Political Police - A Case Study of the NSW (New South Wales) Special Branch (From Issues in Criminal Justice Administration, P 156-167, 1983, Mark Findlay et al, eds. - See NCJ-92907)

• NCJ Number: 92917
• Author(s): M Findlay
• Date Published: 1983
• Length: 12 pages
• Sale Source: George Allen and Unwin
• Language: English
• Country: Australia

Annotation

The establishment and operation of the New South Wales' Police (Australia) Special Branch to conduct intelligence operations is an extreme example of a new independence for police operations, which removes police activities from public scrutiny.

Abstract

At a conference of state police commissioners in 1948, it was agreed that each force should establish a 'Special Branch' to act as a liaison with military intelligence and units of the Federal Government's 'D Branch,' which later became the Australian Security Intelligence Organization. These Special Branches were to monitor what was loosely termed subversive activity and assist in the maintenance of national security. The Special Branch has over the years developed an extensive system of liaison and cooperation with other State police forces, Federal police, and intelligence agencies. The central concern of the Special Branch is with subversion, while the primary function of the police force as a whole is the countering of illegal acts, whether by prediction and prevention or by investigation and prosecution. The relationship between the function of countering subversion and countering illegal actions is often tenuous and hypothetical, because there is no evidence that the suspected subversives have any present plans to commit any illegal actions. Persons and organzations are deemed by the Special Branch to be potentially subversive often on the basis of unsound criteria set long ago and continued uncritically without review by higher-ranking officers sensitive to policy matters. The powers of the Special Branch are almost entirely discretionary and gain their legitimacy not through public acceptance but rather in a de facto manner. If the operations of the branch can remain secret, then their legitimacy is protected by public ignorance and cannot be effectively challenged. Should the internal definition of police aims and responsibilities develop along the lines of the Special Branch model, then it will not be long before the transition of the police from an agency of government to a government within a government is complete.