The reconciliation of the development and implementation of police accountability in the United Kingdom

The objects of this research are: first, to explain some of the issues surrounding police accountability in the United Kingdom. Second, to make attempts in reconciling two opposing views as to whom police in the UK are accountable for? Third, to clarify the vagueness and ambiguous definitional concepts of the police constable, constabulary independence, and the use of police discretionary powers. The author investigated the following problems: lack of police proper accountability, vague and ambiguous meaning of constabulary independence constable oath of office, and the use of police discretionary powers. The main results of the research are: first, more clarity is needed as to whom is the British police accountable to? Second, a review of the current oath of office for police constable, the implementation of finding by previous committees set up by government: Lord Scarman, Rt Hon Christopher Patten, and Lord Nolan reports. Third, the monitoring of police officers' use of discretionary powers. The area of practical use of the research: is for all citizens, directly or indirectly affected by police and safer communities. Criminal justice students in higher institutions and criminal justice practitioners, government officials, and policymakers.

'Midwife for Power': Towards a Mujerista / Womanist Model of Community Organizing

In recent years, communities have responded to police violence in U.S. cities through confrontational models of community organising that evolved from patriarchal and male approaches. Very often, these approaches have not produced the hoped-for outcomes. In this article, I argue that a women-led community organising model, grounded in feminine relational power-with epistemologies, can lead to innovative policy changes, including in contexts of intractable problems, such as police misconduct. This article presents the Midwife for Power community organising model, which creates space for women organisers to nurture solidarity and creativity across all lines of difference, centres personal testimony and uses collective inquiry to create relational power to address injustice. Theoretically, this model draws on the rich insights of Black and Latina organisers and scholars, as well as traditions of intersectional solidarity. In order to illustrate the model, this article presents an empirical case study of a successful police accountability campaign.

Peeling the paradigm: Exploring the professionalization of policing in Canada

Maintaining public trust, legitimacy, and credibility in a constantly evolving society has proven challenging for police in the 21st century. Rising public concerns regarding police accountability are driving the need to advance the paradigm of policing by reassessing the organizational structure of law enforcement in Canada. Supported by research identifying primary directives for maintaining public trust, this proposal argues that the time has come for policing to evolve from an occupation into a formal profession. Just as any other occupation that has advanced into a profession, provincial regulatory colleges of policing should be formed with the key objective of protecting the public from malpractice and malfeasance. A provincial college of policing would allow for (a) sustained and inclusive recruitment strategies, (b) foundational knowledge of the scholarship of policing, (c) evidence-based academy training, (d) mandatory ongoing (in-service) police education, and (e) expert, objective, community-focused, independent oversight. This proposal uses characteristics of the College of Policing in England and Wales as a guiding framework for the support and preparation of professionalizing policing in Canada.

Reimagining Policing in America

Police killings have increased over 100% in the past two decades. Black people, along with American Indians and Latinx communities (and some Asian and Pacific Islander communities), are more likely to have police force used on them relative to whites. This article aims to provide policy recommendations that inform reforms toward police accountability, improved training, and a police culture that protects citizens. We focus on short-, medium-, and long-term solutions for reimagining law enforcement to reduce officer-involved shootings, racial disparities in use of force, mental health issues among officers, and problematic officers who rotten the tree of law enforcement. We focus acutely on the need to abolish qualified immunity with the longterm change of transforming police culture itself to better protect civilians and police who approach their jobs with ethical respect.

Police and Image Maintenance

Video evidence of use-of-force incidents has changed the conversation about policing in the United States and undermined faith in law enforcement. This chapter presents a critical discourse analysis of police efforts to maintain a positive public image. First, the chapter identifies three rhetorical strategies used by law enforcement in pursuit of image repair. When they cannot control the original creation and framing of an image through embodied gatekeeping, officials negotiate its recontextualization by controlling the narrative, explaining procedures, or appealing to the public’s respect for authority. Many departments are also crafting their own visual messaging, with social media accounts that highlight good deeds caught on badge cams or with lighthearted in-house video productions such as the 2018 Lip Sync Challenge. A close reading of the Lip Sync Challenge finds that its productions tended to reify, rather than dispute, the white, militaristic, hypermasculine culture that police accountability activists condemn.

Filming Police

This chapter historicizes and theorizes the work of self-described “cop-watchers,” or police accountability activists based on interviews, participant observation, and textual analysis. This chapter describes the way police accountability organizations are proliferating, thanks to smartphone penetration and the ease of video sharing on social networks. The chapter describes the origins of such counternarrative “sousveillance” in the United States. Two women who founded the longest-running cop-watching group in the United States, Berkeley Copwatch, are among the subjects of the research, which spans multiple cities, organizations, and perspectives. The chapter explores the difference between sustained and organized cop-watching and the incidental or spontaneous filming of police, and argues that the true power of cop-watching lies not in its videos but its commitment to community surveillance and witnessing, and that participation in the visual public sphere can be theorized as an essential, democratic, human capability.

The Politics of Police Accountability

This chapter centres on examining the politics of police accountability, and how this topic has been politicized in Ireland. The inevitability of politicization is reflected on, while also exploring how this can be done in the most democratically positive way. The argument is made that the nature of the state can be determinative in shaping the mechanisms of accountability adopted, and that in Ireland colonialism is central to this. It argues that three phases of politicization can be identified: colonial, postcolonial, and post-postcolonial. Both structures, cases, tribunals, and commentary are analysed in order to make this argument. The chapter suggests what post-postcolonialism looks like in this context, and what its ramifications may be.