NCJ Number
162438
Journal
Crime, Law and Social Change Volume: 24 Issue: 2 Dated: (1995-96) Pages: 151-166
Date Published
1996
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This report on Australia's largest study into whistleblowers' experiences in reporting their suspicions shows a crisis of competence in the official capacity of government structures to respond effectively to disclosures made in the public interest.
Abstract
The Queensland Whistleblower Study systematically collected information from whistleblowers on their experiences in taking their allegations of wrongdoing to the open-ended investigators established under Queensland law. The aim of the study was not to determine the validity of the complaints, but rather to ascertain the whistleblowers' perceptions of how their complaints were handled by government officials and agencies. A total of 49 whistleblowers were interviewed about 299 separate acts of alleged wrongdoing reported; they involved 146 agency responses. Few whistleblowers in the sample rated the agencies' intervention as effective. The authors believe that part of the reason for this is the impossibly high evidentiary standards required by external agencies and the courts. From the whistleblowers' perspective, these evidentiary standards appear designed to reflect politico-bureaucratic power rather than the facilitation of the truth. The authors conclude that many of the agencies involved in responding to whistleblowers' allegations are infected with nepotism and political sycophancy, hampered by weak funding, made dysfunctional by narrow terms of reference, and restricted by static legal formalism. 4 tables and 24 notes