Document of Interest Provided By Councilmember Hamann on Civilian Review Boards

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C ITIZEN R EVIEW OF P OLICE: APPROACHES AND I MPLEMENTATION 129 arranged in ascending order of budget levels along with their activity levels for 1997. As shown, it is impossible to compare activity levels among oversight systems because different systems engage in different types of activities—for example, investigations, hearings, media- tions, and audits. Nevertheless, it is possible to examine five different relationships between oversight budgets and activity levels. 1. There is no association between budget levels and overall activity levels among the nine systems. For example, Rochester’s level of activity (26 cases reviewed, 4 cases mediated) appears to be less than Orange County’s, Portland’s, and St. Paul’s, even though its budget is much higher. Tucson, with a budget of more than $144,000, monitored 63 investi- gations, while Portland, relying on a single staff per- son’s salary of $43,000, audited 98 cases and processed 112 appeals. 2. There is a clear association between higher budgets and whether a system conducts investigations: All four systems with the highest budgets are type 1 sys- tems (which investigate citizen complaints). These systems are the most expensive because they have to hire professional investigators rather than rely on vol- unteers. It also appears that, the higher the 1997 budg- et among these four type 1 oversight systems that conduct investigations, the more overall activity (not just investigations) they engaged in. For example, while Flint conducted more investigations (313) than either Berkeley (42) or Minneapolis (159), Berkeley conducted 12 hearings and 34 preliminary investiga- tions, and Minneapolis provided assistance to 715 cit- izens as well as arranged for 14 cases to be mediated. (If the Minneapolis and San Francisco oversight bod- ies did not conduct investigations, their respective police departments would have to hire additional internal affairs investigators [unless they could trans- fer existing personnel] to perform the work the over- sight bodies had been conducting. As a result, the additional money that oversight bodies need to con- duct investigations does not cost the city, town, or DATA BARRIERS TO EVALUATING OVERSIGHT PROCEDURES It would seem logical to evaluate the success of citizen oversight by determining whether complaints increase or decrease after the system becomes operational.The natural assumption is that, over time, complaints will decline as the oversight system begins to play a part in reducing officer misconduct. However, complaints may increase because the intake process has been simplified or made more accessible or because public confidence in the review process has increased. Furthermore, there are rarely complete—or any—baseline data on the actual number of incidents of police misconduct.* Case review data also are suspect.The number of cases reviewed by the Rochester Civilian Review Board declined significantly one year and rose the next.The decline occurred because there had been several shootings, and IA investigators had to drop less serious investigations and delay examining new ones while they investigated the complex and high-profile shootings. Staff turnover among investigators further delayed investigations. More cases were investigated the following year after staffing problems ended and investigators caught up on their backlog of less serious cases. Examining changes in community attitudes toward the police would provide more valid information on oversight effectiveness. However, these data, too, may be misleading because many other events may be taking place simulta- neously in the community that could change the public’s attitudes toward the police, including community policing or a new police chief who is more strict or more lax about discipline than his or her predecessor. Finally, it is difficult to compare the effectiveness of different citizen review models because they have different goals, resources, and constraints. * Walker, Samuel, and Vic W. Bumphus,“The Effectiveness of Civilian Review: Observations on Recent Trends and New Issues Regarding the Civilian Review of Police,” American Journal of Police 11 (4) (1992): 1–26.