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EXHIBIT 3. CONCERNS MANY POLICE AND SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENTS—AND <br />UNION LEADERS—EXPRESS ABOUT CITIZEN OVERSIGHT—AND POSSIBLE RESPONSES <br />Assertion: Citizens Should Not Interfere in Police Work <br />Concerns Responses <br />• The chief must be held accountable for discipline to • Most oversight bodies are only advisory. <br />prevent misconduct. <br />• Internal affairs already does a good job. • Even when the department already imposes appropriate <br />discipline without citizen review, an oversight procedure <br />can reassure skeptical citizens that the agency is doing its <br />job in this respect. <br />• The next chief or sheriff may not be as conscientious about <br />ensuring that the department investigates complaints fairly <br />and thoroughly. <br />Assertion: Citizens Do Not Understand Police Work <br />Concerns Responses <br />• Oversight staff lack experience in police work. • Board members typically have pertinent materials available <br />for review, and ranking officers are usually present during <br />hearings to explain department procedures. <br />• Oversight administrators need to describe the often <br />extensive training they and their staff receive. <br />• Citizen review is just that—citizens reviewing police <br />behavior as private citizens. <br />• Only physicians review doctors, and only attorneys • Doctors and lawyers have been criticized for doing a poor <br />review lawyers. job of monitoring their colleagues’ behavior. <br />Assertion:The Process Is Unfair <br />Concerns Responses <br />• Oversight staff may have an “agenda”—they are biased • Oversight staff need to inform the department when they <br />against the police. decide in officers’ favor. <br />• Oversight staff and police need to meet to iron out <br />misconceptions and conflict. <br />• Not sustained findings remain in officers’ files. • Indecisive findings are unfair to both parties and should <br />therefore be reduced in favor of unfounded, exonerated, <br />or sustained findings. <br />• Adding allegations unrelated to the citizen’s • Internal affairs units themselves add allegations in some <br />complaint is unfair. departments. <br />• Some citizens use the system to prepare for civil suits. • Board findings can sometimes help officers and departments <br />defend against civil suits. <br />E XECUTIVE S UMMARY <br />xii