Introduction
In the United States, significant strides have been made towards achieving policy accountability. In the recent past, the civilian oversight of the law enforcement movement has expanded and evolved in their primary role of ensuring that the police respect the civil rights of members of the public. It is against been background that citizen oversight systems has been lauded for maintaining vigilant of excessive use of force, disparate treatment, false arrest, suspect harassment and torture, officer misconduct, racial profiling among other in the law enforcement agencies (Dempsey & Forst, 2012). Therefore, the citizen oversight of police serves to hold law enforcement officers to high standards of integrity, equity, honesty, and professionalism. The rationale for citizen oversight of police is said to be failure of the police profession to prove to assure the public of their ability and commitment to holding their members accountable for their actions.
On the contrary, however, citizen oversight systems have been criticized of failing to effectively execute their role and the failure is attributed to poor planning, lack of political goodwill and financial support, unrealistic expectations, as well as the apparent lack of cooperation from the police administrators and police officers themselves (Prenzler, 2004). In this regard, citizen oversight systems grapple with the dilemma of having to create a positive working relationship with the police on the one hand, while remaining independent and impartial on the other. This paper explores the role of citizen oversight in policing, making comparisons of its effectiveness, and the inherent challenges in investigating citizen complaints. Further, the paper critiques the effectiveness of citizen oversight both as a police management tool and an early warning device. Also the paper presents a discussion on the issue of sustain rate and its impact on citizen oversight agencies. Finally, the paper discusses other issues the author perceives significant in the topic of citizen review of police conduct.
Role of citizen oversight in policing
Citizen oversight of police is founded on the belief that police departments are naturally unable to police themselves due to their inherent bureaucratic self interest along with the power of the police subculture. This necessitates the legislating of an external citizen oversight agency comprised of individuals who are not sworn officers to undertake more independent, thorough and truly fair investigations into citizen complaints again the law enforcement officers.
There exist four basic models of oversight models relating to policing: (1) citizens are mandated to investigate complains of misconducts and forward their recommendations to the head of the police agency for action; (2) officers or a non-sworn police employee is mandated to undertake investigation and develop findings to be reviewed by citizens, and recommendations made to the head of agency for approval or dismissal of the findings; (3) officers conduct investigations into police misconduct and present recommendations which are subject to citizens’ appeal, after which they draft recommendation to the agency head; and (4) a citizen auditor is mandated to review the process the police department follows in investigating misconduct and writes a report on its fairness and thoroughness to the community (Dempsey & Forst, 2012)..
In this regard, the citizen oversight plays significant roles in policing in a number of ways. First, it provides an independent review of citizen complaints against the police under the notion that an independent oversight body will prove more fair and unbiased investigation, thus increasing public confidence in the entire complaint process. Second, the citizen oversight monitors the complaint process together with the general policies and practices of a police department for the benefits of the community. Also, the citizen oversight plays the important role of providing policy review for the police department after investigating the underlying problems that led to the citizen’s complaint (Prenzler, 2004). In general, the role of citizen oversight in policing goes a long way in not only inspiring accountability on the part of individual police officers and the entire police department, but also substantially helps in improving the community’s perception of the police and their department. Citizen oversight therefore serves to restore the democracy of citizens stripped off them by police who seem to have more power.
The positives notwithstanding, the role of citizen oversight in policing can be termed as limited for their lack of final say over the disciplinary actions, policies and training procedures that the police department implements after presenting their recommendations. The idea of outside individuals with no knowledge of the inner workings of the police work having to pass important judgment on them does not always go down well with law enforcement officers, thus the resistance and lack of cooperation. On the other hand, some quarters of members of the public are often skeptical of the role of citizen oversight in policing due to their limited advisory role without real clout.
Inherent problem of investigating citizen complaints
The role of citizen oversight in investigating citizen complaints against police officers is compromised by the reality of unique challenges not associated with other types of investigations such as criminal, civil, or regulatory (Wetcher, 2004). This is especially because complaints against police officers are often highly emotional due to the injustice that victims feel they have suffered at the hands of police. During the intake interview, a citizen complainer may exhibit strong feelings of anger, outrage, fear, confusion and suspicion. Unlike police investigators who have the freedom of offering judgmental reassurance to the victim, citizen oversight agencies are by default meant to be impartial and neutral. This translates that they cannot identify with the complainant’s perspective and feelings in the same manner a civil and criminal investigator would. As such, police misconduct investigators are often forced to walk a tightrope of remaining empathetic, open, and reassuring the complainant whilst not expressing any judgmental or opinionated about the substance of the allegations (Wetcher, 2004).
Second, investigating citizen complaint against the police is problematic because most law enforcement officers usually perceive citizen investigators as suspect as a result of their belief that outsiders lack the necessary experience and credibility to comprehend the stressful nature of policing (Wetcher, 2004). Consequently, police officers evoke a code of silence during most police misconduct investigations. The civilian oversight investigators’ feeling of isolation and non-corporation from the police often impacted negatively on their impartially and neutrality as they tend to presume guilt for the accused officer or police department.
Thirdly, citizen complaint investigations are particularly problematic due to the fact that the citizen oversight personnel are often overwhelmed by multiple demands and pressure by the multiple constituents (the complainant; accused officers; the policy agency; the police managers; and the community at large) (Wetcher, 2004). All these constituencies have different, often conflicting, perspective and goal in the investigation.
Fourth, the citizen oversight investigations have to grapple with the different structure of citizen complaint investigations relative to civil and criminal investigations. While civil and criminal investigations usually begin with a scenario or theory of the case, oversight investigations are forced to explore and counter-balance not less than two conflicting theories from the complaint and the accused police officer (Wetcher, 2004). Also, while criminal or civil investigations are adversarial, police complaint investigations are inquisitorial in nature, requiring the investigator to collect and thoroughly assess all the facts and evidence in an objective and dispassionate manner. As such, complaint investigators face the challenge of having to go beyond fact-gathering by determining whether indeed the police misconduct occurred (Wetcher, 2004).
Effectiveness of citizen oversight as a police management tool and early warning system
The use of citizen oversight as a police management tool and early warning tool has both been effective and ineffective. The 2000 report by U.S. Civil Rights Commission concluded that citizen oversight boards tend to ineffective. The New York Civil Liberties Union – a leading citizen oversight in New York City, has issued a series of reports on the shortcomings of its subsidiary, the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) (Smith, 2004). Similarly, a report by a New Orleans Police-Civilian Review Task expressed significant misgivings of the Office of Municipal Investigation (OMI) that has been in operation since 1981. The ineffective of citizen oversight is attributable to their lack of ability to achieve their established objectives: for instance, poor planning/management, lack of political goodwill and financial support, unrealistically high expectations, and apparent lack of cooperation from the police administrators and individual police officers (Chamblis, 2011). Many observers have expressed feat that the typical technique of civilian review of complaints – limited to reviewing individual citizen complaints – can neither curb police misconduct nor result in long-term improvement in police service quality even in the best of circumstances.
Also, the use of citizen oversight to manage police is vehemently opposed by some practitioners on grounds that correspond with those of the American Bar Association and the American Medical Society. It is argued that the general public is ill-equipped to evaluate the situations police officers work in as well as the split second decisions they are forced to make in the line of duty. It is also regretted that appointment of members to oversight boards is often influenced by politics and paybacks, compromising the quality of the investigations outcome (Chamblis, 2011).
Conversely, in his report titled “Police Accountability: The Role of Citizen Oversight,” Walker (2000) found that the citizen oversight agencies were highly effective in fighting and controlling overall police misconduct. Over the years, many agencies have reported a significant improvement in perception of the community especially in relations to potential for supposed cover-up of police misconduct (Smith, 2004). Some police departments have also attributed their improvement of community policing efforts and transparency of the internal workings of the police to the interventions of citizen oversight agencies. In addition, external review has in most cases resulted in improved quality of police internal affairs along with professional standards of conduct on the part of the police. The common complaint that citizen oversight agencies lack knowledge in law enforcement is not totally true due to the fact that most citizen oversight often receive expert advice on agency policy and procedures (Smith, 2004). This renders them able to make informed conclusions about the incidents; much literature also show that citizen oversight boards often reach the same findings as those by of purely law enforcement officials.
Citizen oversight in policing can also be an effective early warning tool. In instances where a number of allegations of misconduct are filed against an officer, can draw the attention of the police department to potential unethical behavior among the staff to which timely corrective measures can be implemented. The escalation of abuse of power by police against citizens is thus effectively put into check as focus is directed on their daily engagements with the public.
How the Sustain Rate Directly Affects Citizen Oversight Agencies
Sustained rate for citizen oversight refer to the percentage of misconduct complaints that are proved to be substantiated. The sustain rate has considerable effect on citizen oversight agencies because they question whether there is sufficient supporting evidence to an allegation of police misconduct to warrant disciplinary measures against the accused officer. This means the higher the sustain rate the higher the chance for citizen oversight to have disciplinary actions taken against law enforcement officers for their misconduct in the line of duty. On the other hand, judging the effectiveness of citizen oversight agencies on grounds of their sustained rates can be misleading in view of the fact some agencies perform poorly in communicating their mission that they register high sustained rate due to very small number of complaints received (The International Association of Chiefs of Police, 2000).
Other important issues
In discussing citizen review of police conduct, other important issues would relate to matters investigated by other auditors which have direct effect on police officers because of their recommendations. The police subculture, which is rapidly gravitating towards professionalization, needs to take responsibility for behavior modification of errant officers. This can be achieve through education and reeducation using modern training systems to produce new breed of officers respecting of citizen rights. Citizen oversight and other police conduct auditors should work to give the law enforcement professionals important feedback about their work in addition to educating the public about law enforcement work.
References:
Chambliss, W. J. (2011). Key issues in crime and punishment. Thousand Oaks, Calif: SAGE.
Dempsey, J. S., & Forst, L. S. (2012). An introduction to policing. Clifton Park, NY: Delmar Cengage Learning.
Prenzler, T. (2004). Stakeholder Perspectives on Police Complaints and Discipline: Towards a Civilian Control Model. The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 37(1), 85-113. 27
Smith, J. (2004). A practical guide for the law enforcement and security manager: A theoretical and experiential approach. Springfield, Ill: Charles C. Thomas.
The International Association of Chiefs of Police. (2000). Police Accountability and Citizen Review – A Leadership Opportunity for Police Chiefs Alexandria, VA: IACP. 54
Walker, S. (2005). The new world of police accountability. Thousand Oaks, Calif [u.a.: Sage.
Wechter, J. (2004). Investigating Citizen Complaints is Different – The Special Challenges of Investigating Citizen Complaints Against Police Officers Omaha, NE: University of Nebraska, Police Professionalism Initiative.
