| Increased numbers of citizen complaints, and civil lawsuits against police officers eroded public trust in law enforcement. Citizen complaints and lawsuits, when coupled with adverse court judgments adversely affected police operating budgets. The purpose of this study was to analyze citizen complaints, lawsuits, and adverse judgments against police agencies, to determine if statistically significant relationships existed between law enforcement accreditation and citizen complaints, lawsuits, and monetary amounts of adverse judgments. Using correlational quantitative methods, the researcher focused on these three aspects of police liability. The author gathered data from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, from the FBI, from court archives, and from questionnaires sent to participating agencies. Based on the a priori chi-square goodness of fit test, the goal was to select 242 police departments with similar demographics across the United States. Pertaining to citizen complaints, the study revealed no statistically significant difference between the numbers of citizen complaints against accredited versus non-accredited law enforcement agencies, r(250) = -.097, p = .053. The author expected to see a positive relationship, i.e. that accredited law enforcement agencies received fewer citizen complaints than non-accredited agencies. The author found the reverse results. Pertaining to lawsuits, the study confirmed a statistically significant difference existed between the number of civil lawsuits against accredited versus non-accredited law enforcement agencies, r(164) = .132, p = .046. Pertaining to adverse civil judgments, the writer found a statistically significant difference existed in the monetary amounts of adverse civil judgments against accredited versus non-accredited law enforcement defendants, F(1,202) = 4.386, p = .037. The author concluded law enforcement agencies would benefit from accreditation, if not to reduce the number of citizen complaints, then to assist agencies in resolution before the complaints escalated into lawsuits. Accreditation resulted in a reduction of the number of lawsuits brought against law enforcement agencies and lesser amounts of adverse judgments against accredited agencies. This study did not consider variables such as high crime rates or officer to citizen ratios, leaving those areas for future research. Further research, even by individual agencies, would assist law enforcement administrators and elected officials in conducting comparative analyses that most benefit their individual agency. |
