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On 5 July 2023 the Supreme Court handed down its judgment in R (on the application of W80) v Director General of the Independent Office for Police Conduct. The issue before the Court was which test should be applied in assessing whether officers' use of force amounts to misconduct; the criminal law test for self‐defence as the Divisional Court found; the test set out in the Police Conduct Regulations 2012 (ie that officers should only use force when it is 'necessary, proportionate and reasonable in all the circumstances') as the Court of Appeal held; or the civil law test for self‐defence which the Supreme Court ultimately decided was the correct approach. The Court's affirmation that the criminal law test is inconsistent with the purposes of the police conduct system is to be welcomed. However, this case note argues that their Lordships' reasoning in other regards was unconvincing and obscured deeper issues concerning police accountability which the recent Casey Review confirms need to be more openly addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Police killings of individuals with mental illness have prompted calls for greater funding of mental health services to shift responsibilities away from the police. Such investments can reduce police interactions with vulnerable populations but are unlikely to eliminate them entirely, particularly in cases in which individuals with mental illness have a weapon or are otherwise dangerous. It remains a pressing question, then, how police should respond to these and other vulnerable aggressors with diminished culpability. This article considers and ultimately rejects three potential approaches from the ethics of defensive force literature. It looks to improve on them by developing what I call the fusion account, which explains how vulnerability and diminished culpability fit together to provide moral grounds for extra protections from deadly force. The article's final sections explore the policy implications of the fusion account for police administrators, officers, and the law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of the Defund the Police and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movements, police accountability and legitimacy are commanding a significant amount of attention. Importantly, questions are being raised about how to effectively govern and manage policing especially with respect to police violence and misconduct. While much of this discussion has focused on the actions of the police, there has been little research examining the civilian bodies responsible for holding police accountable: Police Service Boards (PSBs). In recent years, a few high-profile public reports have identified that certain PSBs in Canada, are struggling to carry out their roles and responsibilities and offered numerous recommendations to address existing shortcomings. These detailed reports have important implications for oversight and governance. However, the scale and generalizability of the response to the concerns raised in these reports remains unknown. In this study, we explore issues of capacity and training for PSB members to better understand the gap between the expectations of PSBs to provide meaningful governance of the police and their perceived capacity to do so. Our research suggests that a significant gap in governance exists, related to the lack of adequate training and capacity building in PSBs across the country. Recommendations and future directions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Police reform implementation has been widespread in post-conflict transitions. Responding to conflict recurrence and past human rights violations, among other factors, motivate reforms. However, we know little about the effectiveness of reforms in reducing police propensity for violence. How does police reform affect police violence after armed conflict? I argue that the nature of reforms poses a challenge to peace and stability: police reform may aggravate the problems it seeks to resolve. Increasing deterrent capacity reinforces militarization, a logic of organization to produce violence that accountability mechanisms – the generation of information and the imposition of costs on abuses – are unlikely to curb. I test these propositions on a panel of 55 post-conflict countries between 1985 and 2015. My findings challenge research suggesting that security reforms lead to peace. Results support policies that reduce police's propensity to use force. Implications are relevant for domestic and international actors engaged in police reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Law enforcement agencies increasingly adopt algorithms for their policing practices, leading to new accountability challenges. However, academic literature tends to regard algorithmic applications as a single entity, resulting in broad and general statements on these risks. By introducing a sociotechnical model of algorithmic policing, this paper identifies eight accountability challenges that originate from technical, organisational and human components. It is illuminated how algorithmic policing accountability is a process that consists of multiple steps that should be considered separately to scrutinise the accountability challenges. The present study showcases how the sociotechnical context determines whether and how accountability issues might arise in algorithmic policing practices. The accountability challenges are presented as propositions that can direct future research in assessing the accountability risks of algorithmic policing applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Police accountability has long been deemed an essential component of democratizing reform. Reformist administrations in Latin America and other developing regions have consequently created oversight agencies to monitor police misconduct. However, the literature has not yet explored how these institutions operate and the politics that undergird them. This paper examines how police accountability institutions work in developing democracies. I focus on the police of the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, using an untapped database of more than 6400 expelled police officers. I find that the extent to which reformist ministers expel police officers and thus exercise greater control of the police peaks during their first year in office. Contrarily, it is not bolstered by mid‐term electoral victories or factors such as scandals or violent crimes. The paper extends our knowledge of the politics of police accountability in developing democracies, outlining the incentives and obstacles for politicians to control the police. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The absence of police accountability has never been more visible. Highprofile police brutality has resulted in high -profile disappointment, 14'here culpable officers walk away undisciplined, unprosecuted, and undeterred from committing the same atrocity again. Such impunity has exposed longstanding dejiciencies within the United States' two-tiered and multipolar system of civil rights enforcement. Chief among these failures is 18 U,S,C. § 242, an oftoverlooked statute that imposes criminal liability upon 01.ficers who "willfully" deprive others of any federal constitutional right. The statute's threshold requirement ofwillful intent has confused courts and discouraged enforcement, resulting in the heavy underdeterrence of civil rights violations. Federal legislative efforts to reform Section 242 have been unsuccessful, and the Supreme Court seems unwilling to revisit its authoritative-but perhaps unworkable-interpretation of the statute in Screws v. United States. State equivalents fare no better, as they utilize comparable standards that present judges, juries, and prosecutors with similar roadblocks to accountability. To remedy the impotence of Section 242 and its sub-federal 01Bhoots, this Comment argues that state legislatures should impose criminal liability upon law enforcement agents who "recklessly" deprive others of their state constitutional rights. By lowering the mens rea required for liability and incorporating the expansive protections of state constitutional jurisprudence, this proposal criminalizes a much wider range of police misconduct than is currently prohibited. However, this change would still protect officers who reasonably adhere to the law, allowing those individuals to do their jobs without the#ar of unwarranted reprisal. A recklessness standard would also allow local .judges to escape the Supreme Court's amorphous definition ofwillfulness in Screws. which was frequently invoked by state courts seeking to interpret Section 242's state-level analogues. Although the expansion of criminal liability comes with many downsides, it is much needed in the realm of police misconduct, where violations routinely occur without any measure of accountability at all. For these reasons, this Comment asserts that states need a broader, more predictable, and more civilian-friendly criminal deprivation of rights statute to deter unconstitutional police behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The deaths of unarmed black citizens at the hands of police have led to dramatic calls for police reform. Some observers claim that officers are poorly trained and unaccountable for their actions. In this study, I test whether measures of organizational training and accountability reduce the likelihood of unarmed fatal officer-involved shootings (OIS). The results suggest external review of deadly force may decrease the likelihood of fatal OIS of unarmed black citizens. Other training and accountability mechanisms are unrelated to, or increase the likelihood of, fatal shootings. More research is needed to determine the causal links between the training and accountability mechanisms outlined in this study and fatal police shootings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research shows that both police officers and the public consistently express support for body-worn cameras (BWCs). The cost of increasing police transparency and accountability, however, is often overlooked. As many agencies have been deterred by their high price, BWCs may not always be cost-effective. Citizens have also rarely been surveyed on BWCs' financial implications, suggesting their support may have been miscalculated. Considering the calls for reducing police budgets, it seems important to question whether BWCs are an appropriate use of public money. This article investigates how financial implications influence support for BWCs. It first explores how officers perceive the financial implications of using BWCs through interviews and focus groups. Then, it examines public support for BWCs, as revealed in experimental phone surveys. Results indicate that officers are generally sceptical about the public value of BWCs. While citizens showed a high endorsement for BWCs, their support dropped when reminded it could lead to cutbacks in social programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policing is a job characterised by high levels of blame risk, with the notion of blame becoming particularly prominent feature in law enforcement in recent years, with organisations often being quick to identify other external bodies as being cognisant in perpetuating this problem. This paper investigates the extent to which fear of blame exists within policing organisations, as well as the techniques utilised by staff to neutralise this particular hazard. I will utilise Hood's concept of 'the blame game' to investigate such techniques and will also outline how engaging in such games leads the organisation and its staff to pit themselves against one another by engaging in framing contests designed to shift the blame away from themselves onto other individuals within the organisation. This paper thus examines the extent to which policing organisations themselves perpetuate blaming practises and preserve the never-ending cycle of blame by engaging in such processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policing and law enforcement bodies and the public authorities that govern them should be accountable for all deaths connected with a use of force. Accountability is a requirement of international human rights law and related provisions on the use of force, and foundational to legitimate, constrained, and consensual policing in liberal democracies. However, divergence in normative compliance and types of state system means that accountability for lethal force is inconsistent around the world. This paper discusses how a global system for monitoring lethal force could enhance accountability by making effective use of comparative benchmarking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is recognised that civil litigation has a place within the police accountability infrastructure. However, the role of actions against the police for wrongful arrest, false imprisonment, assault, and malicious prosecution (hereafter police actions) is underexplored. Taking citizenship as its analytical frame, this paper probes the relationship between police actions and the police complaints and discipline system over the last 60 years. Its primary focus is the Court of Appeal decision Thompson v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, Hsu v Same [1998] QB 498 (Thompson). Here the potential for police actions to expose questionable police responses to officer misconduct, and failings in external oversight mechanisms, came into conflict with the drive towards proportionate civil justice. In prioritising the latter, Thompson increased police autonomy over settlement of police actions, thereby deprioritising the role of the courts in demarcating the limits of state interference with citizens' rights. It is not suggested that Thompson should be overruled. Instead, it is contended that recognising the impact of the decision on subsequent reforms to police accountability processes and contemporary conceptions of the police-citizen relationship is crucial to understanding the roots of current disquiet concerning police accountability (and therefore to the development of meaningful reforms). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use citizen complaint data from the Chicago Police Department and Civilian Office of Police Accountability filed between 2013-2020 to determine the extent to which Body-worn camera (BWC) footage enhances the efficacy of evidence used to formulate a conclusion of responsibility, and whether racial disparities in investigation outcomes would subsequently be reduced. Accordingly, we exploit the staggered deployment of BWCs across 22 Chicago police districts over time to estimate the effect of BWCs on these outcomes. Findings indicate BWCs led to a significant decrease in the dismissal of investigations due to insufficient evidence ("not sustained") and a significant increase in disciplinary actions against police officers ("sustained" "outcomes") with sufficient evidence to sanction their misconduct. We further find that disparities in complaints across racial groups for the "unsustained" category faded away with the implementation of BWCs. The article concludes with theoretical and research implications based on the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On September 30, 2021, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Senate Bill 2 (SB 2), "creat[ing] a system to investigate and revoke or suspend peace officer certification for serious misconduct," as well as establishing the Peace Officer Standards Accountability Division and the Peace Standards Accountability Advisory Board, which will be responsible for investigations into police misconduct. This Note will describe the new features of SB 2's decertification provisions in contrast to traditional methods of addressing police misconduct. Additionally, this Note will examine where the bill fell short, and how to overcome its shortcomings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning in the summer of 2014, a series of controversial deaths in the US, often involving white officers and unarmed minority men, contributed to the growing debate about the need for increased transparency and accountability in policing. Central to the debate has been the call for more body-worn cameras (BWCs), a widely adopted technology that promises numerous benefits through real-time recording of police-public encounters. However, critics of this technology claim that increased surveillance of their behavior may lead to de-policing where officers choose to reduce the quality and/or quantity of their self-initiated police work. This claim has recently received empirical scrutiny in the context of the two main self-initiated activities underlying police work: foot patrols and traffic stops. However, the studies have mainly been outcome-orientated (e.g., stop and frisk or issuance of a citation) rather than activity-focused. The de-policing claim is tested here using data from a lengthy, quasi-experimental evaluation of BWCs in a large US police department. The findings show that the number of foot patrols and traffic stops conducted did not vary based on whether an officer wore a BWC or not. Policy and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community policing, and citizen cooperation with law enforcement more broadly, can improve local security outcomes by providing decentralized mechanisms for police accountability to local citizens. We hypothesize that five factors—alignment of citizen/police interests, relative costs of cooperation, costs of crime, prevalence of others' cooperation, and perceived police efficacy—comprise a decision framework that guides citizens' choices regarding whether to share information with law enforcement. We find evidence for this framework using rich survey and survey experimental data from a large nation-wide survey of Guatemalans and municipal administrative data. Our results indicate that increasing police efficacy, witness protection, and neighborhood trust boost the odds of cooperation with police by up to 55%. At a time when conversations about the relationship between community and police are widespread, this research offers insights into conditions under which cooperation between community members and law enforcement is most likely to occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From ending qualified immunity, to establishing community control over policing, to eradicating the institution of policing altogether, proposals to remedy the issue of “police violence” are on everyone’s lips. But, in the deep reservoir of proposals, the meaning of “police violence” has received relatively little attention. How should we think about “police violence” in a manner that permits us to recognize policing’s organizing principles? And what are the benefits, if any, of snapping into focus the meaning of “police violence”? This Article makes two contributions. First, it proposes a new understanding of “police violence,” arguing that policing, itself, is a tortious assault on class-exploited Black and Brown people. This is effectuated through both violent acts and other forms of abuse that create the “circumstances” under which expectations of harmful contact with police become part of the social contract of being a poor, racialized person. Second, it contends that conceptualizing police-inflicted harm through a tort law lens is harmonious with abolitionist projects to address police violence. A fundamental goal of tort law, like police abolition, is to wrest the power to define harm from state-driven processes and return it to the hands of everyday people, a concept understood in abolitionists’ projects as “power shifting.” At the core of “power shifting” is that the power to define harm should be in the hands of everyday people and their communities. And a linguistic assessment of the Restatement of Torts shows that “community” is the most referenced justificatory concept in tort doctrine. Not morality, efficiency, or deterrence. Community. Tort law demonstrates that in understanding the nature of harmful contact, we should not look to how perpetrators of violence understand or justify their own conduct, but to how the communities subjected to such violence reasonably understand what is being done to them. In both enterprises, law and power are properly mediated by reference to objectively reasonable perceptions within a particular community. Thus, this Article suggests that recognizing policing as a tortious assault on poor Black and Brown communities is itself a form of power shifting. This Article rearticulates the way police violence is constructed by grounding policing in terms of harmful and offensive contact, as judged by community standards. Using this perspective, including a critical take on the history and current reality of U.S. policing, we can recognize that policing, as currently conceived and operationalized, intrinsically uses violence—or the implicit threat of violence—to repress disempowered, often poor Black and Brown communities. With this perspective, the possibility of and justification for a reconceptualization of the role of police, and remedies for police violence, become easier to understand. These remedies, properly understood, are oriented not toward mere reform of an intrinsically violent system, but toward meaningful steps in abolishing that system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the previous studies on vigilante violence suggest that people employ vigilante violence instrumentally to compensate for a lack of state monopoly on violence and the state's illegitimacy in controlling crime. This study, however, highlights the significance of emotions—most notably anger—in explaining approval of vigilante violence. A cross-sectional study was conducted at six Pakistani universities with a sample of 500 students recruited through online surveys. The results of the regression models show that police legitimacy and trait anger independently predict approval of vigilante violence both directly and indirectly via righteous anger. Thus, the findings suggest that people who are easily angered and who perceive the police as corrupt and procedurally unjust feel righteous anger and are likely to approve of vigilante violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid economic and sociopolitical turmoil in Zimbabwe, police roadblocks proliferated throughout the country, creating sites not only of extraction but also of citizen engagement. These sites show that sociality mediates policing, as police and policed together negotiate the precarities of living in the wake of crisis. Roadblocks are key to the performance of the state as such. Yet this occasions the very stage on which the state's failings are manifested, as officers are rendered highly visible and scrutable on the road—this visibility is central to sociality, in a mechanism of power that relies on enfleshing the system of policing by those through whom the state acts. Whereas conceptualizations of governance in Africa often take people as a corrupting element, here, the peopling of the system is central to its operation. Encounters at roadblocks invite a reconsideration of reified ideals of policing and power in governance, including reified concepts of disciplinary power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coercive policing is conducted mostly by means of commands, and officers usually cannot use force unless they have first issued an order. Yet, despite widespread concern about force and coercion in policing, commands are both underregulated and misunderstood. Officers have no clear legal authority to give many common commands, almost no departmental guidance about how or when to issue them, and almost no legal scrutiny for many commands they give. Scholars rarely study commands, and when they do, they get them wrong. As a result of vague law and inadequate analysis, basic questions about police commands--what role they play, where officers get authority to issue them, and how law regulates them--remain unanswered. Instead, officers interact with the public in a legal gray zone, a recipe for illegitimacy and conflict. This Article offers initial answers to these questions. First, it explains the constitutive role commands play in policing: Long-standing law dictates that officers usually cannot compel people, including by stop or arrest, without issuing commands that impose new legal duties. Second, it contends that although statutes sometimes authorize specific commands, officers' authority to issue many orders comes from--and is limited by--officers' authority to stop, search, and arrest suspects. Third, the Article argues that the legal functions commands serve--namely, generating and communicating legal duties--dictate that lawful orders must satisfy three constraints: They must be authorized by state law; they must obey constitutional limits; and they must provide adequate notice and opportunity for individuals to comply. These constraints are embedded in the law, but few avenues exist for challenging commands. Courts have therefore not defined or enforced limits on command authority well, except when commands violate constitutional rights. Courts can easily do better, and legislative and departmental action could clarify, extend, and enforce appropriate limits on police authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As survivors of state harm, exonerees are often woefully undercompensated compared to present jury awards for wrongful incarceration. Furthermore, by prectuding exonerees who have falsely confessed or pled guilty from receiving state compensation, lawmakers squander an opportunity to increase police accountability going forward, further stacking the deck against those who have already been failed by the system. This Note proceeds as follows: Part I provides a background of false confessions, why they occur in the context of police interrogation, and their consequences for an exoneree seeking compensation from the state for their wrongful incarceration. Part II investigates avenues of legal redress for the wrongly incarcerated and explores whether meaningful compensation may reform the underlying procedures which often lead to false confessions. Part III argues for legislative amendments to meaningfully increase the availability and amount of exoneree compensation. This Part proposes the adoption of budgetary arrangements in which law enforcement agencies bear the burden of settlements and judgments against them, thus facing financial constraints when litigation is costly. In addition, it proposes state statutory establishment of Wrongful Conviction Trust Funds with annual contributions determined by the state's rate of incarceration, and contributions either diverted from or directly tied to law enforcement agency budgets. Such budgetary constraints provide long-term incentives for law enforcement to adopt procedures which increase accuracy in investigation and minimize the risk of wrongful conviction. Moreover, prosecutors may further the objectives of such reforms by lobbying for the establishment of Wrongful Conviction Trust Funds and the legislative abolishment of mandatory minimum sentencing, limiting over-charging practices, and better staffing Conviction Integrity Units, where prosecutors have largely failed to promote police accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent criminological research has developed a processual conceptualisation of scandal to analyse policing and criminal justice transgression and its attempted management. Through media content analysis and in-depth interviews with police and non-police respondents, this article applies criminological theories of scandal to a case of bystander-filmed police excessive force at the 2013 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade and uploaded to YouTube. The article renders scandal more complex than existing models, emphasising outrage and surprise in cases of bystander social media police scandals involving police excessive force, in conjunction with Mawby's processual model. However, it argues that despite the mobilising force of outrage through social media, police capture of police complaint mechanisms and political opportunism can normalise police transgression and blur lines of responsibility. Individual transgressions can be linked to a macro, 'chronic' scandal of police excessive force, diminishing scandal's conceptual and practical purchase as a police accountability lever. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While levels of public confidence in the police have declined internationally, the Republic of Ireland appears to have bucked this trend with confidence levels that remain "strikingly and stubbornly high." This situation appears all the more puzzling given the wave of scandals to have hit the force in recent decades, ranging from police corruption in Donegal in the late 1990s to a more recent whistleblower scandal that has resulted in the resignation of a slew of Ministers and high-ranking officials. Such developments beg important questions as to the factors sustaining public confidence over this tumultuous period. Drawing on international and domestic data, this article aims to probe this "paradox" of public confidence in the Irish police. It argues that although confidence is high, there is more to the dynamics of confidence in the police in Ireland than this initial appraisal suggests. Indeed, it advances the Irish case as an illustration both of the dimensionality of the public confidence concept and of the complexity of the pathways to trust in the police. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People offer accounts in response to actions that are subjected to valuative inquiry. Recordings of police actions captured on body‐worn camera (BWC) video can become subject to valuative inquiry when footage is publicly released. This footage may possibly undermine police legitimacy. Managing legitimacy is a basic rationale for why police provide accounts in response to their conduct. Proponents of BWCs assert that the devices enhance legitimacy and, while police have long used accounts to justify their conduct, less is known about how body cameras affect police accountability in practice. Drawing from Scott and Lyman's accounts theory framework, this qualitative, exploratory study examines official police accounts as both outcomes of police accountability in practice and as provided in the context of news media coverage of publicly released body‐worn camera footage. This allows us to ask the following questions: What types of accounts have police officials provided in news media reports in the context of publicly released BWC footage? And, more generally, what insight might an analysis of police accounts provide about accountability in relation to the implementation of BWCs? A key finding reveals that the timing of police accounts varied quite considerably, and that accounts were usually not static. The findings provide some general insight into what kinds of actions captured on body camera recordings constitute acceptable use of force by officers, even in situations when police actions resulted in death. This study also provides a small empirical window into when and how police officials provide accounts in response to publicly released body camera footage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Police, like other bureaucratic agencies, are responsible for collecting and disseminating policy-relevant data. Nonetheless, critical data, including killings by police, often go unreported. We argue that this is due in part to the limited oversight capacity of legislative bodies to whom police are accountable. Although many local assemblies lack the means for effective oversight, well-resourced state legislatures may induce transparency from state and substate agencies. This argument is evaluated in two studies of police transparency in the United States. First, we examine the compliance of 19,095 state, county, and municipal police agencies with official data requests over five decades, finding strong positive effects of state legislative capacity on transparency. Second, we examine the accuracy of transmitted data on killings by police, finding that lethality is systematically underreported in states with lower-capacity legislatures. Collectively, our study has implications for research on policing, legislatures, agency control, and analyses of government data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many new democracies, the police continue to be a political tool of the ruling elites, and governments are reluctant to reform the police to be a democratic police force. This article examines why these problems occur by analyzing how the police relate to ruling elites and how this relationship affects police practices and police reforms based on a case study on Thailand. By adopting the institutionalist approach concerning the impacts of informal institutions on formal institutions, this study finds that political patronage between politicians and police officers made the police a political tool of politicians in power and led to the failure to reform the police to develop democratic policing during democratisation in Thailand in the period of 1992–2006. After the 1992 uprising, businessman-politicians replaced military leaders to be patrons of police officers by manipulating police reshuffles in Thailand. Through these relationships, police officers abused their powers to aid politicians and political parties to suppress political opponents and dissent through selective law enforcement and criminal investigations. Political patronage affected police reforms through 'constraining' policies that were designed to increase the accountability of the police and prevent abuse of police powers, while, at the same time, 'reinforcing' the restructuring of police organisation and administration to strengthen the relationship of political patronage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, which is based on literature and documentary survey, explores civilian police oversight mechanisms in Europe, Australia and Africa. The paper reveals that Europe has several nations with independent institutions to investigate police misconduct; thought there is limited empirical research on the effectiveness of these institutions. Independent police oversight institutions in Australia have limited investigative powers and they are more of review boards. Two African countries- Kenya and South Africa have independent institutions to investigate police misconduct, though the effectiveness of these two institutions has been questioned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article demonstrates how the broader social development to understand behaviour and personhood as shaped by neurobiology forms a predominant narrative among police officers. Drawing on an ethnography of the Dutch police force and 73 interviews with officers, I examine first how they use neurobiological terms to describe and account for their embodied sensations as well as civilian behaviour. Second, I describe the functions these narratives have, that is, why officers use them. Finally, I show how neurobiological discourses are learned and (re)produced during training. Results indicate that officers invoke neurobiology both as facilitator of and explanation for action. The latter raises questions as to what extent neurobiological discourse obscures police responsibility and accountability. A more thorough understanding of how neurobiological discourses are used to understand and account for actions is relevant, given the growing pressures on public professionals to legitimise their work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A lack of formal accountability in the aftermath of police violence against communities of color has long fueled public demands for increased police oversight. Yet, little is known about how interorganizational relationships affect citizen complaint investigations once citizen review boards (CRBs) are established. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and archival sources about the Syracuse Citizen Review Board in New York State, I show how CRBs operate as bureaucratic agencies that ostensibly address police misconduct, yet are managed by municipal power relations that neutralize the agency's ability to actualize change. Specifically, I find that a CRB's embeddedness within a municipality's interorganizational field creates a site of contestation to ensure public legitimation of police despite community concern. To show how the aims of citizen oversight can be upended within the structural and practical politics of local government, I introduce the concept of a police legitimacy regime: a set of (in)formal policies, organizations, and actors that protect and promote the legitimacy of state police power. In Syracuse, police protection happens at the expense of residents' demands for police reform, and I conclude by outlining the implications of this research for other communities seeking citizen‐led approaches to police accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, there has been a push for policies that seek to increase police accountability. Two of these policies, requiring independent investigations and prosecutions of police shootings, have been suggested by academics and activists. Using a sample of undergraduate college students from a large Midwestern university, this study examines the extent and correlates of support for these two policies. The results of the study indicate that both policies enjoy overwhelming support. Respondents who perceive police officers to be like soldiers in a war on crime are less likely to support both policies while those who believe police misconduct to be more common are more likely to support them. Symbolic racism was predictive of a lack of support for independent investigations. Based on the findings, we recommend that more jurisdictions adopt these policies, so that they may improve perceptions of transparency and legitimacy compared to international contexts now relying on citizen reviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early intervention systems (EISs) are becoming more prevalent in US law enforcement agencies. However, to date, scant empirical research has evaluated sworn members' perceptions of EISs and the degree of "buy-in" sworn members have for these systems. The current research conducts an initial exploration of how to best achieve buy-in, ultimately leading to greater acceptance of interventions by sworn members. Using sworn personnel survey data (n = 553) from five US police departments, this research uses regression analyses to explore sworn members' buy-in for EISs as predicted by their views of their department's EIS, including their familiarity with EISs and their views on whether the system is disciplinary or wellness-oriented. Our analysis indicates that buy-in of EISs is influenced by members' familiarity with EIS and whether members believe that EIS is related to well-being (as opposed to discipline). We also find that the variables included in the model explain a substantial proportion of the variance in buy-in. This research provides important insights into the concept of buy-in for EISs, primarily that other factors can modulate buy-in. We discuss these findings in light of developing policy and training to foster the success of EISs within law enforcement agencies. • Buy-in for EIS is influenced by member familiarity with the system. • Buy-in for EIS is influenced by the belief that the EIS focuses on well-being. • Views of EIS as a disciplinary tool lead to lower levels of buy-in. • Findings provide guidance for enhancing buy-in for EIS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we discuss the comparative impact and significance of Community-Oriented Policing (COP) in Central America (Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua). We emphasize in particular the formal role of COP as a means to re-establish trust between the state and community, demonstrate professionalism and to evidence the democratic accountability of the police to the population. Although these formal goals remain the goal of community oriented policing, we demonstrate in this article that there has been an increased emphasis on more kinetic or militarized forms of policing in recent years. Hard handed, heavily armed and interventionist police policies have spread from El Salvador to Guatemala, and more recently Nicaragua. Moves towards more aggressive policing are explained by governments and police forces as a necessary response to the rising threat of gangs and drug cartels and horrifying levels of homicide statistics. However, as we highlight there is also evidence of these changes reflecting undemocratic shifts within national administrations and the repositioning of people within government and national institutions with links to these countries' earlier military governments. The net effect of these changes we argue is to erode the intentions of COP initiatives, and severely reduce levels of trust and accountability between people and the democratic state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Note analyzes the current state of civil law surrounding police use of excessive force, highlighting the evolution of the "objective reasonableness" test employed in civil police use of force lawsuits brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. This Note also discusses the role that social movements and surveillance technologies have played in furthering police accountability and shifting public opinion surrounding police use of force. After detailing this social and technological context, this Note addresses the numerous problems presented by the "objective reasonableness" test employed within civil police use of force cases, analyzing this problematic test from the perspective of both the public and the police. This Note coins the term "officer-created jeopardy liability loophole" and explains how, under the current test, officer-defendants can escape § 1983 liability when they deliberately or recklessly escalate a situation or create the need for force in the first place. To close this liability loophole and resolve other problems presented by the current "objective reasonableness" test, this Note proposes a rebuttable presumption of unreasonableness, in which a § 1983 plaintiff can present evidence to establish a prima facie case of officer-created jeopardy which, if not sufficiently rebutted by an officer-defendant, presumes the officer-defendant's use of force unreasonable and in violation of § 1983. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Suppression motions are the means by which defendants challenge the constitutionality of stops, searches, and seizures, and move the court to exclude illegally recovered evidence. However, defendants face insurmountable obstacles in challenging police credibility in these motions. Using 31 motions with factual disputes from a northeastern state, we dissect the types of defense challenges related to stops, searches, seizures, and arrests, as well as the prevalence and types of corroborating evidence presented by the defense. We find that most defense challenges to police credibility are not corroborated, and evidence of prior police misconduct is not presented. Furthermore, judges typically rule in favor of the police when adjudicating uncorroborated factual disputes between police officers and defendants. As a result, suppression motions generally fail to serve as an accountability structure for police conduct and rarely provide defendants with a viable remedy to address rights violations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a normative analysis of some of the most controversial incidents involving police—what I call police-generated killings. In these cases, bad police tactics create a situation where deadly force becomes necessary, becomes perceived as necessary, or occurs unintentionally. Police deserve blame for such killings because they choose tactics that unnecessarily raise the risk of deadly force, thus violating their obligation to prioritize the protection of life. Since current law in the United States fails to ban many bad tactics, police-generated killings often are treated as "lawful but awful." To address these killings, some call on changes to departmental policies or voluntary reparations by local governments, yet such measures leave in place a troubling gap between ethics and law. I argue that police-generated killings merit legal sanctions by appealing to a relevant analogy: self-generated self-defense, where the person who engages in self-defense started the trouble. The persistent lack of accountability for police-generated killings threatens life, police legitimacy, and trust in democratic institutions. The article closes by identifying tools in law and policy to address this challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

America's use of police to maintain a social order that protects the interests of white upper-class citizens is similar to Taiwan's use of a police state to protect the interests of its authoritarian regime from 1945-1987. America's history and international positionality are vastly different from Taiwan's. However, grassroots movements that abolished Taiwan's police state affirm the strategies of American abolitionist movements for Black liberation and police accountability. Three main lessons from Taiwan's example confirm Black American abolitionists' divest-invest strategies: (1) state sanctioned violence and exploitation are tools for preserving the interests of the ruling class, (2) those tools can be dismantled through interest convergence and direct action, and (3) abolition is divestment and investment, so everyone must fight to build a better system that replaces the dismantled one. Taiwanese grassroots movements' demands for reparations, democracy, and a more inclusive social order demonstrate that abolition is not a political flashpoint. Rather, abolition is an intergenerational human rights movement demanding fundamental societal transformation that shifts power to historically marginalized communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the benefits and pitfalls of international policing in Haiti over the past quarter century. It shows the importance of the political foundations for joint policing arrangements. Haiti's experience illustrates that international personnel can provide useful stopgap policing services when the interests of national and international partners converge around public order crises. However, the Haitian case also shows how weak political commitment on one or both sides can lead to vague mandates, poor cooperation in the field, weak police accountability, and stalled domestic reforms. These problems have undermined the performance of international personnel and the Haitian National Police, eroding public trust in both. Ultimately, international intervention has failed to yield a capable, trusted, and apolitical Haitian police force or a notably stronger rule of law. Haiti thus offers a cautionary tale for international policing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From calls to increase the use of body cameras to calls to defund the police, many have suggested ways to reform policing in an attempt to hold officers accountable for their misconduct. The problem with these reforms, however, is that officers are not held individually responsible for their conduct. This Note proposes one solution to do just that--Congress should condition receipt of the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne JAG) on (1) state and local departments no longer indemnifying judgments for officers; and (2) states requiring officers to secure professional liability insurance as a criterion of continued employment. In turn, officers, not taxpayers, will be financially responsible for any judgments or settlements against them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

However, BWCs also "exacerbate pre-existing police-society tensions related to subservience and separation, possibly forcing the police and society further apart rather than healing wounds and bridging rifts" (p. 182). When considering police-civilian encounters, Newell presents the notion of "collateral visibility" (Newell, 2017) and its impacts on those the police more often (and disproportionately) interact with (e.g. marginalised, minority groups). This book is a vital contribution to the emerging literature on BWCs and it addresses the public visibility of police work and how BWCs impact police practice and police-public interactions. [Extracted from the article]

United States police of#cers arrest more than ten million people each year. All ofthese arrests involve some level offorce, and many ofthem involve multiple ojficers. Victims ofexcessive force may bring a § 1983 civil rights claim against all ofthe officers who were present, but too often plaintiffs with meritorious cases lose because they cannot prove causation. It is not enough to show that "the police" violated the Constitution; rather, to prevail against a defendant, a § 1983 plaintijfmust show how that specific defendant "subjected or caused the plaintiff to be subjected" to the deprivation of a constitutional right. Unfortunately, plaintiffs often are not positioned to know what happened. and police officials have strong incentives to stay silent. Not only do police norms, like the "blue wall of silence," prevent police ollicials from "ratting out" their fellow officers, but § 1983 jurisprudence incentivizes silence-ifall o#icers stay silent. they can all avoid liability. Since George Floyd's killing and the arrest and injury of hundreds of protestors, legal scholars and legislators have offered sweeping proposals to make police more accountable for their misconduct. Yet, they have overlooked the subtle solution that tort law theories of res ipsa loquitur and joint liability offer and that this Article advances. This Article counteracts the incentives toward police silence by proposing a causa per se theory of liability in § 1983 cases against police oficials: when a § 1983 plaintiff offers evidence of a constitutional violation and evidence that an o#icer was presentfor the violation, the burden of production shifts to the defendants to exculpate themselves. If the officers cannot or do not explain what happened, they may be jointly liable for theplaintilf's injury. By redistributing burdens of production in § 1983 causation disputes, courts can expose police misconduct, increase police accountability, and increase the likelihood plaintiffs will be compensated for their injuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite numerous high-profile deaths of African Americans at the hands of law enforcement, little attention has been paid to the issue of police reform in the social work literature. To address this gap, this article focuses on a topic that has been singled out as the most important area of potential reform: restructuring the disciplinary provisions embedded in the contracts negotiated between police unions and municipalities. These provisions frequently shield problematic officers from public accountability by hindering their identification, sanctioning, and dismissal. Given that collective bargaining agreements are typically negotiated behind closed doors, social workers can play an essential role by advocating for public negotiations between municipal and union leaders, so provisions that obstruct public accountability for unfit officers can be identified and eliminated. The article concludes by delineating three alternative models to the status quo—increased neighborhood policing, disbanding or defunding police departments, and police abolition zones—and notes that no model can be successful if those who abuse their power cannot be removed from their positions of public trust. The authors suggest that social workers collaborate with African American residents in a given community to ensure that their preferences regarding community justice are enacted in a manner that reflects their aspirations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: An initial investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) found that the Newark Police Department (NPD) had engaged in a "pattern or practice" of constitutional violations with regard to stop and arrest practices, prompting the city to enter a consent decree. Methods: This study draws on official event-level data on FIs recorded by NPD officers (N = 50,322) and uses random effects panel regression models to examine how socioeconomic characteristics interact with the implementation of the consent decree at micro places in the short term. Results: Spatial analyses indicate a concentration of FI encounters. The implementation of the consent decree coincided with improvements in the quality of data collected by officers conducting FIs of citizens. It was also associated with decreased rates of reported FIs for the city's Black and Latino citizens relative to their share of the local population, and patterns of FI encounters. Conclusions: Newark's consent decree improved the quality of data collection. However, the spatial concentration of reported FIs and subsequent arrest of Black and Latino individuals have not experienced the same effect as they presumably require a culture change that is likely to necessitate a longer time frame to manifest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]