How Much Oversight is Enough?
The contentious relationship between the City of Austin and its police department
The City of Austin as a governmental entity has engaged in an increasingly adversarial relationship with its police department for some time. Longer than the eye-catching headlines of 2020 that highlighted the slashing of APD’s budget by a third1.
The predictable outcome of defunding APD and castigating its officers as racist and violent during the George Floyd Riots resulted in a staffing crisis for the police department and increased violent crime for the city2.
But APD and the city have had a contentious relationship long before the explosive events of 2020. The year 2017 saw the first time a contract was rejected by city council since APD and city leadership began negotiating labor contracts for the department3.
Despite dwindling staffing numbers, in 2022 and 2023 the city government continued to show how adversarial its relationship with the department was by rejecting a negotiated and tentatively agreed upon four-year labor contract in favor of a one-year contract pushed forward at the last minute4.
There are other examples going back further, but the debacle in 2017 and its sequel in 2022/2023 highlight the core issue from the city’s side of the negotiating table come bargaining time: Increasing civilian oversight.
The idea of civilian oversight is only growing in popularity, and it’s easy to see why. The taxpayers pay police salaries. They deserve to know what’s going on at their local police department. It’s hard to argue with that. Instead, I ask a simple question: How much oversight is enough?
To state it another way, at what point do we look at our oversight and say, “good job folks, we got exactly what we wanted out of this” and move on to the next social issue we want to address? Will we have enough oversight when every police car has a civilian oversight representative sitting in the passenger seat?
If that seems a bit extreme, then that has to mean there is a point beneath that level of oversight that is deemed acceptable. So, what is it?
Before we go further, let’s take a paragraph to discuss how Austin’s civilian oversight currently works. The Office of Police Oversight (OPO) monitors complaints stemming from the actions of APD officers, investigates those complaints, sends them to Internal Affairs for further investigation, and recommends discipline directly to the Chief of Police. The OPO is designed to act as an entirely civilian-run check on a police officer’s authority as a legal practitioner.
So now that we understand, for the most part, what the OPO does, let’s look at a different oversight organization to draw a comparison: The Texas Medical Board. This group of twelve physicians and seven “public members” has the authority to investigate complaints filed against physicians, and has the authority to suspend the license of any physician if they have violated the Texas Occupations Code or the Board’s rules5.
It's good to see that our doctors are being held to a higher standard since they are literally responsible for people living and dying. Thankfully, they have an entire review panel within the State of Texas responsible for ensuring that each physician is functioning at a high standard of care.
Considering that in 2016 John Hopkins Medicine reported that 250,000 people die each year due to medical malpractice in the United States, it seems like a review panel is more than justified6. By contrast, police nationwide kill approximately 1,000 people every year7. That’s just the raw numbers. The 1,000 statistic does not differentiate between justified and unjustified homicides.
It is important to note that the majority of the Texas Medical Board is made up of fellow physicians. It’s not an entirely civilian-run check on a doctor’s authority as a medical practitioner.
Unlike the OPO in Austin, the Texas Medical Board appears to acknowledge that the specialized skills required of doctors means that those in oversight positions should have knowledge of those specialized skills. To follow that same line of logic, shouldn’t there be police officers in the OPO?
Both professions deal in life and death situations daily; it should be noted again that, as cited above, one profession results in the deaths of 250,000 people per annum while the other results in around 1,000. If physicians can act as oversight for their fellow physicians, would it not be appropriate for police oversight to be held to the same standard?
With that in mind, the question posited in the title bears repeating: how much oversight is enough?
References
1. Venkataramanan, M. (2020, August). Austin City Council cuts police department budget by one-third, mainly through reorganizing some duties out from law enforcement oversight. Texas Tribune. https://www.texastribune.org/2020/08/13/austin-city-council-cut-police-budget-defund/
2. Johnson, B. (2023, March). Texas DPS to Supply Troopers to Austin Police Amid Department Staffing Woes. The Texan. https://thetexan.news/texas-dps-to-supply-troopers-to-austin-police-amid-department-staffing-woes/
3. McGlinchy, A. K. (2017, December). In unanimous vote, Council rejects police contract, sends back to negotiations. Austin Monitor. https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2017/12/unanimous-vote-council-rejects-police-contract-sends-back-negotiations/
4. Moreno-Lozano, L. (2023, February). Austin to negotiate one-year extension on police contract ahead of May vote on oversight. Austin American-Statesman. https://www.statesman.com/story/news/local/2023/02/16/austin-city-council-police-union-negotiate-one-year-extension-contract/69903342007/
5. Texas Medical Board. (2023, May). https://www.tmb.state.tx.us/page/medical-board
6. McMains, V. & Nelson, L. (2016, May). Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in the U.S. John Hopkins Medicine. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_suggests_medical_errors_now_third_leading_cause_of_death_in_the_us
7. Jenkins et al. (2023, May). 1,083 people have been shot and killed by police in the past 12 months. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/