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 vii Introduction There has been a considerable increase in the number of procedures involving citizen oversight of police imple- mented by cities and counties in the 1990s. However, many of these procedures have had a troubled history involving serious—even bitter—conflict among the involved parties. Citizen Review of Police: Approaches and Implementation is designed to help jurisdictions that may decide to establish—or wish to improve—an over- sight system to avoid or eliminate these battles. At the same time, the publication can help oversight planners understand and choose among the many options available for structuring a citizen review procedure. Finally, current oversight staff and volunteers may find it useful to review the publication as a way of learning more about the field. To provide this assistance,Citizen Review of Police describes the operations of nine very different systems of citizen oversight. However, the publication does not pro- mote any particular type of citizen review—or citizen review in general. Rather, the report is intended to help local government executives and legislators, as well as police and sheriff’s department administrators, union leaders, and local citizen groups and public interest organi- zations, learn about the advantages, drawbacks, and limita- tions of a variety of oversight systems and components. Types of Citizen Oversight There is no single model of citizen oversight. However, most procedures have features that fall into one of four types of oversight systems: • Type 1:Citizens investigate allegations of police mis- conduct and recommend findings to the chief or sheriff. • Type 2: Police officers investigate allegations and devel- op findings; citizens review and recommend that the chief or sheriff approve or reject the findings. • Type 3: Complainants may appeal findings established by the police or sheriff’s department to citizens,who review them and then recommend their own findings to the chief or sheriff. • Type 4: An auditor investigates the process by which the police or sheriff’s department accepts and investi- gates complaints and reports on the thoroughness and fairness of the process to the department and the public. All four types of oversight are represented among the nine citizen review systems described in this report (see exhibit 1). Each type of system has advantages and drawbacks. For example, oversight systems that involve investigating citi- zen complaints (type 1) can help reassure the public that investigations of citizen complaints are thorough and fair. However, hiring professional investigators can be expen- sive, and the investigations model typically has no mecha- nism for soliciting the public’s general concerns about police conduct. Whatever their specific advantages, any type of citizen oversight needs to be part of a larger structure of internal and external police accountability; citizen oversight alone cannot ensure that police will act responsibly. Oversight Costs Exhibit 2 presents the nine oversight systems arranged in ascending order of budget levels along with their activity levels for 1997. As shown, there is a theoretical relation- ship between the four types of oversight systems and cost. • Type 1 oversight systems, in which citizens investigate allegations and recommend findings (Berkeley, Flint, Minneapolis, San Francisco), are the most expensive largely because professional investigators must be hired to conduct the investigations—lay citizens do not have the expertise or the time. Executive Summary