Complaints against the Police: A 'Community Policing' Perspective

ecent events have identified a range of attempts to strike a balance in police accountability between citizen demands for effective, external police accountability mechanisms and a police preference for internal forms of accountability, in other words, for self-regulation. The quest for this balance has emerged from the failure of the police in recent years to convince many segments of the community of their ability to investigate and prevent misconduct and corruption within their own ranks (cf. Scarman 1982). Demands for 'independent' or 'external' elements in the investigation and review of citizens' complaints against the police, while discernible over the last thirty years, have increased in recent times and indicate something of a malaise in police-community relations. In other words, the demands for changes to complaint mechanisms are linked to changes in police relationships with the community. It would therefore seem sensible to understand what has gone wrong with police investigation of complaints and to seek ways whereby police-community relations can be put on a more trusting footing.