[Cprb] Why the police are hard to police

Why the police are hard to police

   From New York to L.A., the latest charges of abuse show how tough it
   is to impose civilian oversight on the ranks.
   
   By Daniel B. Wood , Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
   

   As the FBI investigates what some are calling the largest corruption
   scandal to rock the Los Angeles Police Department in 60 years, the
   story is following a script familiar to many American cities.
   
   First come the headlines: "Police abuse alleged." "Corruption probe
   widens." Then come shock and public protests, followed by calls for
   more citizen oversight, new leadership, better police training, or
   another in a long litany of reform.
   
   The allegations this time in Los Angeles are that at least a dozen
   officers abused their authority - from opening fire on unarmed
   suspects to planting evidence, dealing illegal drugs, or covering up
   their crimes by imprisoning at least one innocent man.
   
   Recent history offers some stark lessons on the difficulties of
   rebuilding public trust in the wake of police abuse.
   
   Key among them is that citizen oversight of police - the solution
   often touted as the most-needed remedy - runs into so many obstacles
   that it can easily fail to accomplish "Society lacks in general, and
   political figures and police administrators in particular, the
   political will to take the steps necessary to institute real [police]
   oversight, real accountability, real scrutiny," says John Crew, head
   of the Police Practices Project for the American Civil Liberties Union
   (ACLU). "It is a pattern," he adds, "that stretches from the president
   to the Department of Justice, to statehouses, down to the local city
   council and police chief."
   
   Behind the limited progress is a host of considerations. Politicians
   who built their careers on crime-fighting seldom become champions of
   police-reform legislation. Police unions or top brass often resist the
   "meddling" of citizen-oversight boards. And citizen boards, once in
   place, have been known to render themselves ineffective by becoming
   mired in politics and personality conflicts.
   
   Sustained public will
   
   But just as important, say some criminologists and police-watchdog
   groups, is that the public at large seems unable to muster the
   sustained will to follow through on police reform. Such grass-roots
   activism, say Mr. Crew and others, is what brings truly independent
   police commissions or a change of police leadership at the top.
   
   That's not to say progress is nonexistent. The recent emphasis on
   community policing has required a new spirit of police-community
   relations, in which neighborhood residents need to be as willing to
   aid police as they hope police are to help them.
   
   In some communities the public has opted to pay for new technology,
   such as video recorders for police cruisers. In a few, citizens have
   lobbied long and hard for new laws that require videotaping of
   criminal interrogations and confessions.
   
   "Normal citizens have to keep up their energy and focus, instead of
   letting it dissipate when the initial crisis passes," says Ilene Luna,
   an authority on police reform at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
   
   The citizen activism has reaped some rewards, experts say.
   
   In most cities, police departments are more diverse than they've ever
   been, having a larger share of women and minorities. Significant
   increases in funding for training, including the education of beat
   cops in interpersonal and communication skills, have also improved
   police conduct in dealing with the public. And citizen concern has, on
   occasion, prompted mayors or city councils to replace the man at the
   top, the police chief, upon whom rests the responsibility for a police
   culture of abuse or corruption.
   
   But what has not been followed through on as successfully, say
   watchdog groups, is police accountability.
   
   Many observers say police departments resist the kinds of mechanisms
   that seek to scrutinize, investigate, control, and discipline trained
   professionals. This is especially true when such boards are run by
   civilians who, in the eyes of police, don't know about the pressures
   and skills needed for police work.
   
   "Police unions and associations from the national to the local level
   fight such boards tooth and nail," says Mary Powers of the National
   Coalition on Police Accountability. "Without a watchdog organization
   that has teeth, police know they can hide behind civil-service
   protections until the latest scandal passes by. Then they come out
   again when the coast is clear."
   
   Others say the civilian boards themselves must accept some of the
   responsibility for limited progress.
   
   "Too many civilian police boards and police commissions have developed
   a structure that won't upset the police," says Ms. Luna. "Too many
   operate out of the public view; too many set up models where
   everything is confidential."
   
   The result, say critics, is a pattern of police abuse that seems to
   repeat itself in major American cities.
   
   *In New York, the police killing of Amadou Diallo, an African
   immigrant, in a hail of 41 bullets brought a new spotlight on possible
   abusive tactics by elite police units nationwide.
   
   *In Riverside County outside Los Angeles, the December 1998 shooting
   of Tyisha Miller, a black woman sitting alone in a car, raised
   questions of racial bias in the police department.
   
   *In Illinois, a recent finding that 12 of 25 death-row criminals were
   wrongly convicted has opened a new dialogue on the tactics police use
   to elicit confessions.
   
   In the past week, at least a dozen LAPD officers in gang-fighting
   squads have been implicated in a new scandal here. One of their own
   has charged that police shot an unarmed gang member, planted a gun on
   him to make the shooting look like self-defense, framed him, and lied
   under oath to send him to prison for 23 years. Since the charges
   surfaced last week, the man, now in a wheelchair, was released after
   serving three years.
   
   The case is leading federal investigators to revisit old cases to
   determine the extent of the corruption, which allegedly centers on one
   precinct in a mostly Latino part of the city.
   
   This latest episode is seen partly as a failure by the LAPD to
   sufficiently police its own ranks - and of citizen oversight to bring
   real change to the department. It follows on the heels of the Rodney
   King beating in 1991, which touched off a national furor after it was
   captured on videotape.
   
   In December, the city's first inspector general, Katharine Mader,
   resigned, saying the Police Commission had undermined her position and
   misled the public into thinking her job was truly independent.
   
   An issue of confidence
   
   While some claim such incidents prove police departments are not
   improving, others argue they are the exceptions to a steady progress
   since the Rodney King episode.
   
   "The overwhelming preponderance of studies ... show that the American
   public has confidence in police departments," says Hubert Williams of
   the Police Foundation. "The problem in policing ... continues to be
   that a small percentage of officers blemish the image of departments
   that otherwise are making progress."
   
   San Francisco and Pittsburgh are two cities that are credited with
   operating effective review boards. Though varying in the amount of
   formal power they wield, each has established trust among citizens and
   police by avoiding partisanship.
   
   "It's really about treating the police and civilians as equals," says
   Mary Dunlap, director of San Francisco's Office of Civilian
   Complaints. "You can't have the police be trusted simply because they
   have a badge, or civilians think they are always right because they
   are citizens."
   
   "If you are going on a witch hunt or cop chase just for the chase, it
   won't work," agrees Elizabeth Pittinger of the Pittsburgh Citizen's
   Police Review Board, which has exonerated 70 percent of citizen
   complaints. "The key is being balanced and fair."