"Exercises in Futility": Dallas Police Oversight Board Mired in Frustration and Inaction

[WhiskeyGrinder]

https://boltsmag.org/dallas-police-oversight/

Police oversight boards are often focal points for policy change after tragedies and scandals involving police violence, particularly after a police reform task force set up by Barack Obama’s administration recommended them as a best practice for building trust between communities and police. There are more than 200 such boards across the country, according to the National Association of Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement. Still, those boards are often volunteers who hold little to no official power over investigating police actions.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, community police oversight boards rarely play any meaningful check on police power and often resemble little more than a thin gesture by police agencies to work with the public without really working with the public, according to Barry Friedman, an attorney and scholar who published a national study on such boards last year. 

“To be blunt, we didn’t find many successful boards, because they were hamstrung,” Friedman told Bolts. “Very often they’re created because the community is angry, so it’s ‘Let’s give them something.’”

“Something is created out of hope and promise,” he added, “but people end up being disappointed.”

[Martin68]

1. Mere window dressing. Police departments are masters of lip service and symbolic action but very

weak on actual results and accountability. I suggest Democrats focus on accountability and oversight rather than defunding. One thing we should play up is the millions of dollars in taxpayer money that are spent in settlement of cases of misconduct which rarely result in meaningful change.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. Decades of reform through attempts to focus on "accountability" and "oversight" are what have gotten

us what we have now. Why keep throwing money at it?

[Martin68]

4. It's not a matter of "throwing money at it." It's a matter of active enforcement with real

consequences for bad behavior. It will require independent oversight so that the police won't be policing themselves. It will require laws that prevent cops that have been fired from immediately getting a job with a different PD in a different state. It will require that police who have been reprimanded or fired will have that on their permanent employment record. It will require that the process of investigating charges and assigning guilt will be open to the public. The police are hiding behind a wall of immunity, non-disclosure, and confidentiality, preventing the public and government officials from having access to the information they need to determine whether a candidate for a position in the police force has a clean record. There are steps that can and must be taken to reform our police departments and hold them to standards that are higher, not lower, than those to which we hold our citizens. Out governors and mayors need to be able to see patterns of misbehavior that should disqualify individuals on the police force from holding a job with law enforcement.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. .

It will require independent oversight so that the police won't be policing themselves.

"Establishing" independent oversight boards are a great way for police to pay lip service to reform without it actually happening. There are many different models of oversight, and getting city councils or mayors to land on one that a police department will agree to can take months or years -- however long it takes until politics shift and people forget.

It will require laws that prevent cops that have been fired from immediately getting a job with a different PD in a different state.

Immediately, or ever? I know Connecticut has this law, but it's also difficult to follow, because there are such huge gaps in sharing information about fired cops, as well as relying on humans to keep that data up-to-date and accurate. That shit costs money!

It will require that police who have been reprimanded or fired will have that on their permanent employment record.

There is no real "permanent record," although there are some databases. Again, more money to get them updated and people trained on them.

It will require that the process of investigating charges and assigning guilt will be open to the public. The police are hiding behind a wall of immunity, non-disclosure, and confidentiality, preventing the public and government officials from having access to the information they need to determine whether a candidate for a position in the police force has a clean record.

Is this still about the database?

There are steps that can and must be taken to reform our police departments and hold them to standards that are higher, not lower, than those to which we hold our citizens.

People say this a lot. What are those steps? Do they not cost anything?

[Mr.Bill]

6. Plenty of other occupations,

from teachers to nurses to even car salesmen have ways to prohibit someone from ever working in that occupation, at least in that state. This is usually done through state licensing. Lose your license, you don't work in that occupation in that state either for some period of time or permanently. Why can't we do that with police?

[Martin68]

7. You've given up. Good for you. There are clear ways out of the jungle. It will take political

will, solid funding (considering the millions spent on settlements, it might not require a great deal more investment), and clear thinking. If everybody has given up (like you) then we're stuck where we are. If not, we can start making improvements now. Red states will be stuck in the mud a slot longer, as has been the case with eduction and health care. Blue states will have to show the way. If we had given up on affordable health care then we wouldn't have millions more Americans with health insurance.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

8. Not at all. I want it abolished.

[Solly Mack]

3. K&R