Governmental Crime and Corruption
While police departments in small towns and major cities throughout the country have been entrusted with the duty of public protection, all too often the corruptive power of pure authority poisons this sacred bond. From the institutionalized graft of Tammany Hall, to the militant misapplication of force used by police departments enforcing “Jim Crow” laws in the South, the police have always been capable of enforcing injustice, and as New York City’s divisive “Stop and Frisk” law attests to, this problem has not abated in the wake of the Civil Rights movement. Simply put, racial minorities are disproportionally targeted for traffic stops, investigation and arrest, and even injury or death at the hands of officers (Feinstein, 2013); a statistical outlier which does not conform to the prevailing research on crime rates across racial or ethnic demographics. To address the issue of rampant corruption and racism within law enforcement, the concept of citizen oversight has emerged as a viable method through which communities can effectively police their own police force. Whenever reports of police misconduct make national headlines, such as that of illegal domestic surveillance of Muslims by the New York Police Department, the need for viable oversight of law enforcement agencies is only reemphasized, and indeed “minority demands for police reform … can lend support for its implementation, especially after a highly publicized case of misconduct between the police and minority citizens” (Wilson & Buckler, 2010).