Almost 70% of all complaints to the Independent broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) were related to Victoria Police in 2022.
An annual IBAC snapshot has revealed the agency received 1,904 complaints about Victoria Police — a 14% increase from the previous year.
Deputy commissioner Kylie Kilgour said the snapshot shows the agency’s increased workload in dealing with Victoria Police misconduct and corruption.
“In 2022, IBAC completed 18 police-related preliminary inquiries and investigations, in addition to commencing 11 new preliminary inquiries and investigations,” Kilgour said.
“This included six days of public hearings for Operation Bredbo, which investigated allegations of serious misconduct by a long-standing Victoria Police officer.”
IBAC also reviewed 241 police internal investigations to determine if they were investigated properly. These reviews included examining whether the findings of the inquiries were evidence-based.
These reviews — as well as investigations, audits and research reports – have led to recommendations that promote change in Victoria Police processes and procedures.
“IBAC made 90 new recommendations,” Kilgour said. “Victoria Police implemented 36 previous recommendations, including changes to their conflict of interest policy.
“They also committed to adopting all the recommendations stemming from our research report on Victoria Police’s handling of complaints made by Aboriginal people by the middle of 2023.”
IBAC is also working on a report that will examine how Victoria Police has implemented IBAC recommendations. That report is due for release this year.
This information release follows other work done by IBAC relating to Victoria Police conduct, including the October 2022 report that examined misconduct issues involving the Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT).
That report outlined findings that the CIRT had inaccurate reporting of the use of force when it was called out to incidents, inadequate assessments of risk at events, inadequate or poor communication by officers when responding to incidents and a failure of officers to act consistently with the Charter of Human Rights.
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Keeping up with the public sector corruption exposure efforts of IBAC
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