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Getting Along with Citizen Oversight - citizen involvement in investigating complaints against police
FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin,The, August, 2000 by Peter Finn
Even when citizen oversight systems have some authority over the police, they generally exercise it cautiously. For example, oversight bodies in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Flint, Michigan, have never used their subpoena power to compel officers to testify. Moreover, most oversight staff members agree that citizens should not have the power to discipline officers. They realize that giving citizens that authority could violate state laws, city charters, or collective bargaining agreements with police unions. Also, such authority would detract from holding the agency's administrator accountable for ensuring proper standards of professional conduct.
Lack of Understanding
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Because they lack experience as law enforcement officers, oversight members may have difficulty fairly determining whether officers have engaged in misconduct. Citizens generally are not familiar with pertinent case law governing officer behavior nor do they understand the nature of police discretion, the methods employed to train officers, or the totality of the circumstances of an incident that can influence officer behavior. Officers frequently observe that state medical boards, composed only of physicians, investigate doctors for malpractice, and only attorneys investigate lawyers for misconduct. Similarly, some police argue that only law enforcement officers have the knowledge to investigate and judge other sworn personnel.
However, many law enforcement administrators have worked with citizen review members to address these concerns and find ways of improving their relationships. For example, some agencies train oversight staff and volunteers. In Rochester, New York, candidates for the review board attend a condensed version of a police academy run by the police department. The 48-hour course involves 3 hours per evening for 2 weeks and 2 all-day Saturday sessions. The members use a shoot/don't shoot simulator, practice handcuffing, and learn about department policies and procedures, including the use-of-force continuum. Other oversight systems require a department supervisor to attend hearings or be on call to answer questions about department policies and operations. Also, review systems that investigate citizen complaints often hire investigators with pertinent law enforcement expertise. Finally, many agencies have found that outsiders can sometimes do a more objective job than insiders in assessing the performance of member s of their own profession. Juries illustrate a frequent use of representatives of many different professions and life experiences to resolve allegations of police misconduct, physician and attorney malpractice, and other profession-specific cases in civil and criminal trials. [3]
Unfair Process
While many law enforcement administrators and officers feel that the oversight process is unfair because outside reviewers are unfamiliar with police work, they have other objections to citizen oversight. For example, unjust criticism and lengthy delays represent two concerns that many officers have about the oversight process.
