The Argus at KellyGang 10/1/1883
The Police Commission met again yesterday and concluded their report on the detective department. The document will be duly formulated by the secretary and presented to His Excellency the Governor in a few days. The general tenour of the recommendations appears in another column.
THE POLICE COMMISSION
The Police Commission at their meeting yesterday finalled confirmed their report on the detective department, and it will be forwarded to His Excellency in the course of a few days. The findings of the commission are quite against to continuation of the present system, which they recommend should be merged in the general police force, the duties of the detection of crime to be placed in the hands of’ plain clothes officers to be appointed by the Chief Commissioner, but who must be men of known good conduct and special aptitude for the work. The great evils arising from the intimate association of detectives with criminals which resulted in so many "put up" cases the commission propose to remedy by the adoption of a system under which no constable should be permitted to interview a criminal or ex-criminal.
This duty they suggest should be performed by the officer in charge of the Police, who will be able to communicate such information as he thinks desirable to subordinate to whom he entrusts the duty of working up a case. Another reform which bears upon this branch of the subject is the establishment of a secret service fund, into which all rewards shall be paid from which all expenses are to be distribursed by the Chief Commissioner alone. The commission make no recommendation regarding the status of the detectives now in the service, who under the new arrangement will be transferred to the general body. This matter is left entirely in hands of the Chief Commissioner, but it is pointed out that Detectives Duncan, O'Callaghan, and Nixon have shown themselves in the opinion of the commission unfit to be retained in the force. This is the result of the inquiries which were instituted upon he evidence of ex-Detective Forster and which led to the examination of Patrick Boardman, the ex-convict, whose testimony the commission considered could be relied on.
Further, they recommend that Inspector Secretan should be allowed to retire upon whatever compensation he is entitled to. While believing that this officer is a man of uprightness and integrity, they feel that he has not displayed any administrative ability in his management of the department, and that he allowed- the staff to fall into its present disorganised but preventable condition.
The report has been agreed to by the chairman (Mr Longmore), and Messrs Fincham, Dixon and Hall and it has been referred to Mr Anderson, who has not been present at the sittings a which it was considered, for his signature.
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