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Thinking critically about police unions in Australia: internal democracy and external responsiveness

Thinking critically about police unions in Australia: internal democracy and external responsiveness
Thinking critically about police unions in Australia: internal democracy and external responsiveness
This paper considers the challenges for Australian police unions in the 21st century. The empirical evidence is drawn from research conducted by two of the authors for the Police Federation of Australia (PFA) in 2003–2004. The paper first outlines the changing field of policing in which police unions exist, then provides background information on the various state and territory unions/associations and the PFA. The paper demonstrates that while police unions in Australia have won considerable gains for their members and contributed significantly to police reform, their current agendas are somewhat narrow. The paper contends that this is owing to the conservative membership base of police unions, ambivalent identification with the labour movement, and poorly defined conceptions of professionalism. The final section of the paper identifies four central challenges facing Australian police unions and attempts by the police unions to respond to these challenges.
policing, australia, police unions, police associations, privatisation, professionalisation, democracy
1561-4263
391-409
Burgess, Mark
c8b6a766-174b-426b-a915-e89597649d63
Fleming, Jenny
61449384-ccab-40b3-b494-0852c956ca19
Marks, Monique
2c76ce61-6fe7-4e6a-9889-4ef0705e7d18
Burgess, Mark
c8b6a766-174b-426b-a915-e89597649d63
Fleming, Jenny
61449384-ccab-40b3-b494-0852c956ca19
Marks, Monique
2c76ce61-6fe7-4e6a-9889-4ef0705e7d18

Burgess, Mark, Fleming, Jenny and Marks, Monique (2006) Thinking critically about police unions in Australia: internal democracy and external responsiveness. Police Practice and Research: An International Journal, 7 (5), 391-409. (doi:10.1080/15614260601076033).

Record type: Article

Abstract

This paper considers the challenges for Australian police unions in the 21st century. The empirical evidence is drawn from research conducted by two of the authors for the Police Federation of Australia (PFA) in 2003–2004. The paper first outlines the changing field of policing in which police unions exist, then provides background information on the various state and territory unions/associations and the PFA. The paper demonstrates that while police unions in Australia have won considerable gains for their members and contributed significantly to police reform, their current agendas are somewhat narrow. The paper contends that this is owing to the conservative membership base of police unions, ambivalent identification with the labour movement, and poorly defined conceptions of professionalism. The final section of the paper identifies four central challenges facing Australian police unions and attempts by the police unions to respond to these challenges.

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More information

e-pub ahead of print date: 11 December 2006
Published date: 2006
Keywords: policing, australia, police unions, police associations, privatisation, professionalisation, democracy
Organisations: Social Sciences

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 339893
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/339893
ISSN: 1561-4263
PURE UUID: cb1ab4fd-365b-4d99-9690-1e1b758b7fb7
ORCID for Jenny Fleming: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-7913-3345

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 01 Jun 2012 09:10
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:41

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Contributors

Author: Mark Burgess
Author: Jenny Fleming ORCID iD
Author: Monique Marks

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