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179
could also be productive if the parties are amenable to collaborating on
investigations and settlement agreements.
Harris makes the following observation regarding the importance of
addressing police misconduct:
Police misconduct jeopardizes police departments themselves by destroying
their reputations, demolishing public trust, and putting officers on the street
in danger. . . . Accountability mechanisms therefore protect both citizens and
police themselves and preserve the integrity and legitimacy of law
enforcement from the worst impulses of the few (2006, 86).
In the case of the Riverside Police Department, these accountability mechanisms
were achieved through a uniquely collaborative partnership between the City of
Riverside and the California Attorney General’s Office. The end result of the
consent decree was a police department whose policies and procedures achieve the
best practices of policing. In this instance, the new paradigm of police accountability
– the consent decree – successfully transformed a department riddled with rotten
apples into one in which the rotten apples have largely been tossed, and the barrel
rendered clean.
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 191 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | 179 could also be productive if the parties are amenable to collaborating on investigations and settlement agreements. Harris makes the following observation regarding the importance of addressing police misconduct: Police misconduct jeopardizes police departments themselves by destroying their reputations, demolishing public trust, and putting officers on the street in danger. . . . Accountability mechanisms therefore protect both citizens and police themselves and preserve the integrity and legitimacy of law enforcement from the worst impulses of the few (2006, 86). In the case of the Riverside Police Department, these accountability mechanisms were achieved through a uniquely collaborative partnership between the City of Riverside and the California Attorney General’s Office. The end result of the consent decree was a police department whose policies and procedures achieve the best practices of policing. In this instance, the new paradigm of police accountability – the consent decree – successfully transformed a department riddled with rotten apples into one in which the rotten apples have largely been tossed, and the barrel rendered clean. |
