Mediating Citizen Complaints Against Police Officers: Community Viewpoints From Trinidad and Tobago

Abstract

Given the confrontational nature of citizen–police interactions, citizen complaints against the police are inevitable. In Trinidad and Tobago, citizen complaints are frequently ventilated via litigation or through a range of police-led and non-police-led investigations. However, it has been argued that these mechanisms for resolving citizen complaints against the police are ineffective. With this in mind, there is need for alternative mechanisms to resolve citizen complaints against police officers, and mediation has emerged as the leading contender. Despite the proclivity toward mediation, the phenomenon has attracted sparse scholarship in Trinidad and Tobago. As a result of this lacuna, this study employs a qualitative approach to measure (a) citizens preference for mediation or traditional mechanisms of complaint resolution and (b) citizens willingness to use mediation to resolve complaints against police officers in Trinidad and Tobago, if mediation becomes available.