ABSTRACT
Introduction According to the written testimony of Rashad Robinson, Executive Director, Color of Change before the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, civilian oversight of police should be expanded. In part of his testimony he stated:
Civilian oversight: we urge the expansion of strong, empowered state and local level civilian control over law enforcement nationwide. There has been much research done into the criteria of effective civilian oversight boards, but general guidelines include strong political and public support, police cooperation, a proactive approach to identify underlying systemic problems with police and the comprehensive legal power to resolve said issues, as well as control over more than police misconduct, but police hiring and ring, policing priorities, and participatory budgeting as well. We suggest that funding in part for the expansion of community controlled and community based policing come from the termination of all federal anti-drug grants.*
Functions of civilian review boards Probably one of the most important functions of civilian or citizen review boards is to oversee the processing of citizens’ complaints about police misconduct. As noted by Human Rights Watch (HRW), citizen review
agencies should publish reports at least annually, presenting detailed statistics and information relating to complaints, trends, sustained rates for each type of complaint, disciplinary actions stemming from sustained allegations, policy recommendations (as well as the departmental responses to those recommendations), and community outreach efforts. The statistics should include breakdowns on the race and gender of the complainants and ofcers in question. The reports should also include examples of the types of abuse about which the agency has received complaints during the reporting period.1 The HRW also contends that review boards should be empowered and nanced to conduct investigations on their own initiative.
