Abstract: A frequently proposed reform to improve police accountability is the civilian oversight board. These boards purport to funnel civilian input to police departments and regulate complaints about police misconduct. However, I find that they lack the statutory power to measurably change police behavior. Analysis of civilian oversight agency charters finds that most boards (96.0%) are unable to discipline or sanction officers for misconduct themselves. Using panel data on police behavior from 243 major (population > 100,000) American cities between 1980 and 2020, difference-in-difference estimates show that oversight agencies do not improve police crime-solving nor do they reduce police killings of civilians, low-level discretionary arrests, or racial disparities along these measures. While oversight agencies do not measurably alter police behavior, they do improve the electoral fortunes of the politicians who create them. Incumbent mayors and city councilors that create civilian oversight agencies see a 2.4 percentage point boost in vote share, with these effects concentrated among non-white incumbents (5.3pp). Broadly, these findings suggest that the current slate of civilian oversight agencies are underpowered to change police behavior. However, because municipal politicians electorally benefit from passing even weak oversight agencies, there may not be a strong incentive for politicians to push for more powerful boards.
Bio: Dr. Krishnamurthy is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Ohio State University. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science at Duke University in May of 2023. In the 2023-2024 academic year, he was a postdoctoral scholar in the Possibility Lab at the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy. His scholarship sits at the nexus of race, institutions, and political behavior, focusing on the politics of the criminal legal system in the United States. One strand of his research demonstrates the institutional insulation of municipal police from public influence and democratic oversight, while another strand considers questions of local representation for racial and ethnic minorities in the United States. His work can be found in the Oxford University Press Book, Deadly Justice: A Statistical Portrait of the Death Penalty, and also appears in the American Political Science Review, Political Psychology and Political Behavior.
