Citizen oversight
Citizen oversight is when an assembly of citizens review government activities. The activities, which are mostly misconduct, get examined and critiqued; the citizens then recommend a way of correcting the misdeeds. Citizen oversight agencies are independent of the government, and they are tasked with direct involvement in the citizen complaints process and develop solutions to improve government accountability. The areas of the government that involve directly with citizens such as public service providers and police departments are major critique areas for citizen oversight agencies. There are many arguments over the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of citizen oversight agencies.
The investigation-focused citizen oversight agency conducts independent investigations of citizen complaints. One characteristic of a civilian oversight agency is independence. Therefore, the agencies conduct independent investigations of complaints filed by citizens. For instance, a complaint about a rogue cop will get investigated separately and independently. According to Angelis et al. (2016), the investigations are carried out by trained agency members, and since citizens trust them, they get to the grass root level and find the cause of the complaint. When investigations are carried out by civilian agencies, the larger citizen population gains trust in the investigation processes concerning police misconduct. Besides, investigations carried out by citizen oversight agencies to reduce chances of bias. Police officers may be tempted to lean towards their colleagues and as such, conduct bias investigations. However, civilian oversight agencies offer unbiased and independent investigation reports.
The review-focused civilian agency model reviews the quality of the services offered by government agencies. The paramount goal of any government is to provide quality services to its citizens. Quality services can only be provided when the services are reviewed by the citizens and their importance and effectiveness defined. As per the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (2016), civilian agencies ensure that the community gets a chance to contribute to the reviewing of complaints and services. The citizens feel included in making and implementing government policies since meetings are held to collect public input and suggestions. For instance, in police services such as communication lines and response time, the community gets a chance to review the quality of the services as well as give opinions on how such vital services can get improved. The civilian review is an essential process in increasing public trust in the process. When analyses get carried out by government officials only, the reports do not cover the views of the people who interact with the service providers directly; therefore, such investigations may be biased. However, when the community is involved in reviews, they gain trust because of the transparency and the inclusion.
Civilian oversight agencies improve the services offered by the government. The fundamental goal of citizen oversight agencies is to increase the effectiveness of the government rather than condemning. The civilian agencies act as watchdogs of the community. All civilian oversight agency models are structured to meet the needs of a community. When citizens are given a forum and a voice to express their needs, the government can offer what the public needs. Also, community-police relations get stronger when public complaints get investigated and resolved. Many people associate civilian oversight agencies with punishing rogue public service providers, whereas the agencies focus on more permanent solutions. Civilian oversight agencies base their activities on changing dysfunctional organizational structures and replacing them with practical, transparent, and inclusive organizational structures.
Some law enforcement agencies resist civilian oversight agencies. According to Seyffert (2017), the civilians involved in the investigation process may not fully understand the law and legal proceedings. Therefore, such civilians may conduct biased investigations and lean towards the public in a case about police misconduct, when the probes are biased, public distrust of police increases. Since civilian oversight are meant to increase public trust, biased investigations lead to distrust.
Civilian oversight agencies only focus on misconduct. Although some public service providers perform rogue deeds, some adhere to the law and provide quality services. Citizen oversight agencies only focus on the malpractices of such government agencies and neglect the positive side of the agencies. For instance, when a police officer shoots at an innocent civilian, it creates a public uproar about police misconduct. However, when the police perform heroic deeds such as stopping a terrorist attack, such actions are not celebrated enough. Therefore, although the civilian oversight agencies are meant to critique misdeeds, they ignore the good deeds of the public servants. When heroic deeds get ignored while rogue acts get highlighted, civil servants get de-motivated. Law enforcement agencies resist citizen oversight agencies since they do not form a motivation base for public servants.
In conclusion, civilian oversight agencies should be focused on increasing the quality of government services while looking at the needs of the public servants. Although citizens should get quality services, it is equally important to look at the needs of the people providing the services. Like a double-edged sword, citizens can only get quality services when the people providing services get the right working conditions. Therefore, the oversight agencies should also be focused on the requirement of the public servants who in turn, provide services to the civilians.
References
Angelis J, Rosenthal R, Buchner B. (2016). Civilian oversight of law enforcement: a review of the strengths and weaknesses of various models. National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement.
National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement. (2016). Building Public Trust Through Police Accountability and Transparency . Retrieved July 1, 2019, from National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement: https://www.nacole.org/faqs
Seyffert Pamela, “Can Professional Civilian Oversight Improve Community-Police Relations?” The Police Chief Online, September 13, 2017, from POLICE CHIEF: http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/can-professional-civilian-oversight-improve-community-police-relations/