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33
often defended officers against allegations of misconduct and defended white
officers over minority officers in disputes. They opposed citizen review panels and
programs to improve police-community relations, regularly quarreled with minority
leadership, and resisted many policing innovations (Walker 1999, 373). Although
their contributions to police reform are somewhat equivocal, police unions emerged
in the 1960s as a permanent and powerful fixture in American policing, one that
wields significant influence even to this day (Walker 1999, 38, 371-373; Walker
1998, 199-200).
The 1968 Kerner Commission Report was but one of a series of influential
reports published by presidential commissions and prominent organizations. The
President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice
(commonly referred to as the Crime Commission) published The Challenge of Crime
in a Free Society in 1967, advocating many professionalization reforms, including
more efficient administration, heightened personnel standards, and expanded training
for officers (Walker 1998, 202; Walker 1999, 35). The report also called for the
active engagement of the federal government in providing funding for state and local
government and called for increased funding for applied research on policing.
Accordingly, the Crime Commission sponsored groundbreaking research, including
studies of the behavior of officers in the field and the development of the National
Criminal Victimization Survey (Walker 1998, 202). In 1968, in response to the
Crime Commission recommendations, Congress created the Law Enforcement
Assistance Administration (LEAA) to provide funding and support to local law
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 45 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | 33 often defended officers against allegations of misconduct and defended white officers over minority officers in disputes. They opposed citizen review panels and programs to improve police-community relations, regularly quarreled with minority leadership, and resisted many policing innovations (Walker 1999, 373). Although their contributions to police reform are somewhat equivocal, police unions emerged in the 1960s as a permanent and powerful fixture in American policing, one that wields significant influence even to this day (Walker 1999, 38, 371-373; Walker 1998, 199-200). The 1968 Kerner Commission Report was but one of a series of influential reports published by presidential commissions and prominent organizations. The President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice (commonly referred to as the Crime Commission) published The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society in 1967, advocating many professionalization reforms, including more efficient administration, heightened personnel standards, and expanded training for officers (Walker 1998, 202; Walker 1999, 35). The report also called for the active engagement of the federal government in providing funding for state and local government and called for increased funding for applied research on policing. Accordingly, the Crime Commission sponsored groundbreaking research, including studies of the behavior of officers in the field and the development of the National Criminal Victimization Survey (Walker 1998, 202). In 1968, in response to the Crime Commission recommendations, Congress created the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) to provide funding and support to local law |
