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46
injury or death, the impact of administrative rulemaking on officer discretion can be
considerable. For example, Alpert found that a change to a more restrictive high-speed
pursuit policy reduced the number of police pursuits (279 to 51) in one city,
and that a change to a more permissive pursuit policy greatly increased the number
of police pursuits (17 to 122) in another city (1997, 4). Similarly, Fyfe examined a
1972 New York City Police Department use-of-force change in policy to test
whether clearly articulated departmental policies regarding the use of force reduced
officer-involved shootings. He found that officers shot their weapons about thirty
percent less (between 1971 and 1975) than before the policy was in place and that
there was also a reduction in shootings of police (Fyfe 1979, 322; Walker 1999, 38).
A national evaluation of police shootings between 1970 and 1984 found that lethal
shootings dropped fifty percent (Walker 1999, 38; Sherman and Cohn 1986; Geller
and Scott 1992). Ironically, approximately 25 percent of officers shot while
performing their duties are shot by people using the officer’s weapon (Skolnick and
Fyfe 1993, 41-42).
Officer discretion was further constrained in 1985 after the Supreme Court
imposed a restrictive “fleeing felon standard” on the use of lethal force in Tennessee
v Garner (1985). The Court held that lethal force “may not be used unless it is
necessary to prevent the escape [of an apparently armed suspected felon] and the
officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of
death or serious physical injury to the officer or others” (3). Before that decision,
Tennessee law did not distinguish between suspects who were dangerous and those
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 58 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | 46 injury or death, the impact of administrative rulemaking on officer discretion can be considerable. For example, Alpert found that a change to a more restrictive high-speed pursuit policy reduced the number of police pursuits (279 to 51) in one city, and that a change to a more permissive pursuit policy greatly increased the number of police pursuits (17 to 122) in another city (1997, 4). Similarly, Fyfe examined a 1972 New York City Police Department use-of-force change in policy to test whether clearly articulated departmental policies regarding the use of force reduced officer-involved shootings. He found that officers shot their weapons about thirty percent less (between 1971 and 1975) than before the policy was in place and that there was also a reduction in shootings of police (Fyfe 1979, 322; Walker 1999, 38). A national evaluation of police shootings between 1970 and 1984 found that lethal shootings dropped fifty percent (Walker 1999, 38; Sherman and Cohn 1986; Geller and Scott 1992). Ironically, approximately 25 percent of officers shot while performing their duties are shot by people using the officer’s weapon (Skolnick and Fyfe 1993, 41-42). Officer discretion was further constrained in 1985 after the Supreme Court imposed a restrictive “fleeing felon standard” on the use of lethal force in Tennessee v Garner (1985). The Court held that lethal force “may not be used unless it is necessary to prevent the escape [of an apparently armed suspected felon] and the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others” (3). Before that decision, Tennessee law did not distinguish between suspects who were dangerous and those |
