The Democratic Deficit in American Policing

<p>This dissertation examines the tools residents have at their disposal to facilitate democratic accountability for carceral state actors more broadly, and municipal police, more narrowly. First, I evaluate an increasingly common institutional reform in municipal governance – civilian oversight boards. This research demonstrates that oversight boards are systematically underpowered and unable to improve police behavior. Second, I examine civilian coproduction of accountability, through complaint reporting and meeting attendance. Across two survey based experiments, I show that residents are more willing to engage in coproduction when oversight agencies have strong sanctioning powers and direct democratic influence. Finally, I display how proximal carceral exposure shapes voter turnout when residents are given direct electoral influence over policymaking. Here, I use voter files from California to show that residents of the most high carceral exposure neighborhoods are mobilized to polls in order to support a ballot measure that reduces the reach of the carceral state.</p>

Author dc:creator

• Krishnamurthy, Arvind Ram

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Aldrich, John

• Political science
• Criminology
• Sociology

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10161/27705

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dukespace.lib.duke.edu:10161/27705