Police corruption and police reform: The Fitzgerald inquiry in Queensland, Australia

The 1989 Fitzgerald Report in Queensland, Australia was one of the country's most far‐reaching investigations of police corruption and maladministration. Its recommendations, including measures to reorganize the police force and establish new modes of review of the criminal justice system, are made against a background of police reform in other States, including New South Wales and Victoria. The paper reviews the Report's findings in the context of the historical development of policing in Australia, centralized, marked by strong police unionism and with periodic crises of corruption and maladministration over the past century. The prospects for police reform are reviewed.