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Assess complaints and information

Independently monitor and review how 
the NSW Police investigate complaints

Independently investigate serious 
misconduct within the NSW Police

Systemic research and prevention

Monitor and investigate critical incident investigations

Community outreach

What we can and can’t do

What we do

The law says that the NSW Police Force or the NSW Crime Commission should be primarily responsible for complaints that are made about their staff. The LECC makes sure these agencies deal with misconduct complaints appropriately.

We can conduct our own investigations into complaints about serious misconduct within the NSW Police Force and the NSW Crime Commission.

We conduct research on the way in which the Police and Crime Commission work so that we can identify any unlawful or unreasonable practices and help to prevent misconduct in the future.

Assess complaints and information

Complaints and information submitted directly to the LECC

We look carefully at all of the complaints and information we receive. We may:

"Notifiable complaints" received from the NSW Police Force and NSW Crime Commission

The NSW Police Force and the NSW Crime Commission must tell us about all of the serious complaints that they receive directly. 

These complaints are called “notifiable complaints”. We have agreements with the NSW Police Force and the NSW Crime Commission about what is “a notifiable complaint”.  Those agreements are public documents, and are on our website here.

We assess all notifiable complaints that are made directly to the NSW Police Force and the NSW Crime Commission.  We check to see if we are comfortable with the way in which the Police or Crime Commission are handling the complaint. 

If we think it is appropriate, we may:

• ask the Police or Crime Commission to investigate other issues
• ask for more information or make more inquiries
• do a preliminary investigation ourselves. 

Independently monitor and review how 
the NSW Police investigate complaints

We undertake real-time monitoring of ongoing misconduct investigations conducted by the NSWPF or the NSWCC pursuant to s 101 of the LECC Act.

This real-time monitoring may include:

• being present as an observer during interviews conducted by police officers for the purposes of the police investigation, and
• conferring with those police officers about the conduct of the misconduct investigation, and
• requesting reports on the progress of the investigation. 

We also independently review the finalised misconduct investigations that have been done by the Police or the Crime Commission.  

If we think it is appropriate, we can:

• request more information about the investigation
• ask the Police or Crime Commission to investigate other issues or speak to other people as part of their investigation
• ask the Police or Crime Commission to reconsider their decision about what action to take at the end of an investigation.  For example, we can ask the Police or Crime Commission to consider disciplinary action for an officer who has been investigated
• take over the investigation and do it ourselves.

Independently investigate serious 
misconduct within the NSW Police

We have the power to investigate allegations of serious misconduct and maladministration.

In deciding whether to conduct an investigation, we consider:

• the conduct that happened or that might happen
• the seriousness of the alleged conduct
• the risk to any person, object or place
• the evidence to support the allegation. 

Systemic research and prevention

We conduct research on the way in which the Police and Crime Commission work so that we can identify any unlawful or unreasonable practices and help to prevent misconduct in the future.

We aim to help law enforcement agencies to improve the way they identify, prevent and minimise misconduct, unlawful actions and unreasonable practices.

We also conduct legislative reviews where the law requires us to.

How do we work?

We read the police records, analyse police databases and speak to junior and senior police officers. We also meet with other members of the community who are impacted by the way in which police work, to get their perspective.

We then:

• identify areas where there may be problems in the way that police are working
• look at police practices and processes
• consider if the policies are clear and lawful
• look at whether police practices comply with the law and with their own policies
• consider whether there is enough training and supervision of police officers.

Monitor and investigate critical incident investigations

A critical incident is an incident involving a NSW police officer that results in the death or serious injury of a person.

The NSW Police are responsible for the investigation of critical incidents. 

A critical incident investigation is not a misconduct investigation.  However the Police should consider any evidence or complaints of misconduct as part of their investigation.

We monitor the Police investigation of all critical incidents.  

We do this by:

• attending the scene of the incident (where possible)
• speaking regularly with the police critical incident investigator
• reviewing the investigation documents
• providing suggestions to the investigator, if that is appropriate.

We can make sure that the investigation considers:

• whether the actions of the police officers were lawful and reasonable
• if the police officers followed and complied with relevant policies and procedures
• that any complaints or allegations of misconduct are considered
• whether there is a need for changes to police policies, practices and procedures.

By monitoring critical incident investigations, we can make sure that the police investigation is competent, thorough and objective.  We hope that this is some comfort to the family of the person who has died or was injured, and to the public.

If we think that the investigation is not being conducted appropriately we can advise the Police or the Coroner of our concerns.  We can recommend changes to the way in which the investigation is being conducted.  The Police are required to consider our concerns and recommendations.  

Sometimes, we stop monitoring a critical incident investigation.  We are likely to do this when the death and/or serious injury does not appear to be related to what the police officers did.

Community outreach

The Commission fosters two-way engagement with stakeholders and identified groups in the community. We listen to communities so we can learn information which may assist us in our oversight, investigation and prevention work. Our community engagement officers establish and maintain relationships with hard to reach communities.

Part of our job is to make sure that people know about the work that we do. Read more about our outreach work in our Community Engagement Strategy.

How to make an engagement request

We consider engagement requests from community groups on a case-by-case basis when they are relevant to our work in exposing, oversighting, investigating and preventing police corruption, misconduct and maladministration in NSW.

All engagement requests must be accompanied by an email from the organisation requesting the engagement.

The engagement request email should include:

• what the organisation's purpose is
• the names and titles of key people in the organisation
• where the organisation is located
• purpose of the engagement
• the organisation's key areas of interest within LECC. 

You can contact our Community Engagement officer at engage@lecc.nsw.gov.au.

What we can and can't do