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30
that these patrol practices have “. . . replaced harassment by individual patrolmen
with harassment by entire departments” (304).
The widespread use of arbitrary “stop-and-frisk”16 tactics by police
departments in urban neighborhoods was viewed as unwarranted harassment and
created deep resentment and an us-versus-them state of affairs (National Advisory
Commission on Civil Disorders 1968, 303). Moreover, the report described the
motorized patrolman as isolated from the community: “see[ing] the city through a
windshield and hear[ing] about it over a police radio. To him, the area increasingly
comes to consist only of lawbreakers. To the ghetto resident, the policeman comes
increasingly to be only an enforcer” (1968, 305).
Police neglect and overly aggressive and abusive policing in African
American communities helped to spark much of the major urban civil unrest of the
1960s. The Kerner Commission determined that “[a]lmost invariably the incident
that ignites disorder arises from police action. . . . all the major outbursts of recent
years—were precipitated by arrests of Negroes by white police for minor offenses”
(National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders 1968, 206; Hahn and Feagin
1970). The Commission recommended changing police operations to “ensure proper
conduct . . . and eliminate abrasive practices,” to provide adequate and equitable
police protection in African American communities, to establish fair citizen
16 “Stop and frisk” refers to the patting down of a suspect’s outer clothing in search of weapons,
narcotics or other contraband. It is also known as a field interview, a field inquiry, or a threshold
inquiry. In Terry v Ohio (1968), the Supreme Court ruled that police can briefly detain a suspect if an
officer has a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. A patdown or frisk of a suspect is justified if
an officer has a reasonable fear that the individual is armed and dangerous.
Object Description
| Title | Policing accountability: an empirical investigation of state-sponsored police reform in Riverside, California |
| Author | Gomez, Jose Adolfo |
| Author email | jagclash@yahoo.com; jgomez@treasurer.ca.gov |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Political Science |
| School | College of Letters, Arts and Sciences |
| Date defended/completed | 2008-08-01 |
| Date submitted | 2008 |
| Restricted until | Restricted until 13 Oct. 2010. |
| Date published | 2010-10-13 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Renteln, Alison Dundes |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Newland, Chester A. Wong, Janelle S. |
| Abstract | The police have the ability to detain, arrest, and use force when necessary. Police accountability is thus of paramount concern to the public. Numerous examples of police misconduct, including cases of excessive force, brutality, and corruption, appear regularly via the news media. These incidents often evidence systemic organizational problems in law enforcement agencies. Scholars have observed that attempts at police reform have placed too much emphasis on individuals behaving badly, rather than on the systemic problems of the police department.; Beginning in the second half of the 1990s, federal and state Attorneys General began employing institutional reform litigation, in the form of consent decrees, to reform law enforcement agencies and enhance police accountability. The consent decrees were crafted to address systemic organizational dysfunction in local police departments. The United States Department of Justice (USDOJ) conducted most of these reform interventions. However, a notable exception was the settlement agreement between the Attorney General of the State of California and the City of Riverside, California.; There has been little research on the efficacy of these efforts to rehabilitate law enforcement agencies. This analysis is a case study of the effectiveness of the institutional reform intervention by the California Attorney General into the Riverside Police Department (RPD). The detailed examination revealed that the intervention produced constructive changes in the way the RPD conducts its business. The RPD became more professional, effective, transparent and accountable as it implemented the provisions of the consent decree, demonstrating that institutional reform litigation can result in meaningful police reform. The shadow of the law was ever present, encouraging an ethos of cooperation and exerting pressure for meaningful organizational change. The Riverside experience suggests that a facilitative oversight style produces constructive collaboration between the parties, improving the likelihood of durable police reform. Moreover, consent decrees to correct systemic police misconduct should not be the exclusive purview of the USDOJ. State Attorneys General can effectively initiate police reform and in some cases state intervention is a more appropriate alternative. |
| Keyword | institutional reform; police reform; police accountability; state attorney's general; police misconduct; organizational change; consent decrees |
| Geographic subject (city or populated place) | Riverside |
| Geographic subject (state) | California |
| Coverage date | 1993/2008 |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m1664 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Gomez, Jose Adolfo |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Filename | etd-Gomez-2358 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume29/etd-Gomez-2358.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 42 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | 30 that these patrol practices have “. . . replaced harassment by individual patrolmen with harassment by entire departments” (304). The widespread use of arbitrary “stop-and-frisk”16 tactics by police departments in urban neighborhoods was viewed as unwarranted harassment and created deep resentment and an us-versus-them state of affairs (National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders 1968, 303). Moreover, the report described the motorized patrolman as isolated from the community: “see[ing] the city through a windshield and hear[ing] about it over a police radio. To him, the area increasingly comes to consist only of lawbreakers. To the ghetto resident, the policeman comes increasingly to be only an enforcer” (1968, 305). Police neglect and overly aggressive and abusive policing in African American communities helped to spark much of the major urban civil unrest of the 1960s. The Kerner Commission determined that “[a]lmost invariably the incident that ignites disorder arises from police action. . . . all the major outbursts of recent years—were precipitated by arrests of Negroes by white police for minor offenses” (National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders 1968, 206; Hahn and Feagin 1970). The Commission recommended changing police operations to “ensure proper conduct . . . and eliminate abrasive practices,” to provide adequate and equitable police protection in African American communities, to establish fair citizen 16 “Stop and frisk” refers to the patting down of a suspect’s outer clothing in search of weapons, narcotics or other contraband. It is also known as a field interview, a field inquiry, or a threshold inquiry. In Terry v Ohio (1968), the Supreme Court ruled that police can briefly detain a suspect if an officer has a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. A patdown or frisk of a suspect is justified if an officer has a reasonable fear that the individual is armed and dangerous. |
