NCJ Number
136577
Editor(s)
A J Goldsmith
Date Published
1991
Length
349 pages
Annotation
This volume presents a collection of specially commissioned papers that use a comparative approach to focus on the handling of complaints against the police in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Northern Ireland, and the United States.
Abstract
The papers focus on the systems for dealing with citizen complaints against the police, including the structural factors that ensure the dynamism of reform attempts in this area and the role of law in addressing organizational misconduct. The first essay reviews the socio-legal literature covering disputes and complaints and the literature examining the reasons for the perceived failure of police self-regulation in the past. It thus considers the largely unsuccessful early experiments with external review and more recent attempts using the ombudsman model. Subsequent papers discuss the establishment and termination of the Police Complaints Authority in Victoria, Australia; the successful effort in Toronto, Canada to "civilianize" police complaint procedures; recent experiences with external review in the United Kingdom; the role of the external review agency in Northern Ireland; and the trend to external review, which is also termed civilian oversight, in the United States. Footnotes, chart, chapter reference lists, and index (Publisher summary modified)