The New South Wales Police is the primary law enforcement agency in the State of New South Wales, Australia. It has existed in various forms since the foundation of the colony of New South Wales at Sydney in 1788, when Governor Captain Arthur Phillip authorised the formation of a nightwatch to protect the infant town against thieves and petty criminals after dark. Ironically enough, this first police force was formed out of the ranks of convicts who then dominated the penal colony (albeit relatively trustworthy and docile convicts).

The NSW Police in its current form was established in 1862. Its current Commissioner is Ken Moroney. The Cabinet Minister of the State Government responsible for the policing portfolio is John Watkins.

Like all other States of Australia, municipalities and shires in NSW have no or very limited law enforcement responsibilities. The Australian Federal Police is relatively unobtrusive and is not very visible in the day to day lives of New South Welsh residents. Therefore, state police forces - the NSW Police included - are much more powerful and ubiquitous than equivalent state or provincial police forces in other federal nations such as the United States or Canada, where the total law enforcement task is more evenly shared among three or four tiers of government.

This concentration of policing power in the NSW Police is thought to have led to the multi-generational and endemic levels of corruption, graft and vice that were revealed to the public in the 1990s at the Wood Royal Commission, a State-sponsored judicial inquiry into police corruption led by Justice James Wood of the New South Wales Supreme Court. This Royal Commission which lasted approximately two years uncovered many crimes and institutionalised corruption throughout the NSW Police Service (as it was then known), but also illuminated the existence of paedophilia and serious moral and criminal vices practiced or condoned by some officers. This unexpected discovery by the Royal Commission led to a widening of its terms of reference to include the investigation of paedophilia and sex crimes outside the Police Service.

The biggest impact of the Wood Royal Commission was the uprooting of many corrupt officers in the force (which, despite the almost daily revelations of depravity and criminality, consisted of only a small minority of the total Police Service) and the establishment of the Police Integrity Commission - an independent, permanent tribunal with some judicial powers that now stands as a permanent watchdog over police corruption, but is not part of the NSW Police (unlike the old Internal Affairs Bureau).

The NSW Police currently consists of 14,000 officers, with a growing percentage being female and/or of an ethnic minority; all are issued with firearms as a matter of routine. Current policing policy favours community liaison in contrast to confrontation, however, much social tension still unfortunately exists between marginalized groups such as Aborigines, Middle Easterners and low-income groups on one hand, and the NSW Police on the other.

The NSW Police motto is Culpam Poena Premit Comes - "Punishment Follows Guilt Swiftly". Its coat-of-arms features the state badge of New South Wales, a soaring eagle carrying a scroll with the word Nemesis, a wreath and the Crown of the British monarch.

Recent Police Commissioners:

Norman Allan Jim Lees Mervyn Wood John Avery Tony Lauer Peter James Ryan Ken Moroney

External link

• NSW Police website (http://www.police.nsw.gov.au)
• www.policensw.com — Unofficial site with much information about the NSW Police