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Category: Project

Description: Civilian review boards (CRBs) are frequently proposed as a viable reform instrument to address perceived accountability and legitimacy gaps in policing. With direct citizen participation, CRBs are imagined to serve as largely independent institutional actors that can serve as a check on policing agencies, particularly for high-stakes instances of police misconduct. Yet, adoption of CRBs has been modest and little is known about their effectiveness or impact on public perceptions of legitimacy. To shed light here, we administer a survey experiment to 3,000 American adults presenting the results of a hypothetical police officer misconduct investigation initiated by a police chief and potentially complemented by a separate CRB investigation. We examine whether the presence of CRBs, agreement or disagreement between police chiefs and CRBs, the final determination (misconduct or no misconduct), and the type of potential misconduct impact public perceptions of procedural legitimacy and trust in police chiefs and CRBs. In particular, we consider whether CRBs increase perceived police legitimacy, whether conflict between CRB and police chief determinations harms police legitimacy, and whether police chiefs receive a payoff for findings of internal misconduct. While public support for CRBs \textit{in principle} is generally high, the results speak to whether the public finds these police accountability institutions effective and trustworthy \textit{in practice}.