Which of the following IS NOT a new accountability tool described by Walker: (1) Use of force/other critical incident reporting (2) Open and accessible citizen complaint system (3) Police discipline matrix (4) Early intervention system (5) External citizen oversight

How can police, in a democratic society, be accountable to no one? (1) Civil service tenure for Police Chiefs breeds insularity and virtual autonomy (2) Definition of good and bad people (and what each deserves) is set by Chief and backed by external constituencies (“tyranny of the majority”)  Facade that police work is governed by rules  LAPD mentality

 City council liberals passed a resolution to use “vigorous enforcement” against these demonstrators  O.R. group comprised members who looked a lot like the LAPD officers (white, conservative, Christian, “good people”), and thus should have “known better”.  These folks needed to be “taught a lesson” using pain as a deterrent against future challenges to police authority.

Police administration can actually encourage, rather than discourage, misconduct.  Organizational culture  LAPD mentality  Tolerance for racism and other biases  Organizational policies  Citizen complaint system  UOF policies (e.g., choke holds)  Organizational performance systems  Rewards system and lack of discipline

 What can we do about it? How can we fix this? How can we hold PDs accountable? Short answer:  We need to focus on organizational change

What is accountability? 2 elements: (1) Holding LE agencies responsible for the basic services they deliver (Moore book) (2) Holding individual officers accountable for how they treat citizens  Both are interdependent

When a police scandal breaks, what is the typical focus?  Individual officers and their behavior (“rotten apples”) What’s the problem with this?  Ignores organizational determinants of police misconduct Can we not hold entire police agencies accountable?  Each branch of gov’t contributes to this, but it’s unclear what strategies/tools each should use

How bad is it?  Misconduct exists, but much less now than in the past How do we know?  Mostly from investigations into agencies following scandal  See a “scandal and reform” cycle from some large police agencies (NYPD, LAPD) All are reforms doom to fail?  Those that fail to address the underlying organizational determinants of misconduct sure are

What are they?  UOF/Critical incident reporting  Open citizen complaint procedures  Early Intervention systems  External citizen oversight (Police Auditor) Where do these accountability practices in policing come from?  Agencies that embrace accountability (and therefore don’t get much media attention)

These tools don’t just exist in a vacuum, but were developed as part of a new paradigm of police reform, which consists of several elements:  Changing police organizations: from rotten apples to rotten barrels  Controlling street-level officers: new tools attempt to change day-to-day functioning of line officers  Systematic collection and analysis of data  Convergence of Internal/External Accountability

 We’ve seen many reforms fail b/c the subculture is highly resistant to change, and we’ve seen a large number of failures in police history, so it’s easy to be cynical  These new tools have great potential, but it’s too early to tell if they’ll change policing overall.