Civilian police review panels are needed – and still permitted
Police unions hate civilian-review panels. For years, they have resisted their creation and operation.
This is regrettably short-sighted.
If allowed to properly operate, these panels create transparency and accountability, enhancing respect and trust for law enforcement. That has been their purpose since the creation of the first civilian police review boards in Washington, D.C. in 1948 and Kansas City, Missouri in 1959.
A 2022 report of the Leroy Collins Institute reviewed arrest rates in 114 Florida cities over almost two decades and concluded that “the stark decrease in Black arrest rates” – “about a 15% reduction” in cities with review boards – is “a net positive for both officers and civilians.” Putting aside that civilian-review panels frequently exonerate officers, fewer arrests mean fewer tense police interactions with the public, which means reduced stress and danger for police officers.
This year, police unions’ long-standing animus to civilian scrutiny, along with their expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars for lobbying, dovetailed with the ambitions of a governor wanting to present himself as a champion of law enforcement and crusader against civil-rights advances.
And so a compliant Legislature enacted, and Gov. Ron DeSantis gleefully signed House Bill 601, which some media outlets incorrectly characterized as legislation that “bans” or “eliminates” citizen-review boards.
But this is propaganda, not a correct reading of the new law. The legislation has little or no practical effect – most importantly, it does not prohibit what over two dozen existing citizen-review panels in Florida currently do.
The new law applies only to civilian-review boards created by ordinance: It has no effect on review boards created by executive order of a mayor, sheriff, or police chief, or by charter amendment adopted by voters.
The law codifies the status quo: The Police Officers’ Bill of Rights already required that complaints of police misconduct must be investigated first by the officer’s employing agency. The new law simply requires compliance with preexisting law. Nothing prohibits civilian-review boards from reviewing closed or inactive cases for the adequacy and fairness of a department’s internal investigation.
No law can bar public access to closed case files: In Florida, everyone has a constitutional right to access public records.
Civilian-review boards couldn’t discipline police officers even before the new law: Review boards review closed cases and make recommendations. The claim that this legislation was necessary to protect officers from discipline imposed by civilians is simply false.
The new law does nothing to restrict citizen-review boards from carrying out the important function of reviewing policies and procedures and making recommendations to a chief, mayor or City Council for their reform: It’s essential that civilians, not just police, have a say in policies that affect the community, including policies governing high-speed chases through residential neighborhoods, the use of force (including deadly force), interaction with mentally ill suspects, use of surveillance technologies, and policing political demonstrations.
If municipalities acted on the misleading propaganda that the new law “bans” or “eliminates” civilian review boards, victims of police misconduct – or their families – will have no independent agency to review what happened. That would be a big step backward in efforts to foster trust and confidence in local police by the communities they serve – returning to the days of the police policing themselves without citizen involvement.
The purpose of the propaganda campaign to mislead the public about the new law was to undermine the important work of CRBs. The safest communities are those where the public trusts and collaborates with the police. When communities distrust police, witnesses are reluctant to help police identify criminals, and juries acquit defendants because they distrust police testimony.
The law signed by the governor does little more than re-state the status quo, prohibiting municipalities from expanding the authority of civilian-review boards beyond boundaries already set by the Police Officers’ Bill of Rights.
Nothing in the new law dissolves existing boards or alters existing procedures for reviewing and commenting upon closed or inactive investigations. And nothing in the new law prohibits review boards from carrying out functions unrelated to complaints of police misconduct – such as reviewing law-enforcement policies and procedures and making recommendations for reform.
This is essential work – and it needs to continue.
James Michael Shaw, Jr. is a Tampa-based ACLU-FL cooperating attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. Howard L. Simon, is the organization’s interim executive director.
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Civilian police review panels are needed – and still permitted
