Civilian oversight of law enforcement

The autonomy of law enforcement has been addressed by the development of civilian oversight agencies/entities. These agencies aim to provide accountability of law enforcement through civilian review of police policies, independent civilian investigations of citizen complaints against the police, and through civilian review of police investigations of citizen complaints. Although civilian oversight of law enforcement has been developing since the late 1940s there has been little research on the topic. There is little research on characteristics of specific oversight agencies and even less research on measuring the performance of civilian oversight. This exploratory study aspired to learn about the structures and functions of four specific oversight agencies, and to compare these agencies using performance measures identified in existing literature. The sources of data for this study are qualitative interviews. The interviewees consist of five classifications of individuals associated with oversight agencies in some manner. This study found that the varying structure and function of each oversight agency yielded both positive and negative results. The political influences on oversight agencies and the authority of the oversight agencies were found to be sources of contention that impeded their missions. The criticism in existing literature that civilians do not have the necessary training and experience to hold police departments accountable was corroborated by the interviews. Most importantly this study found that none of these oversight agencies actively employed measures to evaluate their own performance. Furthermore, when this study applied performance measures identified in existing literature, it found the oversight agencies were deficient.