Procedural Justice and Citizen Review of Complaints Against the Police: Structure, Outcomes, and Complainants’ Subjective Experiences

• DOI: 10.1177/1098611117739812
• Published date: 01 March 2018
• Date: 01 March 2018
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Procedural Justice

and Citizen Review

of Complaints Against

the Police: Structure,

Outcomes, and

Complainants’

Subjective Experiences

Robert E. Worden

1,2

,

Heidi S. Bonner

3

, and

Sarah J. McLean

2

Abstract

People who file complaints against the police tend to experience objectively unfavor-

able outcomes, for most complaints are not sustained. But features of citizen over-

sight might be expected to enhance the procedural justice of the complaint review

process and, hence, provide positive subjective experience despite the outcomes.

Using data collected through interviews with complainants about their experience

with complaint review in a city that provides for citizen oversight, we examine the

factors associated with complainants’ subjective experiences. We find that complain-

ants’ subjective experiences are shaped mainly by outcomes, while features of the

process that might be expected to enhance its procedural fairness have little or no

effect on complainants’ judgments.

Keywords

citizen oversight, police complaint review, procedural justice

1

University at Albany, Albany, NY, USA

2

The John F. Finn Institute for Public Safety, Inc., Albany, NY, USA

3

East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA

Corresponding Author:

Robert E. Worden, The John F. Finn Institute for Public Safety, Inc., 421 New Karner Road, Suite 12,

Albany, NY 12205, USA.

Email: rworden@finninstitute.org

Police Quarterly

2018, Vol. 21(1) 77–108

!The Author(s) 2017

Reprints and permissions:

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/1098611117739812

journals.sagepub.com/home/pqx

Introduction

Citizen oversight is commonly prescribed as a remedy for police misconduct.

Citizen involvement in the review of complaints against the police is expected to

better hold miscreant of‌f‌icers accountable for their actions, and hence to deter

police misconduct. In addition, citizen oversight is supposed to better meet the

expectations of complainants not only by substantiating the allegations that they

make but also by ensuring that the complaint review process is, and appears to

be, fair. Research suggests that the parties to disputes may be satisf‌ied with

procedures that they regard as fair even when the outcomes are not favorable

to them (e.g., Donner, Maskaly, Fridell, & Jennings, 2015; Kerstetter, 1996;

Lind & Tayler, 1988). Due to the ‘‘procedural justice’’ that civilian involvement

imparts to complaint review systems, then, the subjective experiences of com-

plainants should tend to be positive even when the objective outcomes are

unfavorable for them.

Unfortunately, the evidence that has accumulated on the operation and

impacts of citizen oversight is quite thin. Recounting the hypothesized ef‌fects

of citizen oversight on complaint review, the National Research Council’s

Committee to Review Research on Police Policies and Practice concluded that

‘‘little empirical evidence has been produced about the extent to which citizen

review meets these expectations’’ (2004, p. 203) and that ‘‘the popularity of

citizen review and optimism about its benef‌its far outstrip the empirical evidence

that citizen review has salutary ef‌fects’’ (2004, p. 204). More recently, the

President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing observed that ‘‘there are

important arguments for having civilian oversight even though we lack strong

research evidence that it works’’ (2015, p. 26). The Task Force went on to ‘‘urge

action on further research, based on the guiding principle of procedural justice,

to f‌ind evidence-based practices to implement successful civilian oversight mech-

anisms’’ (2015, p. 26).

We examine the subjective experiences of complainants in one city that pro-

vides for a form of citizen oversight. We analyze data collected through inter-

views with complainants to estimate the ef‌fects of structural and case-specif‌ic

factors on complainants’ procedural justice judgments about the complaint

review process and their satisfaction with it. We f‌ind that complainants’ subject-

ive experiences are shaped mainly by outcomes, while features of the process

have little or no ef‌fect on complainants’ judgments.

Citizen Oversight and Procedural Justice

Procedural justice consists of how authority is exercised. Social research has

identif‌ied several dimensions of ‘‘procedural fairness’’ (National Research

78 Police Quarterly 21(1)

Council, 2004, p. 304)

1

:

.Participation: ‘‘People are more satisf‌ied with procedures that allow them to

participate by explaining their situation and communicating their views about

situations to authorities.’’

.Neutrality: ‘‘People think that unbiased authorities that use objective indica-

tors to make decisions, as opposed to personal views, act more fairly.’’

.Dignity and respect: ‘‘The quality of interpersonal treatment is consistently

found to be a distinct element of fairness, separate from the quality of the

decision-making process.’’

.Trustworthiness:

[P]eople feel that procedures are fairer when they trust the motives of decision

makers ....Authorities can encourage people to view them as trustworthy by

explaining their decisions and accounting for their conduct in ways that make

clear their concern about giving attention to people’s needs.

These four dimensions are sometimes subsumed under two categories of

judgments: the quality of treatment and the quality of decision-making.

Participation (voice) and neutrality speak to the quality of decision-

making while dignity/respect and trustworthiness speak to the quality of

treatment.

In the context of citizen oversight, procedural justice is presumably of critical

importance as the outcomes are seldom favorable for complainants; only a small

fraction of citizen complaints eventuate in f‌indings against the police. For exam-

ple, in their review of citizen complaints in New York City, Sviridof‌f and

McElroy (1989) found that the vast majority of complaints that were investi-

gated were not substantiated. Walker (2005) estimated that ‘‘[b]oth internal and

external complaint procedures sustain about 10-13% of all complaints’’ (p. 144).

Most complaints are not sustained because, oftentimes, judgments must be

based on the conf‌licting claims of a citizen and an of‌f‌icer, with little additional

evidence to support either side (Kerstetter, 1996). Jerome Skolnick and James

Fyfe (1993) explain it this way:

...regardless of the intensity of the investigation, most citizens’ allegations cannot

be def‌initively resolved one way or the other. In most cases three bits of informa-

tion are available to those who must review citizens’ complaints against police. The

f‌irst is the citizen’s allegation that he or she was ‘‘done wrong’’ by an of‌f‌icer. The

second is the of‌f‌icer’s denial of the charge. The third is the investigator’s conclusion

that little or no objective evidence exists to support or refute the citizen’s charge.

(pp. 229–230)

Worden et al. 79