Police Executives More Likely To Support Civilian Review Boards After Learning About Other Agencies That Have Them.
The 2020 murder of George Floyd fueled the creation—or major redesign—of civilian review boards across the country. Indeed, 71 of the top 100 most populous cities now have a civilian board. This year alone Minneapolis, Chicago, and Portland created or redesigned civilian review boards. And public opinion research shows strong majorities of Democratic, Republican, and Independent voters all in support of civilian oversight boards.
These civilian oversight boards are composed of community members who review citizen complaints of misconduct—and other systematic issues—and issue findings and recommendations about policies, practices, and officer discipline. Their purpose is “to give voice to community members and enhance transparency and accountability through independent review and investigation,” as a recent report from the Council on Criminal Justice put it.
Unfortunately, many—likely most—existing oversight boards lack the power and resources to reign-in misconduct—a fact that has led to a loss of faith in the oversight function from some reform advocates. For example, CBS News recently reported that fewer than half of oversight boards hold subpoena power of witnesses or records while only 6% have the power to discipline officers. That’s because these “oversight bodies often face challenges accessing police records, true independence from local politicians, and resistance from police departments and unions,” CBS News explained.
Within the context of this policy debate, police executives—police chiefs and sheriffs—are among the most influential voices. But little is known about the views of the police executives, or whether those views are malleable.
Enter Professor Ian Adams and colleagues. In their new preprint publication, which is the “largest experiment to date of policing executives” and includes “police chiefs and sheriffs collectively serving more than 44 million Americans,” the authors seek “to understand what, if anything, can induce these pivotal actors to support democratic oversight regimes.”
Here are the top three results:
Civilian Review Boards are popular (see the charts from the authors below showing state level public support for CRB with and without disciplinary power). However, showing police executives results from public opinion surveys in their state does not shift their views.
Providing the executives with “information about peer agency adoption of [civilian review boards] as an oversight mechanism has a significant impact on police executives’ opinions.” Indeed, “when presented with information on major city police agency adoption of [civilian review boards], chiefs and sheriffs were more positive in their feelings about [civilian review boards], more willing to establish a [civilian review board] in their own agency, and more willing to support granting [civilian review boards] independent powers, such as the ability to investigate complaints and hear appeals from citizens and officers.”
Police executives from agencies that already have a civilian oversight board “report an increased willingness to expand the scope of their [civilian review board] oversight powers.”
Takeaway: The authors posit that for “reformers who are frustrated by the fractured federalist nature of law enforcement in a country with 18,000 independent police departments,” the finding that police executives are influenced by peer adoption suggests that “advocacy through professional associations and policy diffusion through major cities may serve as viable inroads for reform, constituting a simplified influence strategy as compared to separately targeting the many thousands of independent police departments. As large agencies continue to lead these policy shifts, reformers could then concentrate on extending those reforms to smaller and nearby agencies.”
Take A Deeper Dive On Civilian Oversight Of The Police:
1. Civilian oversight is extremely popular with voters.
A Pew Research poll of 4,708 U.S. adults found that 75% of Americans support “giving civilian oversight boards power to investigate and discipline officers accused of inappropriate use of force or other misconduct.
A recent survey of 638 likely voters national conducted by Protect and Serve found that 63% of voters—including 79% of Democrats—said that “greater civilian oversight of police departments” is “very important” or “somewhat important.”
2. Police Unions Spend Vast Resources Opposing Civilian Oversight.
Austin’s Police Union Spends Nearly $1 Million In Failed Effort To Block More Stringent Oversight. As Luz Moreno-Lozano reports for the Austin American-Statesman, the city’s voters passed a measure earlier this year with 79% of the vote to beef up the “powers [of] the civilian police oversight office; allow investigators to access all police records and interview witnesses while gathering evidence of police misconduct; and allow the Office of Police Oversight to make recommendations on discipline to the police chief, increasing transparency.” The Austin Police Association—the city’s police union—spent roughly a million dollars to oppose the measure.
Former Police Officer On Union’s Legal Threats: “I Feel Like We’re Being Intimidated…” Akron Police Union Fighting Police Oversight. Writing for the Akron Beacon Journal, Doug Livingston reported on “the police union and its lawyer threaten[ed] legal action if Akron's new Citizens’ Police Oversight Board decides it can independently investigate officer conduct.” One oversight board member, Shawn Peoples, a former Canton (Ohio) police officer, said: “‘I feel like we’re being intimidated … The FOP has a right to stand up for their body. And that’s understandable. I was a police officer for 21 years. So, I understand that… However, who’s going to stand up for the community?’” The police union’s threat has divided the board, which intends to vote later this year on how to move forward.
3. And that brings us back to why police chief voices matter so much:
Police executives are the perfect counterpoint to police unions who almost uniformly oppose civilian oversight. The louder and more numerous the voices of police leadership in favor of rigorous civilian oversight, the more difficult it will be for police unions to kill—or seriously hamper—these efforts.