Citizen Oversight of the Police
Three years of survey research in this city yielded a mix of findings. Citizen oversight, it appeared, enhanced the legitimacy of complaint review, as many people had more confidence in the investigation and disposition of complaints with a citizen review board in place. In addition, evidence suggested that these perceptions had a small but positive effect on the likelihood that police clients took action to complain when they experienced police misconduct. However, many police clients were not aware of the existence of citizen review in this city, despite outreach efforts by the board. Moreover, most clients who were not satisfied with their treatment by police, or with the service that they received, took no action to complain, and when they did, it was not in the form of complaints subject to citizen review. When complaints were filed with the civilian review board, complainants were seldom satisfied with the process unless their complaints were sustained, and many complainants’ expectations could not have been fulfilled by an adjudicative process of this kind.
A public version of the full report – the last of three to the city – can be found here. The Finn Institute is working to extend and deepen the analyses that formed the basis for those reports, and to disseminate the findings more widely.
In addition, the Institute recently resumed work of this kind for the city, including a survey of complainants and a survey of the city’s residents, to better inform the review board and city officials about the operation of complaint review and the public’s attitudes toward the police.
