Community groups have consistently failed to improve policing. These advocates are pushing a new way.


Civilian oversight panels serving as watchdogs and disciplinary enforcers for police departments have a generally poor record of effectiveness, thanks to multiple structural flaws. But examples of successful oversight are multiplying, and thanks to protests of police violence many more cities are working to establish bodies with real power to investigate wrongdoing in specific cases and effect change throughout an agency. One city getting high marks for its program is Denver, where the Office of Independent Monitor succeeded in pressing for new use-of-force rules, which cut incidents by 21% in a year.

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