Preserving institutional memory in Australian police services (2003)

Recent years have seen significant ana monumental changes in policing. To be a police officer a generation or two ago, one had to be big enough; today, one has to be smart enough. During this (crudely characterised) transitional period, a number of Australian police commissioners drove and presided over organisational, cultural and operational change. We at the Australian Institute of Criminology thought it would be valuable to capture the frank and candid observations of police commissioners who were in office while these changes were taking place. Following a commitment of confidentiality and non-identification, interviews were recorded on behalf of the AIC by a retired police commissioner, and the tapes of these interviews are now in the process of being analysed. These oral histories will eventually be lodged with the National Library of Australia. The existing tapes cover the experiences of 10 commissioners. The AIC would very much like to conduct interviews of this nature with all commissioners as they retire, so as to develop a unique repository of knowledge and observations on change in our police services. This paper by Or Benoit Dupont, who is analysing the tapes, is an initial outline of some of the unique material, and a precursor to future analytical papers from this rich information source. Adam Graycar Director In times of unprecedented economic and social change, police services in Australia and elsewhere are being asked to address a growing number of complex- and sometimes conflicting- issues. Police organisations are not limited to their traditional crime detection and law enforcement functions anymore. They are being reshaped into knowledge brokers (Ericson & Haggerty 1997), social service referrers, or problem solvers (Goldstein 1990)- to name just a few of their responsibilities. It is not the aim of this paper to list the causes of this complexity in policing, but the globalisation of criminal activity and increased demands for improved services and community consultation have played a significant role to this end. The constraints of fiscal austerity, the imposition by governments of shorter policy cycles and the dilution of power that has accompanied the new managerialism have created additional pressures for police services and tested their ability to successfully implement change. In the past decades, public enquiries and royal commissions have been highly critical of police agencies and their reluctance to adjust to this environment (Lusher 1981; Fitzgerald 1989; Wood 1997). Academic commentators have also made vigorous contributions to the debate on police reform, highlighting structural, cultural and managerial deficiencies (Chan 1997; Dixon 1999, 2001; Goldsmith 2001; Palmer & Cherney 2001). Amid this barrage of criticisms, very few studies have attempted to examine on a systematic basis what police leaders are doing to steer their organisations towards more effective and efficient practices, and how they are doing it. This type of knowledge is nevertheless essential in order to understand what makes certain police services more or less successful, whatever the accepted measure of success might be. Police commissioners play a central role in the definition of goals and objectives that satisfy governments and civil society. The media and political leaders often attribute the successes and failures of police reforms to the commissioners7 skills and vision, or lack thereof. Their leadership exerts a strong influence on the structure of the organisation and how it interacts with its environment. The publication of personal memoirs has been a long tradition among police leaders, who have followed the example of Fouche (1825), the French father of modern high policing. These hagiographie accounts of their careers may provide titillating details about certain high-profile incidents, but they are mainly intended for popular authences (for the most recent examples of this trend, see Williams 2002; Whitrod 2001; and, in the American context, Bratton & Knobler 1998). …