Court Ends Philadelphia Police Advisory Board
A Pennsylvania court ruled on this day that the Philadelphia Police Advisory Board, a pioneering form of citizen review of the police, violated the Philadelphia City Charter.The decision eliminated one of the only two citizen review boards in the country.
The decision followed a November 8, 1966, referendum in New York City that abolished the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB).
The abolition of the two review boards left the U.S. with no citizen review board to investigate complaints against police officers.
Citizen oversight of the police was reborn in the 1970s, and by the 1990s most major cities had some form of oversight for their police department (see the link to NACOLE, below).
On the history of civilian review boards, read: Samuel Walker, Police Accountability: The Role of Citizen Oversight (2001)
Learn more at the National Association for Citizen Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE): http://www.nacole.org