Atlantic Cities has a disturbing piece on keeping police departments accountable. It stats that had Trayvon Martin been shot by police officers under the same conditions we would not be having this discussion about whether his shooting was warranted. We would just have assumed that it was.
Holding police departments accountable, especially when it comes to activities affecting minority communities, is difficult to do. Community review boards are largely ineffective:
. . . there is no such justice for police abusers in Philly. According to a recent Daily News
report, the city's Police Advisory Commission “is often described as a
toothless, civilian-run police oversight board without the authority to
do anything.” The Commission has no power to punish offending police
officers and can only make recommendations to the police department. It
has done so just 21 times since 1994. In January, the Commission
published its first recommendation since 2007. The barely funded agency
currently has a backlog of 129 cases dating back to 2008. A proposal to
strengthen the commission has so far been stymied by the city's powerful
Fraternal Order of Police.
In New York, advocates likewise have little faith in the Civilian Complaint Review Board (
CCRB).
“The
CCRB has unfortunately proven itself to be highly ineffective at
reigning in police abuse,” says Donna Lieberman, Executive Director of
the New York Civil Liberties Union. “While the CCRB receives increasing
numbers of complaints every year, many people don't go there because
they fail to substantiate all but a small percentage of complaints. And
the police department fails to discipline officers in cases that are
substantiated.”
