Police reform from the top down: Experimental evidence on police executive support for civilian oversight

IF 2.3 3区管理学 Q2 ECONOMICS

Journal of Policy Analysis and Management Pub Date : 2024-07-02 DOI:10.1002/pam.22620

Ian T. Adams, Joshua McCrain, Daniel S. Schiff, Kaylyn Jackson Schiff, Scott M. Mourtgos

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The accountability of police to the public is imperative for a functioning democracy. The opinions of police executives—pivotal actors for implementing oversight policies—are an understudied, critical component of successful reform efforts. We use a pre‐registered survey experiment administered to all U.S. municipal police chiefs and county sheriffs to assess whether police executives’ attitudes towards civilian oversight are responsive to 1) state‐level public opinion (drawing on an original n = 16,840 survey) and 2) prior adoption of civilian review boards in large agencies. Results from over 1,300 police executives reveal that law enforcement leaders are responsive to elite peer adoption but much less to public opinion, despite overwhelming public support. Compared to appointed municipal police chiefs, elected sheriffs are less likely to support any civilian oversight. Our findings hold implications for reformers: we find that existing civilian oversight regimes are largely popular, and that it is possible to move police executive opinion towards support for civilian oversight.

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自上而下的警察改革：警察行政人员支持文职监督的实验证据

警察对公众负责是民主制度正常运作的必要条件。警察行政人员--执行监督政策的关键行为者--的意见是成功改革努力的关键组成部分，但却未得到充分研究。我们利用一项预先登记的调查实验，对美国所有市级警察局长和县级警长进行了调查，以评估警察行政人员对平民监督的态度是否对以下两方面做出了反应：1）州一级的公众舆论（利用最初的 n = 16,840 的调查）；2）大型机构之前采用的平民审查委员会。来自 1,300 多名警察主管的调查结果显示，执法领导者对精英同行的采纳情况反应灵敏，但对公众舆论的反应则要小得多，尽管公众绝大多数都表示支持。与任命的市警察局长相比，民选警长不太可能支持任何民间监督。我们的研究结果对改革者具有启示意义：我们发现，现有的文职监督制度在很大程度上是受欢迎的，而且有可能使警察行政人员的舆论倾向于支持文职监督。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Policy Analysis and Management Multiple-

CiteScore

5.80

自引率

2.60%

发文量

期刊介绍： This journal encompasses issues and practices in policy analysis and public management. Listed among the contributors are economists, public managers, and operations researchers. Featured regularly are book reviews and a department devoted to discussing ideas and issues of importance to practitioners, researchers, and academics.