The independence of external police complaints bodies – aspects and impact of a complex concept

• In Event: Independent Police Complaints Bodies: Results of Cross-Country Comparative Research on Police Accountability

Abstract

Accountability bodies are supposed to be independent from those actors that they must hold accountable. For Independent Police Complaints Bodies (IPCBs) this means that they should be situated outside the hierarchy of the police and the ministry of the interior.
For some IPCBs, independence is even part of their official name, for example for the Independent Office for Police Complaints (IOPC) for England and Wales. However, a closer look at what independence means in practice reveals that it is a complex and multi-faceted concept and that there is no universal standard for how IPCBs’ independence should be shaped. Independence includes multiple dimensions such as institutional, personal and financial independence. Empirical research on IPCBs and their independence presented in this paper shows that the various aspects of independence are interrelated with dilemmas and limitations of what results IPCBs can achieve with their work. For example, institutional and personal independence in relation to the police agency to be overseen can be conceived as a prerequisite of an unbiased judgment on cases of police misconduct. However, it can also hamper the IPCB’s ability to fully understand what happened during the encounter of the police with the complainant – and it can also reduce the IPCBs’ ability to convince police agencies to change practices in future cases. Some countries opt for an institutional attachment of IPCBs to parliaments, but empirical data shows that this leads to new dependencies from the parliaments’ administration with respect to the budget and to staff.

Author

• Hartmut Aden, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Berlin Intitute for Safety and Security Research (FÖPS Berlin)