Page 23 - Customs Today Winter1984-OCR
P. 23

Office of Internal Affairs By John O'Rourke
iil Customs employees and managers I were asked to name the office that they are least familiar with, I am sure the
majority would name the Office of Inter nal Affairs." The speaker is Charles C.
Hackett, Jr., Assistant Commissioner of that office, who believes that it is vital
that all Customs employees fully under stand the part Internal Affairs plays in
ensuring the integrity and efficiency of the Customs Service.
To many Customs employees, there is a false impression that Internal Affairs
is a mysterious organization whose inves
tigators, auditors and analysts are re warded based on their critical investiga
tions, audits and studies of the rest of Customs. Quite the opposite is the truth. This small organization, comprising less than two percent of the total Customs workforce, has had a positive and con structive impact far exceeding its numbers.
The growing complexity of the Cus toms mission and the Commissioner's decision to revitalize the Service's en forcement positions have presented Inter nal Affairs with new challenges. The
growing integrity threat stemming from Customs' heightened drug interdiction
and high-technology export control ef forts have been met by a redeployment of
manpower, greater use of sophisticated
computer technology and a multi-
discipline approach to the Internal Af fairs mission. Rather than wait for inves
tigative cases, audits and evaluation after the fact, the office has moved aggressively
to forestall problems before they occur. Our integrity awareness program is one
example of this effort.
CUSTOMS TODAY / WINTER 1984
CharlesC.Hackett
The Organization
The Office of Internal Affairs is headed by the Assistant Commissioner
(Internal Affairs), who reports directly to the Commissioner of Customs and
receives functional guidance from the In
spector General of the Treasury Depart ment. It is one of the rare Headquarters
offices having line authority over its seven Regional Directors who are located in each of the Customs regional cities.
Contributing strongly to the impartiality of the internal affairs function is its
organizational independence. Although located in the regional cities, the regional
Internal Affairs offices report direcdy to the Assistant Commissioner (IA).
Also located in Headquarters are the Offices of Audit, Internal Security and
Management Inspection. In the case of Audit and Internal Security, these Head
quarters offices provide program assist ance to their field counterparts, and also
conduct audits and investigations at
Headquarters. While the Office of Man agement Inspection lacks a field counter part, it conducts inspections and evalua tions both in the field and at Head
quarters. Internal Affairs consists of some 250 employees Servicewide.
John O'Rourke is a Program Planner with the Office of Internal Affairs at Headquarters.
The Mission
The primary mission of the Office of Internal Affairs is to protect the integrity and reputation of the U.S. Customs Service. Any organization numbering over 14,000 employees will have some with questionable integrity. Unfortunate
ly, this adversely reflects on the vast ma
jority of honest, efficient and dedicated Customs employees. Since the primary level of responsibility for maintaining
high integrity standards is the individual Customs employee, it is not surprising
that we have had minimal integrity prob lems among our staff members. How ever, it is also to the credit of the Service that we have vigorously ferreted out and taken action concerning errant persons.
Internal Affairs has a strong com mitment to aggressively seek out and remove those who would thwart the satis
factory completion of the mission of the U.S. Customs Service. Our ultimate goal
is to better serve the traveling public and the importing community, and instill a sense of Customs employee pride and
confidence. This is reinforced by the In ternal Affairs Integrity Awareness pro
gram, in which employees are reminded that it is not Internal Affairs exclusively
that maintains the Service's integrity, but rather it is each individual employee's ef fort. Integrity is everyone's responsibil ity. Each employee must set an example for others, and if he or she sees others engaging in illegal or serious misconduct, a prompt report should be made to the local servicing Internal Affairs office. It is the extent to which each employee sup ports Internal Affairs' efforts that ultimately determines the integrity of the Service.
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