Law enforcement in Australia
Law enforcement in Australia is one of the three major components of the country's justice system, along with courts and corrections.
Other state government agencies may also have investigative or enforcement powers for specific offences within their purview, such as fisheries.
While on duty, an armed law enforcement officer's duty belt generally consists of a handgun, Taser, expandable baton, pepper spray, a set of handcuffs, ammunition magazines, gloves, torch, and a two-way radio.
The boundaries between the two levels of law enforcement are somewhat flexible, and both state and federal police cooperate on or transfer cases between each other depending on the specific circumstances.
These include providing liaison officers to various overseas posts to assist in relations with various police forces overseas, providing community policing to assist in the development of foreign law enforcement agencies, and contributing to peacekeeping operations such as the RAMSI Mission in the Solomon Islands and the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus.
[6] ACIC is formed under the Australian Crime Commission Act, and while the Commission itself does not have full law enforcement powers, law enforcement officers from state and federal agencies are routinely seconded to the ACIC to assist in its functions.
Under the Australian Crime Commission Act ACIC members have a number of coercive powers to gather criminal intelligence.
In practice, the police often carry out the functions of sheriffs and bailiffs in rural and more sparsely populated areas of Australia.
In most states, the sheriff is now largely responsible for enforcing the civil orders and fines of the court by seizing and selling the property of judgment debtors who do not satisfy the debt, providing court security, enforcing arrest warrants, evictions, taking juveniles into custody, and running the jury system.
[20][21] In some States, such as New South Wales, fisheries officers are authorised to carry personal defense equipment like their Federal counterparts.
[22] Council rangers are officers employed by local government areas in Australia to enforce the by-laws (local laws in Western Australia); of those local governments and a limited range of state laws relating to such matters as litter control, animal control, dog and cat laws, fire control, off-road vehicles, emergency management, and parking.
Involvement of state law enforcement in suppressing Indigenous resistance to colonisation has been widely controversial.
The Queensland Native Police Force alone were responsible for an estimated 24,000 "violent Aboriginal deaths" between 1859 and 1897, as calculated by professor Raymond Evans in 2009.
[26] Slavery in Australia was sanctioned by law (before being banned in 1901 following Federation) and was officially upheld by many police forces and government systems.
In the Northern Territory, the Aboriginals Ordinance 1918 (Cth) allowed forced recruitment of Indigenous people and legal non-payment of wages, granting Protectors and police the right to uphold this arrangement.
At the conclusion of the inquiry, several senior police figures and government ministers were charged and jailed for various corruption offences.
The inquiry led to the resignation of then Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen, who was later charged with perjury before the case was abandoned due to a hung jury.
The commission found that there was “systematic and entrenched” corruption within the organization, with adverse findings being made against 284 officers, seven of whom were jailed for various offences.
Historically, police fleets were composed predominantly of domestically built models such as the Holden Commodore and Ford Falcon.
With the demise of Holden and Ford production in Australia, fleets have grown to include models such as the Chrysler 300, BMW 5 Series,[35][36] Kia Stinger,[37] Volkswagen Passat, Mercedes-Benz E-Class, and Hyundai Sonata.
However, primary law enforcement agencies utilise blue and red flashing warning lights.
