Thinking Independence: Calling the Police to Account through the Independent Investigation of Police Complaints

Reconceptualising the police complaints process as a site of contested legitimacy claims

“…Second, while analytical and empirical studies have discussed different types of independence (Smith 2009) and considered differing levels of independent oversight (Prenzler and Ronken 2001) they have also queried the effectiveness and even the possibility of true independence (Savage 2013a(Savage , 2013b. There is, therefore, a reasonable concern that the idea of independent involvement may operate to increase general public confidence in the system when the de facto level of independence it embodies is considerably less than commonly understood (Savage 2015: 36).…”

“…One focuses on the practical functions of the process and, in particular, on complainants' needs and experiences (Maguire and Corbet 1991, Landau 1996, Learch 1998, Strudwick 2003, Waters and Brown 2000, Smith 2001. A second considers the need for external involvement in the police complaints system and the difficulties inherent in achieving such involvement (Goldsmith 1991, Goldsmith and Lewis 2000, Porter and Prenzler 2012, Prenzler et al 2013, Prenzler and Ronken 2001, Savage 2013a, 2013b. While acknowledging the importance of both bodies of work, this article seeks to introduce a new approach.…”

Community Responses to “Stop-and-Frisk” in New York City

“…This is important because, as suggested by Savage (2013), formal mechanisms of accountability-such as "transparency" and "independence"-need to be reassessed in connection to actual practices and specific contexts. This is important because, as suggested by Savage (2013), formal mechanisms of accountability-such as "transparency" and "independence"-need to be reassessed in connection to actual practices and specific contexts.…”

“…These partnerships have been grounded in policing models that emphasize the "co-production" of safety between law enforcement and residents and have led to the development of new indicators of police performance such as public confidence in the police (Taylor, 2005). As a result, programs and policies intended to establish local police accountability have been limited in scope or reframed in terms of new rules and procedures aimed to oversee the legality and transparency of general policies (Savage, 2013). As Skogan (2012) discusses, "bottom-up" approaches tend to replicate structural deficits in some communities with government actors pushing the form and content of collaborations (see also Carr, 2013).…”

“…Rather than testing propositions empirically, we collate various types of neighborhood-specific data to discuss how community characteristics, police practices, and individual factors may play a role in the configuration of collective mobilization against intensive law enforcement practices. This is an important issue because discussions surrounding police reform appear to be shifting in the United States and elsewhere from an exclusive focus on "bureaucratic accountability" to the more complex concept of "democratic accountability" (Home Office, 2010; see also Savage, 2013). Although no systematic data on collective action in this area exists, a reading of media reports indicates that local mobilizations in connection to police practices have been relatively sporadic, often linked to serious events such as a police shooting (Johnson, 2006).…”