism. Whilst this is an important function to ensure that officers are fairly represented in cases involving accusations of toxic behaviour, it’s arguable that in many of the published examples unions demand treatment of officers that requires a lower standard of behaviour than that expected of members of the public. It’s as if officers deserve more leniency than others simply because they’ve previously been good public servants. Many would argue that as police officers a higher standard of behaviour should be expected.