PREFACE Show 1. SOME OPERATING ASSUMPTIONS 2. GETTING STARTED — IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM 3. GATHER THE FACTSForget the Official Data What You Really Need to Know, And Why Where To Get The Information, And How 4. CONTROLLING THE POLICE — COMMUNITY GOALSA Civilian Review BoardControl of Police ShootingsReduce Police Brutality End Police Spying Oversight of Police Policy Improved Training Equal Employment Opportunity Certification and Licensing of Police Officers Accreditation of Your Police Department 5. ORGANIZING STRATEGIESBuild Coalitions Monitor the Police Use Open Records Laws Educate the PublicUse the Political Process to Win Reforms Lobby For State Legislation A FINAL WORD RESOURCESBibliography Organizations ACLU Affiliates CREDITS & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PREFACEIn the early hours of March 3, 1991, a police chase in Los Angeles ended in an incident that would become synonymous with police brutality: the beating of a young man named Rodney King by members of the Los Angeles Police Department. An amateur video, televised nationwide, showed King lying on the ground while three officers kicked him and struck him repeatedly with their nightsticks. No one who viewed that beating will ever forget its viciousness. The Rodney King incident projected the brutal reality of police abuse into living rooms across the nation, and for a while, the problem was front page news. Political leaders condemned police use of excessive force and appointed special commissions to investigate incidents of brutality. The media covered the issue extensively, calling particular attention to the fact that police abuse was not evenly distributed throughout American society, but disproportionately victimized people of color. But six years later, police abuse is still very much an American problem, as the following examples from three recent months demonstrate:
The fact that police abuse remains a significant problem does not mean there has been no progress. In communities all across the United States people have organized to bring about change, and some of the most successful strategies are described in this manual, now in its 3rd printing. This manual was not inspired by, nor is it intended to generate, animosity toward the police, or to promote the perception that all police officers are prone to abuse. They are not. Rather, it arose out of our realization that, ultimately, it will take a strong and sustained effort by community groups to bring about real and lasting reform. And it is to those efforts that this manual is dedicated. Ira GlasserExecutive Director American Civil Liberties Union August 1997 1. SOME OPERATING ASSUMPTIONSTHE BAD NEWS is... The problem is national: no police department in the country is known to be completely free of misconduct. Yet it must be fought locally: the nation's 19,000 law enforcement agencies are essentially independent. While some federal statutes specify criminal penalties for willful violations of civil rights and conspiracies to violate civil rights, the United States Department of Justice has been insufficiently aggressive in prosecuting cases of police abuse. There are shortcomings, too, in federal law itself, which does not permit "pattern and practice" lawsuits. The battle against police abuse must, therefore, be fought primarily on the local level. THE GOOD NEWS is... To fight police abuse effectively, you must have realistic expectations. You must not expect too much of any one remedy because no single remedy will cure the problem. A "mix" of reforms is required. And even after citizen action has won reforms, your community must keep the pressure on through monitoring and oversight to ensure that the reforms are actually implemented. Nonetheless, even one person, or a small group of persistent people, can make a big difference. Sometimes outmoded and abusive police practices prevail largely because no one has ever questioned them. In such cases, the simple act of spotlighting a problem can have a powerful effect that leads to reform. Just by raising questions, one person or a few people — who need not be experts — can open up some corner of the all-too-secretive and insular world of policing to public scrutiny. Depending on what is revealed, their inquiries can snowball into a full blown examination by the media, the public and politicians. 2. GETTING STARTED — IDENTIFY THE PROBLEMYou've got to address specific problems. The first step, then, is to identify exactly what the police problems are in your city. What's wrong with your police department is not necessarily the same as what's wrong in that of another city. Police departments differ in size, quality of management, local traditions and the severity of their problems. Some departments are gravely corrupt; others are relatively "clean" but have poor relations with community residents. Also, a city's political environment, which affects both how the police operate and the possibilites for achieving reform, is different in every city. For example, it is often easier to reform police procedures in cities that have a tradition of "good government," or in cities where racial minorities are well organized politically. The range of police problems includes — 1) Excessive use of deadly force. 2) Excessive use of physical force. 3) Discriminatory patterns of arrest. 4) Patterns of harassment of the homeless, youth, racial minorities and gays, including aggressive and discriminatory use of the "stop-and-frisk" and overly harsh enforcement of petty offenses. 5) Chronic verbal abuse of citizens, including racist, sexist and homophobic slurs. 6) Discriminatory non-enforcement of the law, such as the failure to respond quickly to calls in low-income areas and half-hearted investigations of domestic violence, rape or hate crimes. 7) Spying on political activists. 8) Employment discrimination — in hiring, promotion and assignments, and internal harassment of minority, women and gay or lesbian police personnel. 9) The "code of silence" and retaliation against officers who report abuse and/or support reforms. 10) Overreaction to gang problems, which is driven by the assumption that those who associate with known gang members must be involved in criminal activity, even in the absence of concrete evidence that this is the case. This includes illegal mass stops and arrests, and demanding photo IDs from young men based on their race and dress instead of on their criminal conduct. 11) The "war on drugs," with its overbroad searches and other tactics that endanger innocent bystanders. This "war" wastes scarce resources on unproductive "buy and bust" operations to the neglect of more promising community-based approaches. 12) Lack of accountability, such as the failure to discipline or prosecute abusive officers, and the failure to deter abuse by denying promotions and/or particular assignments because of prior abusive behavior. 13) Crowd control tactics that infringe on free expression rights and lead to unnecessary use of physical force.
3. GATHER THE FACTSObtaining the most relevant information on the activities of your police department can be a tough task. That's the first thing to bear in mind about the "homework" community residents have to do in order to build a strong case for reform. In answer to critics, police chiefs often cite various official data to support their claim that they are really doing a great job. "Look at the crime rate," they say. "It's lower than in other cities." Or: "My department's arrest rate is much higher than elsewhere." The catch is that these data, though readily available to citizens, are deeply flawed, while the most important information is not always easy to get. Forget the "crime rate." The "crime rate" figures cited by government officials are based on the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) system, which has several serious flaws. To name only a few: First, the UCR only measures reported crime. Second, since the system is not independently audited there are no meaningful controls over how police departments use their crime data. Police officers can and do "unfound" crimes, meaning they decide that no crime occurred. They also "downgrade" crimes — for example, by officially classifying a rape as an assault. Third, reports can get "lost," either deliberately or inadvertently. There are many other technical problems that make the UCR a dubious measure of the extent of crime problems. The National Crime Survey (NCS), published by another part of the U.S. Justice Department, provides a far more accurate estimate of the national crime rate and of long-term trends in crime. But it is a national-level estimate and does not provide data on individual cities. So the NCS isn't much help on the local level. Forget the "clearance rate." A police department's official data on its "clearance rate," which refers to the percentage of crimes solved, do not accurately reflect that department's performance. The fact that one department "clears" 40 percent of all robberies, compared with 25 percent by another department, doesn't necessarily mean it is more effective. There are too many ways to manipulate the data, either by claiming a larger number of crimes "cleared" (inflating the numerator), or by artificially lowering the number of reported crimes (lowering the denominator). Forget the arrest rate. Police officers have broad discretion in making and recording arrests. The Police Foundation in Washington, D.C., which conducts research on policing issues, has found great variations among police departments in their recording of arrests. In many departments, police officers take people into custody, hold them at the station, question and then release them without filling out an arrest report. For all practical purposes, these people were arrested, but their arrests don't show up in the official data. Other departments record such arrests. Thus, the department that reports a lower number of arrests may actually be taking more people into custody than the department that reports more arrests. Forget the citizen complaint rate. Official data on the complaints filed by citizens regarding police conduct are important but present a number of problems. Many departments do not release any information on this subject. Some publish a smattering of information on complaints and the percentage of complaints sustained by the department. In more and more cities, a civilian review agency publishes this data. Data on citizen complaints are difficult to interpret. Some examples —
Thus, the official "complaint rate" (complaints per 1,000 citizens), rather than being a reliable measure of police performance, more than likely reflects the administrative customs of a particular police department. WHAT YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW, AND WHY A. Police shootings. You need to know about police firearm discharges, which refer to the number of times a police weapon has been fired. This information is more complete than statistics on the number of persons shot and wounded or killed. (However, information on the race of persons shot and wounded or killed is important.) Particularly important is data on repeat shooters, which can tell you whether some officers fire their weapons at a suspiciously high rate.
With this information, you can evaluate the use of deadly force in your department. You can also evaluate the long-term trends in shootings. Are shootings increasing or decreasing? Has there been a recent upsurge? How does the department compare with other departments — are officers shooting at a significantly higher rate in your department than elsewhere? B. Use of physical force. You need to know how frequently police officers in your city use physical force in the day-to-day course of their encounters with citizens. Do officers try to refrain from using such force against citizens, or do they quickly and casually resort to force? In its report on the Los Angeles Police Department in the aftermath of the March 1991 beating of Rodney King, the Christopher Commission confirmed a long held suspicion: A small number of officers were involved in an extraordinarily high percentage of use-of-force incidents. Ten percent of the officers accounted for 33.2 percent of all use-of-force incidents. The Commission was able to identify 44 such officers who were not disciplined despite the fact that they were the subjects of numerous citizen complaints. In 1981, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission found a similar pattern in Houston and recommended, as a remedy, that police departments establish "early warning systems" to identify officers with high rates of citizen complaints. Patterns in the use of physical force reveal a lot about the "culture" of a particular police department. Clearly, a department whose officers repeatedly engage in physically coercive conduct needs reform. Police officials often deny that their personnel are prone to using force inappropriately, so if your community believes it has a problem in this area citizens must be able to support their claims with existing data, or data they have gathered themselves. C. Official policies. You need to know what your local police department's formal, written policies are on how officers are supposed to behave in particular situations. How does the department treat domestic violence complaints? What is the policy on how officers are supposed to deal with homeless people? Does the department use canine patrols and, if so, under what circumstances? In examining official policies, you need to evaluate them in comparison to recommended standards. D. Lawsuits. You need to know how many lawsuits citizens have filed against your local police department. You'll want to know what the charges were, the number of officers involved, whether certain officers are named repeatedly in suits, what was the outcome and, in the case of successful suits, how much the city paid in damages. The number of lawsuits filed against a police department can be very revealing. For example, according to the Christopher Commission the taxpayers of Los Angeles spent $67.5 million between 1991 and 1995 to resolve lawsuits brought by victims of police abuse. In 1990 alone, New York City paid victims of police misconduct a record high of more than $13 million. This kind of information can be used to mobilize middle-class taxpayers and "good-government" activists, who can then be brought into a community coalition against police abuse.
E. Minority employment. You'll need to know how many African Americans, Latinos, Asians, other minorities and women are employed by your police department and their distribution throughout the department's ranks. This information is useful in assessing, again, the "culture" of your local police department — is it internally diverse, fair and equitable? It also suggests how much value the department places on the "human relations" aspects of its work, and how responsive it is to community concerns. WHERE TO GET INFORMATION, AND HOW Police business is generally shrouded in secrecy, which conceals outdated policies and departmental inertia, encourages cover-ups and, of course, breeds public suspicion. But remember: Police departments are an arm of government, and the government's business is your business. Police policies, procedures, memoranda, records, reports, tape recordings, etc. should not be withheld from public view unless their release would threaten ongoing investigations, endanger officers or others, or invade someone's personal privacy. Demanding information about police practices is an important part of the struggle to establish police accountability. Indeed, a campaign focused solely on getting information from the police can serve as a vehicle for organizing a community to tackle police abuse. Regarding all of the following categories, one of the tactics your community could employ is to interest a local investigative journalist in seeking information from the police for a series of articles. Once in hand, the information your community has collected or helped to expose is a tool for holding the police accountable for their actions.
A. Police Shootings. Virtually every big city police department has this information on hand, since officers are required to file a report after every firearms discharge. However, departments don't usually release the information voluntarily. Strong civilian review boards in a few cities now publish the information. As for repeat shooters, this information exists in police reports, but police departments vigorously resist identifying repeat shooters. There are several ways to proceed —
B. Physical Force. There are three potential sources of data on police use of physical force —
C. Official Policies. Your police department has a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) manual (it may have another title) that contains the official policies of the department. The SOP manual is a public document and should be readily available. Some departments place current copies in local libraries. Others treat it as an internal document not available to the public — a practice which is unacceptable. Demand to see the manual, if your department withholds it. As a last resort, you may be able to file suit under your state's open records law to obtain the SOP manual. D. Lawsuits. Lawsuits brought against police departments are matters of public record. Records of suits brought in state courts reside at your local state courthouse; of suits brought in federal district court, at the nearest federal courthouse. The Lexis computer database is a source of published opinions in civilian suits brought against the police. However, collecting information from any of these sources is a very laborious task. It's better to contact your local ACLU affiliate and/or other relevant public interest groups, which may have done most of the work for you. In the back of this manual, find the name and address of your local ACLU and other organizations. E. Minority Employment. Official data on this issue are generally available from your local police department. If the police stonewall, you can get the information from the city's personnel division. The point is to evaluate the police department's minority employment record relative to local conditions. Using current data, compare the percentage of a particular group of people in the local population with that group's representation on the police force. If, for example, Latinos are 30 percent of the population but only 15 percent of the sworn officers, then your police department is only half way toward achieving an ideal level of diversity. 4. CONTROLLING THE POLICE — COMMUNITY GOALSGOAL #1 — A CIVILIAN REVIEW BOARDCivilian review of police activity was first proposed in the 1950s because of widespread dissatisfaction with the internal disciplinary procedures of police departments. Many citizens didn't believe that police officials took their complaints seriously. They suspected officials of investigating allegations of abuse superficially at best, and of covering up misconduct. The theory underlying the concept of civilian review is that civilian investigations of citizen complaints are more independent because they are conducted by people who are not sworn officers. At first, civilian review was a dream few thought would ever be fulfilled. But slow, steady progress has been made, indicating that it's an idea whose time has come. By the end of 1997, more than 75 percent of the nation's largest cities (more than 80 cities across the country) had civilian review systems. Civilian review advocates in every city have had to overcome substantial resistance from local police departments. One veteran of the struggle for civilian review has chronicled the stages of police opposition as follows —
Strong community advocacy is necessary to overcome resistance, even after civilian review is established. WHAT IS CIVILIAN REVIEW? Civilian review systems create a lot a confusion because they vary tremendously. Some are more "civilian" than others. Some are not boards but municipal agencies headed by an executive director (who has been appointed by, and is accountable to, the mayor). The three basic types of civilian review systems are —
Although the above are the most common, other types of civilian review systems also exist. WHY IS CIVILIAN REVIEW IMPORTANT?
GOAL #2 — CONTROL OF POLICE SHOOTINGSConsiderable progress has been made in the area of police misconduct in the use of deadly force. Although the rate of deadly force abuse is still intolerably high, national data reveal reductions in the number of persons shot and killed by the police since the mid-1970s — as much as 35-to 40 percent in our 50 largest cities. This has been accompanied by a significant reduction in the racial disparities among persons shot and killed: since the 1970s, from about six people of color to one white person, down to three people of color to one white. This progress serves as a model for controlling other forms of police behavior. And was achieved though hard work and perseverance. In the mid-1970s, police departments began developing restrictive internal policies on the use of deadly force. They adopted the "defense of life" standard: the use of deadly force only when the life of an officer or some other person is in danger. In 1985, the Supreme Court finally upheld this standard in the case of Tennessee v. Garner (see table). However, the majority of policies adopted by police departments go beyond the Court's Garner decision, prohibiting warning shots, shots to wound and other reckless actions. Most important, these policies require officers to file written reports after each firearm discharge, and require that those reports be reviewed by higher-ranking officers. To meet goal #2, your community must —
GOAL #3 — REDUCE POLICE BRUTALITYYour community's principal aim here should be to get the police department to adopt and enforce a written policy governing the use of physical force. This policy should have two parts —
Your community's second objective should be to get the police department to establish an early warning system to identify officers who are involved in an inordinate number of inappropriate physical force incidents. The incidents should then be investigated and, if verified, the officers involved should be charged, disciplined, transferred, retrained or offered counseling, depending on the severity of their misconduct. The Christopher Commission's report on the Rodney King beating ascertained that L.A. police leadership typically looked the other way when officers were involved in questionable incidents, a tolerance of brutality that helped create an atmosphere conducive to police abuses. GOAL #4 — END POLICE SPYINGPolice spying or intelligence gathering on legal but politically unpopular activities is a problem. And it's particularly difficult to deal with because spying, by definition, is a covert activity, unknown to either the victim or other witnesses. During the 1970s, the ACLU and other organizations brought lawsuits against unconstitutional police surveillance in several cities around the country, including New York City, Chicago, Memphis and Los Angeles. The result was increased controls on police spying. In 1976, Seattle residents discovered local police were spying on organizations of black construction workers, local Republican Party operatives, Native Americans, advocates for low-income housing and other activists whose conduct was perfectly lawful. In response to the revelations, the ACLU, along with the American Friends Service Committee and the National Lawyers Guild, formed the Coalition on Government Spying. After several years of hard work and lobbying, the coalition succeeded in bringing about passage of a comprehensive municipal law — the first of its kind in the country — that governs all police investigations and restricts the collection of political, religious and sexual information. Called the Seattle Police Intelligence Ordinance, this law is a model for responsible police intelligence operations —
GOAL #5 — OVERSIGHT OF POLICE POLICYPolice policies should be subject to public review and debate instead of being viewed as the sole province of police insiders. Open policy-making not only allows police officials to benefit from community input, but it also provides an opportunity for police officials to explain to the public why certain tactics or procedures may be necessary. This kind of communication can help anticipate problems and avert crises before they occur. The Police Review Commission (a civilian review body) of Berkeley, California, holds regular, bi-monthly meetings that are open to the public where representatives of community organizations can voice criticisms, make proposals and introduce resolutions to review or reform specific police policies. The Police Practices Project of the ACLU of Northern California successfully pressured the San Francisco Police Department to adopt enlightened policies regarding the treatment of the homeless; the use of pain-holds and batons; the deployment of plainclothes officers at protests and demonstrations; intelligence gathering; the selection of field training officers, and AIDS/HIV education for police officers. The Project has also prevented the adoption of an anti-loitering rule, a policy that would have made demonstrators financially liable for police costs, and other bad policies. In Tucson, Arizona, a Citizens' Police Advisory Committee was incorporated into the city's municipal code in July 1990. Composed of both civilian and police representatives, it has the authority to initiate investigations of controversial incidents or questionable policies, and other oversight functions.
GOAL #6 — IMPROVED TRAININGCitizens' groups in some communities have historically demanded more education and training for police officers as part of their efforts to solve the problem of police abuse. But today, this seems a less crucial issue in many police departments because the educational levels of American police officers have risen dramatically in recent years. In 1970, only 3.7 percent of the nation's police officers had four or more years of college. By 1989 that figure had risen to 22.6 percent, and a whopping 65 percent had at least some college experience. The levels of education are highest among new recruits, who in many departments have about two years of college. The training of police personnel has also improved significantly in recent years. The average length of police academy programs has more than doubled, from about 300 to over 600 hours; in some cities, 900 or even 1200 hours are the rule. As the time devoted to training has increased, the academies have added a number of important subjects to their curricula: race relations, domestic violence, handling the mentally ill, and so on. Unquestionably, a rigorously trained, professional police force is a desirable goal that should be pursued depending on local conditions. If citizens in your community feel that this is an important issue —
Unfortunately, even the most enlightened training programs can be undermined by veteran officers, who traditionally tell recruits out in the field to "forget all that crap they taught you in the academy." In San Francisco some years ago, men selected as field training officers (FTOs) were found to have some of the worst complaint and litigation records in the department. The evaluation scores they gave recruits revealed their systematic attempts to weed out minority and women officers. They labeled women recruits "bad drivers," gave Asians low scores in radio communication and unfairly criticized African Americans for their report-writing. The Northern California ACLU's Police Practices Project joined other community groups in successfully pressuring the police department to adopt stricter selection criteria for FTOs to ensure greater racial and gender integration, fairer evaluations of recruits and higher quality training. GOAL #7 — EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITYHistorically, police departments, like other government agencies, have engaged in employment discrimination. People of color have been grossly underrepresented, and women were not even accepted as full-fledged officers until the 1970s. Some progress has been made in the last 20 years or so. Police departments in several cities now have significant numbers of officers who are people of color. A few departments even approach the theoretically ideal level of maintaining forces that reflect the racial composition of the communities they serve. Most departments now recruit and assign women on an equal basis with men. Improvements in police employment practices have come about largely as the result of litigation under existing civil rights laws. However, the courts may not be hospitable to employment discrimination claims in the future. Therefore, community groups and civil rights organizations should prepare to fight in the political arena for the integration of police departments. In the short term, the recruitment of more women and minority officers may not result in less police abuse. Several social science studies suggest that minority and white officers do not differ greatly in their use of physical or deadly force, or in their arrest practices. (Female officers, on the other hand, are involved in citizen complaints at about half the rate of male officers, according to the New York City CCRB.) Still, in the long term, an integrated police force is a very important goal for these reasons —
GOAL #8 — CERTIFICATION AND LICENSING OF POLICE OFFICERSEvery state now has procedures for certifying or licensing police officers. These require all sworn officers to have some minimum level of training. This was one of the advances of the late 1960s and early 1970s. An important new development is the advent of procedures for decertifying officers. Traditionally, a police officer could be fired from one department but then hired by another. As a result, persons guilty of gross misconduct could continue to work as police officers. Decertification bars a dismissed officer from further police employment in that state (though not necessarily in some other state). Between 1976 and 1983, the Florida Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission decertified 132 police officers. Standardized procedures for state-level certification/decertification are a worthy goal to pursue. Be aware, however, that the state commission must have sufficient power and resources to investigate misconduct complaints, and must vigorously exercise its authority. And even if it has such power, certification/decertification is only one part of the comprehensive approach that's needed to achieve meaningful police discipline. GOAL #9 — ACCREDITATION OF YOUR POLICE DEPARTMENTOne result of the increasing number of lawsuits brought against police departments by victims of abuse over the past 20 years came from within the police profession. It was a movement for an accreditation process, similar to that in education and other fields, whereby the police would establish and enforce their own professional standards. In 1979, the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (COALEA) was established as a joint undertaking of several major professional associations. COALEA published its first set of Standards for Law Enforcement Agencies in 1985 and issues new standards periodically. In deciding whether your community should press for accreditation of its local police department, keep in mind these basic points —
Citizens in your particular community must decide whether, taking all of the above into account, accreditation would serve as an effective mobilization tool. 5. ORGANIZING STRATEGIESOnce your community has identified its police problems and decided what solutions to pursue, an organizing strategy for securing the desired reform must be developed. In the 1960s and `70s, the most successful method of attacking police abuse was the lawsuit. During the tenure of Chief Justice Earl Warren, landmark Supreme Court decisions that imposed nationally uniform limits on police behavior were handed down in the cases of Mapp v. Ohio, Escobedo v. Illinois and Miranda v. Arizona. Respectively, those decisions extended Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures to the states, established the Sixth Amendment right to a lawyer during police interrogations and required the police to inform persons taken into custody of their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Today, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist demonstrates repeated hostility to individual rights. Many lower federal courts, the majority of whose presiding judges were appointed by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, follow this trend. More and more, therefore, the task of opposing police abuse falls not to lawyers, but to the citizens in the communities. The following profiles of successful organizing strategies can guide your community's attempts to effectively challenge police abuse. STRATEGY #1 — BUILD COALITIONSPROFILE: The Indianapolis Law Enforcement and Community Relations Coalition The year is 1984. Galvanized by a series of brutal and unjustified police killings that have sparked tensions between the police department and the African American community, 19 civil rights, religious, professional and civic organizations form the Indianapolis Law Enforcement/Community Relations Coalition. Coalition members include the Urban League, Baptist Ministerial Alliance, Community Centers of Indianapolis, Hispano-American Center, Indiana Council of Churches, Jewish Community Relations Council, Mental Health Association, NAACP and the United Methodist Church. The coalition, co-chaired by the Executive Director of the Urban League and a designee of the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, was instrumental in the establishment of a civilian review board in 1989, despite considerable political opposition. Since that time, it has worked to strengthen the authority of that body, which still lacks jurisdiction over police shooting fatalities. A recent series of highly publicized episodes of police misconduct, culminating in an incident in August, 1996, which newspapers dubbed "the police brawl" lent new urgency to the Coalition's efforts. Representatives of the Coalition were tapped by the Greater Indianapolis Process Committee to serve on a Working Group of citizens charged with reviewing the Civilian Review Process and recommending changes in jurisdiction and composition. A co-chair of the Coalition served as co-chair of the Working Group. The broad-based Coalition is credited by many for drawing attention to management problems within the Indianapolis Police Department in addition to the tensions between officers and minority communities. The Coalition's research provided the basis for the deliberations of the Working Group; even more important, once the Working Group has delivered its recommendations, monitoring the resulting process will be the responsibility of the Coalition. Key to the Coalition's success has been its broadbased composition and its commitment to participatory decision-making. STRATEGY #2 — MONITOR THE POLICEPROFILE: Copwatch, Berkeley, California Copwatch is a community organization whose stated purpose is "to reduce police harassment and brutality," and "to uphold Berkeley's tradition of tolerance and diversity." Its main activities are monitoring police conduct through personal observation, recording and publicizing incidents of abuse and harassment, and working with Berkeley's civilian review board — the Police Review Commission. Copwatch sends teams of volunteers into the community on three-hour shifts. Each team is equipped with a flashlight, tape recorder, camera, "incident" forms (see sample form) and Copwatch Handbooks that describe the organization's non-violent tactics, relevant laws, court decisions, police policies and what citizens should do in an emergency. At the end of a shift, the volunteers return their completed forms to the COPWATCH office. If they have witnessed an harassment incident, they call one of the organization's cooperating lawyers, who follows up on the incident. Copwatch holds weekly meetings, and its activists attend public meetings of the Police Review Commission. It publishes a quarterly newsletter, Copwatch Report, which features a "Cop Blotter" column that describes examples of police misconduct "gleaned from Copwatch incident reports." Although the group's impact has not been studied, Copwatch activists are convinced that their monitoring activities deter and, thus, reduce harassment and abuse.
STRATEGY #3 — USE OPEN RECORDS LAWSPROFILE: The Seattle Coalition on Government Spying The year is 1976. During confirmation hearings for a new Seattle police chief, it comes to light that the city's police department maintains political intelligence files on citizens who are not suspected of any criminal activity. Some time later, a local newspaper prints the names of 150 individuals that were found in police files. A group of citizens, concerned about this clear violation of First Amendment and privacy rights, forms the Coalition on Government Spying. One of the coalition's first acts is to file suit under the Washington public disclosure law, seeking access to the police department's intelligence files. Under the law, the police can refuse to disclose the files only if "nondisclosure is essential to effective law enforcement." Since the files are purely political, the court orders full disclosure. The coalition's charges of abuse turn out to be well-founded. Not only do the files show that the police have engaged in unconstitutional surveillance of political activists, but they are full of inaccurate, misleading and damaging information. The lawsuit and its revelations receive a lot of media attention, which helps build strong public support for reform. The result: Seattle enacts the first and only municipal ordinance in the country that restricts police surveillance.
STRATEGY #4 — EDUCATE THE PUBLICPROFILE: Police Practices Project, ACLU of Northern California The Police Practices Project conducts, among other activities, education programs to teach citizens about their constitutional rights. One aspect of the police abuse problem, the project believes, is that the police tend to abuse certain people partly because they think these individuals don't know their rights, or don't know how to assert their rights. The project also believes that its programs have the added advantage of recruiting groups and individuals to work in police reform campaigns. The project, working with other groups, has sponsored training programs for homeless people, as well as for advocates and service providers for the homeless. The training included the distribution of copies of police policies, information on homeless people's legal rights, suggestions on how to observe and record police misconduct and presentations by members of the local civilian review agency. A videotape was made of one of the project's training sessions for use by other groups outside the Bay Area. The project also publishes wallet-size cards in English, Spanish and Chinese that inform citizens about what to do or say in encounters with the police. These cards have been widely distributed in the community. (One card-holder reported that he pulled out his card when confronted by a police officer, only to have the officer reach into his wallet and pull out his own copy of the same card!) The ACLU National Office has created a similar card, with a national scope. (You can download a copy to print out below.) The project believes that individual citizens and community groups become informed about police policies just by participating in the preparation of educational materials and training sessions. That participation also fosters awareness about particular areas of police practice that need reform. Most important, education empowers even the most disenfranchised people and helps deter the police from treating them abusively. DOWNLOAD WHAT TO DO IF YOU'RE STOPPED BY THE POLICE (ACLU Pocket Card on Police Encounters) STRATEGY #5: — USE THE POLITICAL PROCESS TO WIN REFORMSPROFILE: The New York Civil Liberties Union's Campaign for a "Real Civilian Review Board" The time is August 1988; the place, New York City. Manhattan's Lower East Side is rocked by one of the most serious outbreaks of police violence in years. Declaring a curfew, the police begin to eject homeless people and their supporters from Tompkins Square Park. Fifty-two people, most of them innocent bystanders, sustain serious injuries at the hands of the police in the ensuing violence. Much of the violence is recorded on video. Yet the officers who are guilty of misconduct go virtually unpunished; only one receives more than a 30-day suspension from the force. The city's Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) comes under heightened scrutiny. Although it was established in the early 1950s and gradually strengthened over the years, the CCRB is still criticized for its lack of independence and secretive proceedings. Half of its 12 members are appointed by the mayor, the other half by the police commissioner. Most of the CCRB's investigators are police officers. In the wake of the Tompkins Square events, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) spearheads "A Campaign for a Real Civilian Review Board" and organizes a coalition of civil rights organizations to back it up. The goal of the campaign is the establishment of a new, all-civilian CCRB that will be totally independent of the police department. During 1991, the campaign calls on the city's community boards to pass resolutions in support of "a real CCRB." (The community boards are elected bodies that have advisory jurisdiction over a variety of local matters, such as zoning and land use). Campaign spokespeople debate police department representatives before some 30 community boards throughout the city, and 19 boards pass resolutions calling for revisions of the present system (see box below). Each board that passes a resolution becomes a member of the campaign coalition. Coalition members set up tables at street fairs and other community events to collect signatures on petitions for "a real CCRB." More than 1,000 signatures are collected. The NYCLU, after garnering this broad support, develops legislation for submission to the City Council. The bill is endorsed by 14 Council members and is adopted.
STRATEGY #6 — LOBBY FOR STATE LEGISLATIONPROFILE: The ACLU of California's Legislative Approach to Police Misconduct The ACLU's affiliates in Southern California, Northern California and San Diego developed a model state law to address the problem of police abuse. Their proposed legislation includes the following —
Although the proposal has not yet been adopted, ACLU lobbyists have waged a largely successful battle against a flood of dangerous bills introduced into the California Legislature by police lobbyists. In the process, the ACLU has learned that an informed presence in state legislatures is essential to counteracting well-funded and influential police lobbies that sometimes oppose or undercut reform efforts.
A FINAL WORDKeep your eye on the big picture. On the one hand, each individual reform is only one step on a long road to correcting the deeply entrenched problem of police misconduct; on the other hand, important and genuine reforms can be won. A well-organized, focused campaign against police abuse can draw broad community support. The key is to transform that support into realistic demands and develop strategies that turn those demands into concrete reforms. We hope the information and advice contained in this manual inspires and equips your community to effectively tackle the problem of police misconduct from the grass roots up. Reform of police practices is in the best interests of every American, including the men and women in blue. You have our best wishes for success. Keep in touch. RESOURCESBibliography American Civil Liberties Union. On The Line: Police Brutality and its Remedies. New York. April 1991. The ACLU's response to the Rodney King beating. Case studies and recommendations for local and federal remedies. ACLU of Southern California. The Call for Change Goes Unanswered. March 1992. A year after Rodney King beating, this study, based on original research, reveals that there has been little improvement in the responsiveness of the LA Police Department to citizen complaints. ACLU of Southern California. Pepper Spray Update: More Fatalities, More Questions, June 1995. Original research establishes that pepper spray can be fatal, and ACLU makes recommendations to avoid further tragedies. ACLU of Washington. A Call for Accountability: Steps to Reform Investigations of Police Misconduct. August 1993. Critique of Seattle Police Department's handling of civilian complaints and recommendation that an independent civilian review board be established. ACLU of Washington. Coalition on Government Spying: Seattle's Surveillance Ordinance. March 1980. Describes events leading up to city's adoption of law that limits police surveillance of citizens. American Friends Service Committee. The Police Threat to Political Liberty. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 1979. Comprehensive report on police spying, with separate chapters on Seattle, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Jackson, Mississippi. Bouza, Anthony. The Police Mystique: An Insider's Look at Cops, Crime and the Criminal Justice System. New York. Plenum Press. 1990. The author, retired police chief of Minneapolis and long considered an innovative thinker, analyzes what's wrong with American policing. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Criminal Victimization in the United States, 1989. U.S. Government Printing Office. Washington, D.C. 1991. National crime survey published annually by U.S. Department of Justice. Chevigny, Paul. Cops and Rebels: A Study Of Provocation. Pantheon. New York. 1972. Case study of police infiltration and disruption of the Black Panther Party in New York City. Chevigny, Paul. Police Brutality in the United States: A Policy Statement on the Need for Federal Oversight. Human Rights Watch. New York. 1991. Review of potential federal remedies for police misconduct. Published in response to the Rodney King incident. Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies. Standards for Law Enforcement Agencies. These official standards for police departments are the bare minimum. Revised regularly. Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. Senate. Freedom of Information: A Compilation of State Laws. U.S. Government Printing Office. Washington, D.C. 1978. Comprehensive survey of state open records laws. Compendium of International Civilian Oversight Agencies. International Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement. Evanston, Illinois. 1990. Summaries and excerpts of materials on selected civilian review systems. Includes chart that compares systems. COPWATCH Report. 2022 Blake Street, Berkeley, CA 94704. Quarterly newsletter published by community-based, volunteer organization that monitors police activity. Couper, David C. How To Rate Your Local Police. Police Executive Research Forum, 1983. Brochure that examines the issues of leadership, policy and organizational characteristics of police agencies. Useful because it goes beyond such traditional methods of evaluating police departments as the crime rate, number of arrests, clearance rate, ratio of officers to citizens and response time. Donner, Frank. Protectors of Privilege: Red Squads and Police Repression in Urban America. University of California Press. Berkeley. 1990. Epic study of police role in suppressing grass roots social protest. Fyfe, James J. "Administrative Interventions on Police Shooting Discretion: An Empirical Examination." Journal of Criminal Justice #7 (Winter 1979). pp. 309-323. The first and still the most important study of the impact of restrictive shooting policies on police use of deadly force. Geller, William A. "Deadly Force: What We Know." Journal of Police Science and Administration; Volume 10 (1982); pp. 151-177. An important, very informative work about the use of deadly force by police officers. Goldman, Roger and Puro, Steven. "Decertification of Police: An Alternative to Traditional Remedies for Police Misconduct." Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly #15 (Fall 1987). pp. 45-80. The authors, based in St. Louis, are the nation's leading experts on police decertification. Goldstein, Herman. Problem-Oriented Policing. McGraw-Hill. New York. 1990. The most important new concept in policing discussed by one of its creators. Matulia, Kenneth J. A Balance of Forces: Model Deadly Force Policy and Procedure. Second edition. International Association of Chiefs of Police. Gaithersburg, Maryland. 1985. Presents comparative data on use of deadly force. Minneapolis Police Civilian Review Working Committee. A Model for Civilian Review of Police Conduct in Minneapolis. Minneapolis, Minnesota. September 1989. Report to Mayor and City Council by special committee formed to propose specific structure for a new civilian review system. Analysis and evaluation of competing arguments regarding authority and role of civilian review. New York Civil Liberties Union. Police Abuse: The Need for Civilian Investigation and Oversight. New York. 1990. NYCLU's report and recommendations following the local Civilian Complaint Review Board's whitewash of a police riot that took place in Tompkins Square Park, in downtown New York City. Pate, Anthony and Edwin E. Hamilton. The Big Six: Policing America's Largest Cities. Police Foundation, 1991. Impressive report on the police departments of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit and Houston. Uses statistical analysis to compare departments' performance in many areas — firearm discharges; citizen complaints; race, gender and other characteristics of personnel; expenditures per citizen; recruitment, selection and entry requirements; salaries and benefits. Reiss, Albert J. The Police and the Public. Yale University Press. New Haven, Connecticut. 1971. The most comprehensive sociological study of routine police work, based on direct observations. Report of the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department. Los Angeles. July 1991. Official report of the civilian commission established to investigate the LAPD following the Rodney King beating in March 1991. Includes recommendations for L.A. police reforms. Royal Canadian Mounted Police Public Complaints Commission.Federal and Provincial Police Oversight Legislation: A Comparison of Statutory Provisions. Ottawa, Canada. 1991. Extensive comparison charts on legislation that provides for Canadian civilian review systems. Updated periodically. Sherman, Lawrence W. and Ellen G. Gohn. Citizens Killed By Big City Police, 1970-1984. Crime Control Institute. Washington, D.C. 1986. Presents comparative data on police use of deadly force. Sherman, Lawrence W. and Barry Glick. The Quality of Police Arrest Statistics. The Police Foundation. Washington, D.C. 1984. Comparison study of how different police departments record arrests, and the impact different practices have on arrest statistics. U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Who Is Guarding the Guardians: A Report on Police Practices. Government Printing Office. Washington, D.C. 1981. A comprehensive review of police misconduct with the most complete set of recommendations to be found anywhere. Based on Civil Rights Commission hearings on the Philadelphia and Houston police departments. Walker, Samuel. "The Effectiveness of Civilian Review: Observations on Recent Trends and New Issues Regarding the Civilian Review of the Police,"American Journal of Police, Vol. XI, No 4 1992. Many archival documents, as well as up-the-moment information pertaining to policing issues and other matters of criminal justice can be found through the ACLU online at <http://archive.aclu.org> on the internet, or on America Online at keyword: ACLU. ORGANIZATIONSAmerican Friends Service Committee Immigration Law Enforcement Monitoring Project 3515 Allen Parkway Houston, TX 77019 Tel: (713) 524-5428 Monitors abuses by Immigration and Naturalization Service, Border Patrol and other agencies. Model computerized tracking program for incidents of abuse. Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (COALEA) 4242-B Chain Bridge Road Fairfax, VA 22030Tel: (703) 352-4225 Private accrediting board for law enforcement agencies. Organized and supported by law enforcement agencies. Publishes a set of accreditation standards. Community United Against Violence (CUAV) 514 Castro StreetSan Francisco, CA 94114 Tel: (415) 864-3112 Lesbian/gay rights advocacy organization. Extensive experience conducting law enforcement sensitivity training on lesbian/gay issues. COPWATCH 2022 Blake Street Berkeley, CA 94704Tel: (510) 548-0425 Community-based volunteer organization which monitors police activity in an effort to preserve the rights of all citizens, including the homeless, to fair treatment under the law. International Association For Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (IACOLE) 1204 Wesley Avenue Evanston, IL 60202Tel: (312) 353-4391 Professional association of persons involved in civilian review of the police. Membership consists primarily of staff members of local civilian review agencies. Annual meeting. Newsletter. Periodically publishes a compendium of civilian review agencies. International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) 13 Firstfield Road P.O. Box 6010Gaithersburg, MD 20878 Primary professional association for chiefs of police. Traditionally dominated by chiefs from small town police departments. International Union of Police Associations (IUPA)1016 Duke StreetAlexandria, VA 22314 Tel: (703) 549-7473 National federation of local police unions. Does not represent all local unions. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)4805 Mt. Hope Drive Baltimore, MD 21215 Tel: (301) 358-8900 Civil rights organization with chapters across the country. Promotes civil rights through litigation, lobbying and community organizing. National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers1110 Vermont Avenue, N.W., Suite 1150Washington, D.C. 20005Tel. (202) 872-8688 Develops public policy recommendations on matters pertaining to the criminal justice system and lobbies Congress. National Black Police Association (NBPA)3251 Mt. Pleasant St. N.W. Washington, D.C. 20010 Tel: (202) 986-2070 Association of Black police officers. Resource for community groups working on police abuse issues. Speakers. Brochure on how to handle encounters with police, entitled, "What To Do When Stopped by the Police." National Coalition for Police Accountability (NCPA) 59 E. Van Buren, Suite 2418 Chicago, IL 60603Tel: (312) 663-5392 New coalition of groups working on police abuse issues. Members include legal, advocacy, victims, minority police and religious organizations. Plans for annual conference, newsletter and other forms of networking. National Gay and Lesbian Task Force1734 14th Street, N.W.Washington, D.C. 20009Tel: (202) 332-6483 Civil rights organization that promotes freedom and equality for lesbians and gay men. Its Anti-Violence Project publishes an annual report on "Anti-Gay/Lesbian Violence, Victimization & Defamation" and a pamphlet, "Dealing With Violence: A Guide for Gay and Lesbian People." National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) 908 Pennsylvania Avenue, S.E.Washington, D.C. 20003Tel: (202) 546-8811 Non-profit organization of professional law enforcement officials dedicated to improving the quality of police services for all citizens. National Urban League500 E. 62nd StreetNew York, NY 10021Tel: (212) 310-9000 Civil rights organization that focuses on the economic condition and empowerment of the African American community. Police Executive Research Forum (PERF)2300 M Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037Tel: (202) 466-7820 Professional association of police chiefs from the big cities in the United States. Conducts research and management consulting. Issues position papers and policy statements on important issues in policing. Police Foundation1001 22nd St., N.W., Suite 200 Washington, D.C. 20037 Tel: (202) 833-1460 Non-profit consulting group, primarily engaged in research and demonstration projects on innovative police programs. Involved in some of the most important research projects in policing since the 1970s. Police Watch 611 S. Catalina, Suite 409Los Angeles, CA 90005Tel: (213) 387-3325 Model legal referral program for victims of police abuse. Some training for police abuse litigators. Data base on incidents of abuse in Southern California. |