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The plurality of police oversight: a method for building upon lessons learned for understanding an evolving strategy

Kevin G. Karpiak (Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, Michigan, USA)
Sameena Mulla (Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA)
Ramona L. Pérez (San Diego State University, San Diego, California, USA)

Policing: An International Journal

ISSN: 1363-951X

Article publication date: 2 June 2022

Issue publication date: 22 July 2022

307

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to describe an innovative research methods framework designed to address some of the persistent challenges to a social scientific understanding of civilian-led police oversight commissions.

Design/methodology/approach

The project design begins by acknowledging that oversight commissions take multiple and varied forms, which are contingent on local histories, institutional dynamics and discursive strategies for indexing racial inequality. The authors find such variation not to be an impediment to insightful research design. Rather, the methodological frame makes use of multi-sited ethnographic methods, organized at the county level across three research clusters (in this example, Milwaukee Co, WI; San Diego Co., CA; and Washtenaw Co, MI), to draw attention to the effects of such multiplicity to complicate, localize and render visible the specific practices of policing and its critique through civilian oversight.

Findings

Amongst an increasing national concern with the racialized nature of police violence, one evolving strategy for police reform among municipalities is to establish civilian oversight boards that can monitor, make recommendations for, and potentially direct police policy. However, there is very little research on such commissions, leaving many unanswered questions for proponents of evidence-based criminal justice policy. One reason for this lack is that the tremendous variability of such commissions has led some researchers to abandon hope for a comparative analysis which might offer generalizable conclusions beyond individual case studies. Lessons learned from previous reform efforts suggest that without a solid evidentiary basis, such reform efforts can easily succumb to institutional inertia or even failure. This danger is especially present when policy and practice recommendations are not based on research designs particularly attuned to making audible the experiences and concerns of the most marginalized targets of police attention.

Originality/value

The value of this method rests in its ability to provide comparative insights into the ways in which oversight commissions operate within a broader pluralized security landscape that both makes possible and constrains democratic participation along racial lines. The method contextualizes and renders audible ways of understanding, evaluating, and practicing democratic community as it is articulated through the issue of police and its oversight.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This work has been made possible in part through the generous support of Eastern Michigan University and the GameAbove Foundation. The authors would like to voice gratitude to the oversight practitioners who dedicate their time and effort to such work and for allowing us to share in that space. The authors also extend appreciation to Lorenzo M. Boyd, Delores Jones-Brown, and Richard C. Helfers for the opportunity to think about the future of policing and its oversight, and to the external reviewers who provided helpful comments and feedback. Finally, the authors thank Mansi Hitesh for editorial assistance.

Citation

Karpiak, K.G., Mulla, S. and Pérez, R.L. (2022), "The plurality of police oversight: a method for building upon lessons learned for understanding an evolving strategy", Policing: An International Journal, Vol. 45 No. 4, pp. 648-661. https://doi.org/10.1108/PIJPSM-08-2021-0117

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited

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