Comparing Organizational Goals, Structure, and Legal Authority between Canadian and U.S. Police Oversight Agencies

• In Event: Policy Panel: Strengthening Law Enforcement through Police Oversight

Abstract

An increasing amount of attention has been devoted to the role that oversight can play in reforming troubled police departments. Social scientists, in particular, have begun to examine patterns in the organizational structure of citizen oversight agencies, and how effectiveness might vary between different models of police oversight. While some attention has been devoted to oversight in the United States, far less work has systematically explored variation across different countries and regions. Drawing from an organizational survey of North American oversight executives, this paper compares the organizational goals, structure, and resources granted to oversight agencies found in the U.S. to oversight agencies operating in Canada. The initial findings suggest that while U.S. and Canada oversight agencies tend to hold broadly similar organizational goals, they diverge significantly in relation to patterns in organizational structure and resources. Canadian agencies tend to be better resourced and emphasize professionalized models of oversight while US agencies, with some exceptions, are more likely to be under-resourced and to take the form of review boards operated by volunteer community members. The paper concludes by considering how the Canadian experience can be used to strengthen public policy relating to police oversight in the United States.

Author

• Richard Rosenthal, Independent Investigations Office of British Columbia