Policing IV: Transparency

I'm heavily influenced by open source-software development. In open-source software, every potential bug is reported and addressed. And (through the history in a version control log) can be traced back to an individual that made a code change. This is a level of transparency that changes everything. And, in truth, it's not that much different from how commercial software development proceeds as well. For instance, as a Jira user, it took less than 30 seconds to reach the list of all known Jira bugs.

I think we should expect and require a similar level of transparency from our police. The city or police department web site should have readily accessible process for filing complaints of any kind. Those complaints should be tabulated in more or less real time so decision makers -- whether they be citizens or government officials -- can instantly know not only if certain types of complaints are common, but if certain officers are the source of a majority of complaints.

Certainly, there would need to be a means of providing anonymity for people reporting issues. I'm also open to some degree of anonymity to protect police officers before claims are substantiated. But local policing relies on police and citizen knowing one another, so I possibly police identities do not need to be fully anonymous (see
We’re police officers. You should know our names. That goes for Portland, too for example).

To be fully open about small mistakes and concerns would allow us to address issues before they became big issues. This sort of openness is, of course, scary to police. But to me it seems similar to widely reported studies of apologies in medical settings -- it was scary at first, and the lawyers complained it would lead to an onslaught of litigation. But in hospitals where doctors apologized for adverse events, time to resolve claims decreased by by over 50% and cost of claims dropped by approximately 50%, depending on the measure used. At the same time, patient satisfaction increased.

In my city, the police department web site certainly contains useful information. But in several attempts, I still cannot find any way to report police misconduct, or any accounting of what sorts of misconduct concerns others have raised. In response to questions about misconduct, the departmental response has been more or less a stream of self-congratulatory references to the good programs the department does run. This implied sense of denial diminishes trust rather than increasing it. Rapid and full disclosure provides critical opportunities for learning that we simply do not have under our current system, and provides an opportunity to build trust through rapid and personal response to concerns. I believe we will struggle to change policing until we adopt a significantly more open and introspective system that includes looking at citizen concerns before they become civil rights violations.