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97
adversarial role, making as hard and as harsh a legal presentation as is needed
to prevail. He knows how damaging such ‘victories’ can be. . . . The council
members ought to agree to a state document that builds on their own
improvements. . . . The Attorney General’s Office has other things to do than
fine-tune one police department. The state will be represented by a
consultant and the city will be held accountable by order of a court; but this
does not have to be an oppressive or onerous relationship. . . . The best way
to continue the progress is to sign the agreement. . . . Sign it and move on.
(February 20, 2001, A11)
The Black Voice News also published an editorial supporting the settlement.
Publisher Hardy Brown wrote that the City has “an opportunity to send a clear signal
and leave a legacy for others to follow when it comes to police reform. . . . We agree
with the Attorney General and forcefully suggest that the city leadership sign the
‘settlement agreement’. . . . Mayor and City Council sign the ‘Consent Decree’”
(Brown 2001).
In response to the Attorney General’s deadline (giving the City until the end
of February 2001), the City Council scheduled a vote for February 27, 2001, on
whether to sign the agreement. A community meeting on the agreement was held a
week earlier on February 20, 2001. At the community meeting, Mayor Ron
Loveridge, City Manager John Holmes, Police Chief Russ Leach, and
Councilmember Ameal Moore all urged support for the agreement during a
scheduled vote the following week. Most of the speakers at the meeting endorsed
the consent decree. Jack Clarke Jr., an influential lawyer and civic leader, told the
gathering, “In order to look forward and not look back, we need to support this
agreement” (Pitchford and O’Neill Hill 2001, B1).
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 109 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | 97 adversarial role, making as hard and as harsh a legal presentation as is needed to prevail. He knows how damaging such ‘victories’ can be. . . . The council members ought to agree to a state document that builds on their own improvements. . . . The Attorney General’s Office has other things to do than fine-tune one police department. The state will be represented by a consultant and the city will be held accountable by order of a court; but this does not have to be an oppressive or onerous relationship. . . . The best way to continue the progress is to sign the agreement. . . . Sign it and move on. (February 20, 2001, A11) The Black Voice News also published an editorial supporting the settlement. Publisher Hardy Brown wrote that the City has “an opportunity to send a clear signal and leave a legacy for others to follow when it comes to police reform. . . . We agree with the Attorney General and forcefully suggest that the city leadership sign the ‘settlement agreement’. . . . Mayor and City Council sign the ‘Consent Decree’” (Brown 2001). In response to the Attorney General’s deadline (giving the City until the end of February 2001), the City Council scheduled a vote for February 27, 2001, on whether to sign the agreement. A community meeting on the agreement was held a week earlier on February 20, 2001. At the community meeting, Mayor Ron Loveridge, City Manager John Holmes, Police Chief Russ Leach, and Councilmember Ameal Moore all urged support for the agreement during a scheduled vote the following week. Most of the speakers at the meeting endorsed the consent decree. Jack Clarke Jr., an influential lawyer and civic leader, told the gathering, “In order to look forward and not look back, we need to support this agreement” (Pitchford and O’Neill Hill 2001, B1). |
