Illegal Drug Use by Police Officers: Using Research and Investigations to Inform Prevention Strategies1

Date01 March 2009
DOI10.1350/ijps.2009.11.1.112
Published date01 March 2009
Subject MatterArticle
Illegal drug use by police off‌icers: using
research and investigations to inform
prevention strategies1
Angela Gorta
Police Integrity Commission, GPO Box 3880, Sydney, NSW 2001. Tel: + 61 2 9321 6761;
Fax: + 61 2 9321 6799; email: angela.gorta@pic.nsw.gov.au
Received 14 December 2007; accepted, 9 May 2008
Keywords: drugs, drug, police, police use of drugs, Operation Abelia,
police integrity, police corruption, police misconduct
Dr Angela Gorta
is the Principal Analyst at the
New South Wales Police Integrity Commission,
based in Sydney, Australia. Her work focuses on
using research to identify ways of minimising
police corruption and serious misconduct. Prior
to working at the Police Integrity Commission, Dr
Gorta was the Research Manager at the Inde-
pendent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC),
an agency established to expose and minimise
corruption in the New South Wales public
sector.
A
BSTRACT
Illegal drug use by police off‌icers is a concern in
many jurisdictions. The Police Integrity Commis-
sion, an independent oversight agency in New
South Wales, Australia, conducted a large-scale
project on the use of illegal drugs by some NSW
police off‌icers. This project, codenamed Operation
Abelia, sought to provide a better understanding
of the nature of the problem of off‌icer illegal drug
use and to identify what can be done to minimise
such illegal drug use. This paper outlines how
research and investigations were combined to
identify areas where further intervention is most
likely to assist in minimising illegal drug use by
off‌icers. It also provides an overview of the Police
Integrity Commission’s nine-part strategy for
strengthening the NSW Police Force’s approach
to minimising illegal drug use by its off‌icers. The
paper ends with examples of some of the policy,
procedural and legislative changes that have
resulted from this project.
A concern for many jurisdictions
Drug use by police off‌icers — with its
criminal conduct connotations and the
additional risk of off‌icer coercion or black-
mail — has been highlighted in the United
Kingdom National Crime and Intelligence
Service (NCIS) threat assessment as one of
the three major risks to professional stand-
ards facing police departments (Her
Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary,
2006). The NCIS is not the f‌irst to identify
the use of illegal drugs by police off‌icers as
an emerging problem or as a signif‌icant
concern (see, eg, Carter & Stephens, 1988;
Committee on the Off‌ice of the Ombuds-
man and the Police Integrity Commission,
2002; Miller, 2003; Newburn, 1999;
Punch, 2000; United States General
Accounting Off‌ice, 1998).
Commissions of inquiry have exposed
examples of illegal drug use by individual
off‌icers in many jurisdictions including
New York (Mollen, 1994), New South
Wales (Police Integrity Commission, 2001;
International Journal of Police Science & Management Volume 11 Number 1
International Journal of Police
Science and Management,
Vol. 11 No. 1, 2009, pp. 85–96.
DOI: 10.1350/ijps.2009.11.1.112
Page 85

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