Managers and, for our purpose, police leaders can seek to minimise the power of external environmental elements over them by adopting a number of strategies (see for example, Kickert et al. 1997; Perri 6 et al. 2002). Thompson (1967: 32-3) refers to competitive strategies, one example of which is the development and maintenance of alternative sources of needed resources. The recruitment of police officers from a relatively small pool has meant that finding alternative sources has been a preoccupation for Australian police leaders.
In the face of unusually high attrition rates, many Australian police organisations have, in recent years, needed to negotiate the difficulties of recruiting police officers. The lack of suitable applicants has been compounded by a number of issues. The AFP’s continued involvement with international deployment activity has seen the secondment of several state and territory officers to overseas postings indefinitely. The growth of the AFP’s national counter-terrorism activities in Australia has required a significant increase in specialist personnel. It is common knowledge that the AFP is successfully enticing such specialist staff from the States and Territories. Rather than relying on poaching officers from other Australian jurisdictions and/or hoping for an increase in interested parties, many States are now competing against each other in the quest for recruits. Most jurisdictions are looking carefully at alternative recruitment sources. Strong economic booms in Queensland and Western Australia (WA) have seen many officers abandon policing for lucrative jobs in the States’ mining industries. At the present time, WA Police is competing with jurisdictions, not only in Australia but also in the United Kingdom, to recruit British police officers. In the past year, South Australian police leaders have successfully recruited over 200 trained officers from Britain.
Acquiring prestige is another important competitive strategy. As Thompson notes (1967: 33), ‘Acquiring prestige is the “cheapest” way of acquiring power’. It is a strategy whereby organisations create and maintain a ‘favourable image of the organisation in its salient publics’. This is crucial when support from external constituencies is required to control, or reduce dependency. Prestige is acquired in a number of ways, most obviously in the representative role of the Commissioner.
The representative role of police leaders is now an accepted part of a police leader’s portfolio. An examination of one police leader’s diaries reveal that the external representative role in the years 2001-05 took up almost 60% of the Commissioner’s working time. Apart from extensive engagement with the media over this period the interactive role includes formal meetings with the Police Minister, meetings with other government figures (including opposition members), meetings with the Ombudsman, working on external committees, parliamentary estimate hearings, liaising with the police union and various other activities that involve working closely with a variety of external organisations and networks. By far the more time-consuming work is the Commissioner’s ‘community role’. Official ceremonies, invited speeches and attending social gatherings as ‘Commissioner’ takes up the bulk of the external constituency work. The work is regarded as crucial in maintaining the organisation’s positive and prestigious profile in the community.[1]
Cooperative strategies — or tactics as Perri 6 et al. (2002: 126) refer to them — are increasingly utilised by police leaders. Thomson talks about contracting or bargaining (Thompson 1967: 34-6). Elkin (1975: 175) refers to ‘exchange’ whereby an organisation may negotiate a deal with another organisation on which it may depend for resources. In Australia, the police union movement is active, politically manipulative and not reluctant to flex its industrial muscle where necessary (Fleming and Marks 2004). The organisations are staffed by professional industrial advocates and non-police personnel. Working police officers form an executive which oversees activities. The organisations have significant amounts of money and are a formidable external presence for Australian police organisations. In most jurisdictions the unions enjoy almost 100% membership. Most police leaders have, in recent years, been required to bargain either in a formal industrial relations context with their respective unions or in a more public setting where unions are threatening to withdraw resources if their needs or demands are not met. Such scenarios have, in recent years, become quite common in specific States. The degree to which the police organisation has been able to develop ‘a favourable image … in its salient publics’ is often important in the context of community support and also when bargaining situations have to be negotiated by third parties (Fleming and Lafferty 2001).
Another cooperative strategy is that of penetration (Elkin 1975: 175), whereby an organisation places its own personnel into the organisation in which it is dependent. Two short examples illustrate the point. As national security and technological crime become a central focus for police organisations, knowledge becomes an important commodity. Many organisations seek out the information by placing their own personnel into organisations that have this information. So for example, senior officers in Australia have been seconded to the nation’s airline in order to understand and develop strategies around aviation security. Similarly, technological challenges for police have meant close ties with computer technology organisations as together they seek to curtail the rising levels of cybercrime.
Knowledge-driven strategies or tactics are defined by Perri et al. (2002: 127) as those which seek to create a ‘specialist structure for knowledge creating and sharing’. In Elkin’s terms this could also be referred to as ‘penetration’. The emphasis in Australia on police professionalism, tertiary education and the importance of evidence-based research in policing has led to all jurisdictions collaborating with universities and other knowledge based institutions to deliver education and training services and to engage in research that will inform police policy and practice. We now talk about ‘police research networks’ (Bradley et al 2006).
Illustrating this strategy further is the recent establishment of the Australia and New Zealand Policing Advisory Agency (ANZPAA). In an effort to provide stronger support to police commissioners and collaborate effectively across the jurisdictions, Australian police commissioners have brought together 17 agencies previously committed to research, policy advice, training and education initiatives and a variety of police advisory forums to form a cross-jurisdictional organisation. ANZPAA is staffed by police personnel and trained researchers and the emphasis is on knowledge-management and information sharing. ANZPAA’s role will be to develop research and policy and provide strategic advice and support to the Australian and New Zealand Police Commissioners. This knowledge-driven strategy allows for a range of occupational experts, researchers and consultants to engage in advocacy to build an environment and culture, in which police commissioners can direct their resources to attaining knowledge they require and in the format they prefer, rather than relying solely on university researchers, monitoring databases and official state statistics for their information. Such a prestigious organisation will assist in facilitating information sharing across a variety of organisations and will assist in building and sharing information with those among whom they seek integration (Perri 6 et al. 2002: 126-7). Such a structure has created a ‘specialist structure for knowledge creating and sharing’. It also allows police commissioners to identify their favoured research areas and control the dissemination of the findings.
A final example can be identified using Elkin’s discussion of the ‘socialisation of conflict’ whereby the focal organisation attempts to involve other actors in a particular issue in order to broaden the scope of discussion and/or possibilities in an attempt to alter the balance of opinion and resources confronting the organisation (Elkin 1975: 173-5).
In July 2007, following a suicide attack at Glasgow airport in Scotland, the AFP apprehended Dr Haneef trying to leave Australia. He was held without charge under new laws that allowed terrorism suspects to be detained indefinitely without questioning. The charges were dropped soon after, although his working visa was revoked on ‘character grounds’. A political controversy arose around immigration policy and the extent to which the AFP had played into the hands of a government seeking to impose its anti-terrorist policies ahead of an imminent federal election. The media focus compelled everyone involved to seek mitigating circumstances for their actions.
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) admitted to mistakes, blaming an ‘over-worked prosecutor for undue haste’. The AFP Commissioner’s strategy was to deflect effectively the onus of responsibility by pointing the finger elsewhere. Despite discrepancies in the interview process (the transcript of which was made public by Haneef’s lawyers) and a court affidavit, and despite the British authorities disputing the AFP’s account of the affair, the AFP response was to widen the scope of conflict.
In the first instance, the AFP Commissioner made formal complaints to the Legal Services Commission about Haneef’s legal team releasing information to the media during an inquiry. Effectively such an action meant that the lawyer in question could be struck off the Register of Barristers. Such a strategy ensured front-page headlines and high profile debate. The Commissioner publicly refuted the way in which Australian courts operated, arguing that, ‘The courts … are going to need to change the way they view evidence, witnesses and forensics’. His railing against the ‘court of public opinion’ and the irresponsible media ‘hampering the efforts of police’ was widely reported in the media. The Commissioner’s allegations that he had advised the DPP that the evidence was weak, but that ‘the police were obliged to charge Haneef on the prosecutor’s advice’ was also widely reported. Despite the obvious blunderings of the organisation, his assertions to a Senate Committee hearing that there was no need for the AFP to ‘alter our policies or alter our approaches’ compounded the organisation’s efforts to widen the scope of conflict in the political arena.
By altering the balance of opinion in the public arena and diluting the onus of responsibility, the AFP Commissioner had effectively in, Elkin’s terms, ‘socialised the conflict’. While many media outlets commented on the Commissioner’s attitude that ‘everyone was to blame but him,’ the strategy was successful. At one point it looked like the Commissioner would lose his job but the moment passed as ‘ongoing inquiries’ have served to defer a conclusion to the affair.
These examples have sought to demonstrate the way in which police organisations can manage dependence and minimise the power of external environmental elements. Such strategies are not mutually exclusive. For example, the AFP and its standing in the community (a standing that the AFP and its public relations department work on fervently) was frequently commented on in the media at the same time it was vilifying the organisation’s behaviour in the Haneef case. The prestige of the organisation became a mitigating factor that the AFP could fall back on in the face of a barrage of external criticism.