In service of the truth? An evaluation of the Danish Independent Police Complaints Authority

Abstract

The article discusses police oversight systems. In the Nordic countries, the primary focus of external oversight is on individual accountability, and the article reports on results from an evaluation of the Danish Independent Police Complaints Authority (IPCA), established in 2011. Results show that the vast majority of complaints are not upheld, and that most complainants are dissatisfied with their experience with the system. They find the case processing time too long, they think the Authority is prejudiced in favour of the police, and they do not understand the reasoning behind the decisions. The article argues that disappointment is related to the fact that the IPCA focuses almost exclusively on individual wrongdoing (rarely finding sufficient evidence to take action), whereas complainants seek recognition and wish to hold the police organization accountable. It is suggested that the complaints system should be redirected towards mediation between officers and citizens and include a focus on organizational accountability.

Keywords

Accountability complaints independent oversight police

Introduction

Civilian oversight of the police may take many forms. In the US, independent police monitors deal with complaints about police misconduct, but may also influence police priorities and the distribution of police services. A similar system, dealing with both organizational and individual accountability (Jones, 2008), is found in Australia (Prenzler, 2000), but such a broad scope is not the norm. In England and Wales, elected Police and Crime Commissioners hold the police organization accountable, but the Independent Police Complaints Commission handles individual accountability by overseeing how the police investigates complaints or by investigating serious cases itself. Similarly, in the Scandinavian countries, organizational civilian oversight has a primarily advisory role, whereas individual wrongdoing by the police is investigated by special agencies more or less independent from the police.

The question is whether this division between oversight of organizational and individual accountability is preferable to systems that oversee both forms of accountability. Based on an evaluation of a specific case – the Independent Police Complaints Authority (IPCA) in Denmark – the article argues that this is not the case.

The article is organized into five parts. The first part provides an overview of police oversight and complaints systems, with a special focus on the Nordic countries, where organizational and individual accountability are dealt with by separate bodies. The second part presents the Danish system in a more detailed way, including the process leading up to the establishment of the current system. In the third part, the methodology of, and results from, an evaluation of the Danish complaints system (Holmberg, 2017) are presented, showing that the establishment of the IPCA has had no positive impact on complainants’ views of the process. The fourth part of the article explores possible explanations for the lack of positive impact of the IPCA. The main reason, it is argued, is the individual focus of the Authority, which is inconsistent with the wishes of most complainants: although they want their grievances recognized (Loader and Walker, 2007), they also want their complaint to have an effect on the organization. The last part of the article presents possible amendments to the current system. It would seem that a system able to hold both individual officers and their organizations accountable and a system that relied on mediation to a larger extent than at present would be better suited to satisfying the wishes and needs of complainants.

Police complaint systems: An overview

There is a wide variety of police complaint systems across the Western world. However, they are similar in that most claim some kind of independence from the police force(s) they monitor, usually by maintaining organizational distance from the police organization. They are also similar in that they are – with few exceptions – mainly or exclusively occupied with retributive justice.

Some scholars, such as Prenzler and Ronken (2001), distinguish between systems where the police themselves conduct investigations of wrongdoing (the internal affairs model and the civilian review model) and systems with independent investigators (the civilian control model, which can again be divided into civilian investigators and civilian auditors; Clarke, 2009). In the US, for instance, the number of ‘municipal action monitors’ is rising. These monitors derive their authority from the municipality, and some may conduct their own investigations of police wrongdoing, whereas others may supervise the work of police internal affairs divisions (Bobb et al., 2008). Although a trend towards civilian participation in the handling of complaints – identified by Goldsmith (1991) – seems to have continued since then (Smith, 2009), it is not uniform. Not all complaint systems have civilian participation, and some have it in a limited sense, as in the case of Denmark.

Complaint systems in the Nordic countries investigate only specific complaints (sometimes limited to possible penal offences). In general, complaints concerning penal offences are dealt with differently than are complaints regarding police behaviour (for example, rude language) and specific actions (such as decisions about whether to dispatch a patrol). There exists, as is the case in England and Wales too, a ‘bifurcated police accountability paradigm’ (Smith, 2009: 426) in which police operational and policy decisions are not scrutinized by the same agencies that oversee individual wrongdoing.

In Norway, a special unit (Specialenheten for Politisaker, referring to the Prosecutor General and the Ministry of Justice) investigates all complaints about possible penal cases and decides whether to press charges. Complaints about behaviour or actions are dealt with and decided by the local police Commissioner.

In Finland, complaints about penal offences are investigated by a local District Attorney, who refers to the Prosecutor General. All other (so-called administrative) complaints are reviewed and decided by a National Police Board, which has no civilian representation (Police of Finland, 2018).

In Sweden, organizational oversight is provided by one national and seven regional Police Oversight Boards (Polismyndighetens insynsråd) composed of politicians appointed by the government. Their role is purely advisory. Possible penal offences by police are investigated by the Special Investigations Department, an independent body within the Swedish Police Authority. Decisions about whether to investigate a complaint are made by a Special Prosecutor, who is separate from the police (Polismyndigheten, 2017). Complaints about behaviour or actions are investigated and decided by the Ombudsman for Justice (Justitieombudsman, 2018).

We shall return to Denmark below.

What matters with police complaint systems?

The literature on police complaints systems shows that they often fail to satisfy those complaining. Many complainants are in fact not seeking a formal investigation (Landau, 1994) characterized by the binary nature (guilty/not guilty) of ‘forensic realism’ (Goldsmith, 1996); instead, they are seeking outcomes such as redress, explanations, apologies, or indications that the police will act differently in the future (Maguire and Corbett, 1991). However, they are often disappointed owing to the fact that complaint systems are preoccupied with proving individual wrongdoing – something that is rarely achieved (Maguire and Corbett, 1991: 196). In Norway, for instance, only between 6 and 8 percent of complaints filed in the 1990s were substantiated (Thomassen, 2002), quite similar to what was found in Sweden in the mid-noughties (Granér et al., 2011). In the UK, Reiner (2010) also notes a recurring problem of low substantiation rates.

Complainants are also dissatisfied with long process times and a lack of information about progress (Waters and Brown, 2000). Other important issues are those of investigational independence from the police (Goldsmith, 1991; Reiner, 2010; Savage, 2012) and some kind of civilian participation in the system (Savage, 2013). In a survey of US police forces, Walker and Bumphus (1992) found different kinds of civilian participation in the majority of systems, but whether one was more effective than the other could not be determined, partly because effectiveness was difficult to define.

The Danish IPCA: History and complaints procedure

In Denmark, following the police reform of 2007, each of the 12 police districts maintain a District Board – a forum in which the District Commissioner meets with mayors from the municipalities located in the district. The role of the Board is limited and advisory only; members may state their wishes regarding police service, but they have no formal influence on police priorities. The Boards do not handle complaints about the police.

The handling of complaints against the police has been a hot topic for decades. In a number of prominent cases, public opinion has interpreted acquittals of officers as an indication that investigations conducted by the police and District Attorneys were biased. The complaint procedure has changed several times, with every new version including some kind of civilian participation, while at the same time focusing almost exclusively on individual accountability. Changes had little impact on the critics, however: a recurrent claim was that it was all but impossible to get a complaint upheld because ‘the police investigated themselves’. At the same time, politicians and the government generally expressed their trust in the system(s).

The rather frequent makeovers were based on a sort of double understanding among politicians: the systems were replaced because the public had lost its faith in them, not because they did not work. Tom Behnke, a member of Parliament, explains his party’s support for the formation of the IPCA:

We support the establishment of a new system, even though the present system works just fine. We established the present system because there was diminishing trust in the prior system … now the present system has become the old system, and trust in it is diminishing. So now, we create a new system, not because the present system is not working, but because it is important that citizens trust the system.¹

The IPCA was created in 2011. This time, the new complaint system was designed to thoroughly demonstrate independence – an Authority with formal ties to neither the police, the prosecutors, nor the Ministry of Justice. The Authority is manned by jurists and investigators employed by the Authority and headed by the Police Complaints Council. This council consists of a High Court judge, an attorney, a professor of penal law, an executive director from the association of Danish municipalities, and the director of the association of Danish folk high schools. The independence of the IPCA and the civilian participation in its governance were central tenets of the new system, and it holds the power to decide complaints about police behaviour.

The complaints procedure

The Danish system of police complaints is a rather complicated one, since complaints come in several categories:

Complaints about actions concern the decisions made by the police: did they decide to arrest – or not to arrest; did they respond to a request for assistance from a citizen or not? Such decisions are operational in nature and, the logic goes, therefore local police should handle complaints about them. Therefore, the IPCA refers complaints about police actions to the local Commissioner. Here, there is no independence and no external oversight – in fact, there is no official record of decisions in these cases. It is left to the local police to govern themselves.

Complaints about behaviour concern the general conduct of individual police officers: did they use offensive language; were they rude, insensitive or abusive? In such cases, the IPCA interviews complainants and interrogates the officers involved. Jurists with the IPCA also make decisions about whether the complaint should be upheld, in which case the IPCA may express criticism, severe criticism, or extremely severe criticism of the officers’ conduct. Most cases are decided by the employees of the IPCA, but some cases are reviewed/decided by the Board.

Some complaints may concern penal cases: for example, police violence, unlawful searches or complaints about valuables disappearing while in police custody. In these cases, the IPCA investigates and then hands over the results of the investigation (often including a recommendation about whether to prosecute) to the local District Attorney, who decides whether to press charges or not.

Finally, some of the less serious behavioural cases are referred to informal resolution (hereafter referred to as IR cases) by the police: instead of a decision made by the IPCA, the complainant will be invited to talk to a senior police officer about the complaint, and no formal decision is made.

The system of complaints is very complicated (some less frequent complaint categories have been omitted) and the independence of the Authority is not total – a large part of complaints are still investigated and/or decided by the police or the District Attorney. Furthermore, the IPCA is concerned first and foremost with establishing individual accountability rather than organizational accountability (Jones, 2008). Even though the IPCA may criticize police actions in broader terms, this does not happen very often, and matters of general police priorities are beyond the scope of the IPCA.

The present study

The present evaluation of the IPCA focuses on the opinions held by complainants. The main reason for this focus is that the evaluation was borne out of the legislation that established the IPCA. The purpose was to examine whether the new system has resulted in increased satisfaction and trust in the independence of the complaint system among complainants. Prior knowledge about Danish complainants’ views of the process was limited to a minor survey carried out in 2008 (Justitsministeriet, 2009) and the 2016 survey is, to a large extent, based on the one used in 2008.

All persons who received a decision (whether from the local Commissioner, including complaints decided informally, from the IPCA or from the District Attorney) on one or more complaints between August 2014 and March 2016² were included in the sample to be interviewed by telephone. Complainants who had more than one complaint decided in this period were interviewed about the first decided complaint in the sample. This procedure resulted in a sample of 1597 unique complainants; 658 completed the interview, equivalent to a response rate of 41 percent. The response rate is low when compared with, for example, victimization surveys, but fairly high when compared with other surveys concerning police complaint systems (for example, De Angelis, 2009; Hill et al., 2003). The attrition is primarily due to unsuccessful attempts to contact complainants – the survey institute was unable to get in contact with 46 percent of the sample, most of these because valid telephone numbers could not be found. Phone contact was established with 817 complainants, of whom 80 percent (658) agreed to be interviewed. Refusers (129) were not asked to state their reasons for refusal. The high proportion of informants who could not be reached reflects the fact – supported by a limited attrition analysis³ – that a substantial number of the complainants not participating in the survey have a loose attachment to general society: they are young, with low socioeconomic status and a high rate of unemployment, some without permanent residence. Informants with these characteristics tend to hold a more negative view of the complaints process, indicating that a higher response rate would have resulted in a more negative evaluation of the IPCA than the results presented here.

Longer personal interviews were conducted with 21 respondents in which they elaborated on their complaint. Tape-recorded interviews lasted between 15 minutes and one hour, and excerpts used here were translated from the Danish transcriptions. Informants were selected on the basis of their complaint type and their answers to the telephone questionnaire: four complaint types (conduct, penal offences, actions and complaints resolved informally) were included, as were the different authorities making the decisions (the IPCA, the local Commissioner and the District Attorney). Informants were further categorized on the basis of their overall satisfaction with the outcome of their complaint, including both satisfied and dissatisfied informants. Because these interviews are probably not representative of all informants, excerpts are used solely to elaborate on some of the findings from the survey – they are not part of the analysis in itself.

The IPCA log of complaints was compared with individual interview data, making it possible to see whether the IPCA definition of the complaints corresponded with complainants’ definitions.

Results regarding complaints

When asked about the content of their complaint, respondents chose between the categories shown in Table 1. It is readily apparent that most complaints concerned behaviour and actions.⁴ This corresponds with the IPCA data (see Table 2).

Table 1.

Respondents’ own view of the content of their complaint, by category (n = 658).

	Number	Percent
Rough handling by the police (behaviour)	251	26
Police actions	231	24
Police using inappropriate language (behaviour)	224	23
Other	110	12
Police violation of the penal code	93	10
Police violation of the traffic code	46	5
Total	955	100

Note: Respondents were able to give more than one answer, and some of the answers listed as ‘Other’ may refer to some of the other categories.

Table 2.

IPCA categorization of complaints.

	Number	Percent
Behavioural complaints (including IR cases)	256	39
Procedural complaints	219	33
Penal complaints	147	22
Traffic complaints	36	5
Total	658	99

Further analyses (not shown here) reveal that only 36 respondents stated that their complaints were exclusively penal in nature, whereas the IPCA handled 147 complaints as penal cases. This discrepancy probably reflects two things: first, complainants may have been confused about the complaints process, and, second, they complained about an incident rather than a specific offence.

What outcomes were complainants hoping for?

Respondents were also asked the following question: ‘What would you like to be the outcome of your complaint?’ (see Table 3).

Table 3.

Responses to the question: ‘What would you like to be the outcome of your complaint?’

	Number	Percent
That the police would change their behaviour in the future	375	57
That police management would realize that something wrong had happened	307	47
That officers involved in the incident were corrected	228	35
That the police would apologize	172	26
That officers involved in the incident were punished	122	19
Other outcome	91	14
That I would be offered to talk to a police superior	59	9
Total	1354

Note: n = 656. Respondents could provide more than one answer.

Among the 91 respondents answering ‘other outcome’, the most frequent wishes were some kind of monetary restitution or that their own fines/penalties should be reduced or dropped. In general, the majority of complainants wanted to establish some kind of organizational accountability (Jones, 2008): respondents had experienced some kind of wrongdoing by the police and they would like to help to prevent this happening in the future. Nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of respondents indicated at least one of the first two answers in Table 3 as (part of) the aim of their complaint, whereas less than half (46 percent) included that the officers involved should be corrected or punished. Only 5 percent of complainants expressed as their sole wish that officers be formally penalized, another 5 percent had as their sole wish that officers be disciplined, and 2 percent wanted both penal and disciplinary action taken against the officers. Somewhat similar findings have been reported by Landau (1994) and in an early evaluation in the US by the VERA Institute (cited in Walker and Bumphus, 1992). Among the 21 complainants who participated in the personal interviews, only one male mentioned outright punishment, in that he had wanted the officer to be fired. He also said, however, that he had never expected that to happen.

Another informant summed up her wishes thus:

I was hoping that, in the future, they might come up with an apology – say that they realized they were wrong, just something of that kind … That is what I see as the most important duty of the IPCA – to force the police to get in line. I don’t think the officers should be fired or pay restitution – it would be enough to just acknowledge that they had done something wrong.

Decisions

How many complaints were upheld? This question is quite central since an important reason for the establishment of the IPCA was that the previous system was seen as favouring the police. The IPCA does not have any information about decisions made by local Commissioners in procedural cases. Furthermore, since no formal decision is made in cases handled by informal resolution, we are left with 324 cases decided by either the IPCA or the District Attorney. Of these, 13 cases – about 4 percent – resulted in criticism of or charges brought against individual officers. In five cases, the IPCA found no grounds for individual criticism, but still decided to express a ‘general regret’ that the case in question was handled the way it was. If these cases are included, the percentage of complaints upheld in a broad sense – the complainant receiving some kind of recognition that a wrong had been committed – is about 6 percent, similar to what was found in Norway (Thomassen, 2002).

The majority of complainants thought that the IPCA had decided their case, even when IPCA records showed this not to be true. Furthermore, only 50 complainants said that their case was handled informally, whereas in fact 115 cases were resolved as IR cases according to the IPCA log. Some informants probably participated in a process of informal resolution without realizing it. The following interview excerpt demonstrates the confusion:

They called me a few weeks later, when they had listened to the tape [of the telephone conversation with the officer that she complained about] and they agreed with me. They said that I could take the case one step further, since the officer had been exceptionally rude … I believe I could take it to some kind of prosecutor, but I didn’t want to do that … I think they handled it very well, and it is a good thing that you can complain in this way, and that they called me to say that I was right.

In the survey, this complainant said that the complaint had been decided by the IPCA, whereas in fact it is clear from the IPCA log, and the excerpt above, that the complaint had been subject to informal resolution conducted over the telephone.

The confusion about the handling of complaints is also reflected in the complainants’ view of the outcome of their case. A total of 438 respondents (including some with complaints about procedures and some who were in fact part of an IR process) believed that the IPCA had decided their case. Of these complainants, 18 percent thought the ruling was in their favour. When compared with the official rate of upheld complaints – 6 percent – it is clear that there was a rather inflated sense of vindication among respondents.

Respondents who did not think that their complaint was upheld gave the following reasons for the decision in their case: in 26 percent of the cases, the IPCA cited ‘conflicting statements’;⁵ in 63 percent of the cases, they found no evidence of police wrongdoing. The rest of the complaints were dismissed for other reasons.

Complainants’ views of the IPCA

Savage (2012) identifies three kinds of independence: independence as distance, independence as impartiality, and independence as objectivity. The Danish results show that it was common for respondents to hold opposing views regarding different kinds of independence. A majority of respondents (58 percent) stated that the IPCA was an independent Authority – that is, distant from the police – whereas 17 percent thought the Authority was part of the police. At the same time, the majority disagreed that the IPCA was impartial. When asked about how their case was handled, 58 percent agreed/agreed totally that the IPCA was prejudiced in favour of the police.⁶

Many also questioned the IPCA’s objectivity: 67 percent disagreed/disagreed totally that the IPCA had done all it could to reach a just decision, and only 22 percent found this to be the case. When asked about their overall satisfaction with the handling of their case, 73 percent of the total number of respondents said that they were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied.

Overall, the latter findings show that, even though the majority of informants recognized the Authority’s formal distance from the police, they did not think the IPCA was independent in the sense of either objectivity or impartiality.

Did satisfaction improve between 2008 and 2016?

Complainants’ views regarding the prior Danish police complaints system(s) have not been systematically investigated. The only available data stems from a limited survey among 108 complainants undertaken in 2008 (Justitsministeriet, 2009). Comparison between the two surveys is difficult because not a single complainant in 2008 had their complaint upheld. To eliminate this bias, answers concerning overall satisfaction from 2008 have been compared with answers from those complainants who, in 2016, did not believe their complaint was upheld.⁷

Differences in complainants’ assessments of the workings of the two systems are, in general, minor, and they fail to reach statistical significance – with the exception of overall satisfaction. In 2008, 58 percent of complainants were dissatisfied/very dissatisfied with the overall handling of their complaint, compared to 71 percent in 2016, a statistically significant difference (p < .05). The limited number of respondents in 2008 warrants a cautious interpretation, but it seems safe to conclude that that there are no signs of any improvements in complainants’ view of the complaint system between 2008 and 2016.

What factors influence overall satisfaction?

A logistic regression analysis was undertaken, with overall satisfaction (satisfied/very satisfied vs. dissatisfied/very dissatisfied) as the dependent variable. Results are shown in Table 4.

Table 4.

Bivariate logistic regression with overall satisfaction with the handling of the complaint as dependent variable. Odds ratios for satisfied/very satisfied displayed.

		OR	Confidence interval		p-value
			Lower	Upper
Gender	Male	1.000
Gender	Female	1.599	0.618	4.139	.333
Age	15–29	1.000
	30–49	0.723	0.197	2.653	.624
	50–91	0.851	0.237	3.054	.805
Did complainant receive assistance with the complaint?	No assistance	1.000
	Assistance from family	0.654	0.123	3.489	.620
	Assistance from attorney	0496	0.139	1.767	.279
Did complainant complain before?	No	1.000
Did complainant complain before?	Yes	0.684	0.217	2.155	.517
Does complainant want penal/disciplinary action?	No	1.000
Does complainant want penal/disciplinary action?	Yes	0.849	0.337	2.142	.729
Does complainant want to improve police system?	No	1.000
Does complainant want to improve police system?	Yes	1.572	0.611	4.043	.348
Does complainant see IPCA as independent?	No	1.000
Does complainant see IPCA as independent?	Yes	1.088	0.431	2.745	.858
Did complainant get the opportunity to provide all relevant information?	(Completely) disagree	1.000
	(Completely) agree	2.830	0.917	8.733	.070
Was complaint upheld?	No	1.000
Was complaint upheld?	Yes	4.801	1.841	12.516	.001**
Does complainant understand the rationale of the decision in the case?	To at least some degree	1.000
	Not at all	0.156	0.055	0.443	.000***
Is complainant satisfied with case handling time?	(Very) dissatisfied	1.000
Is complainant satisfied with case handling time?	(Very) satisfied	9.419	4.055	21.875	.000***
Was complaint taken seriously?	(Completely) disagree	1.000
Was complaint taken seriously?	(Completely) agree	11.887	3.600	39.247	.000***

Notes: Backward logistic regression conducted with SPSS. Cox & Snell R² = .457; Nagelkerke R² = .666; n = 288.

Due to missing answers on some questions, the number of respondents included in the regression is reduced to 288, which increases the risk of type II errors – that is, failing to recognize variables that are actually correlated with overall satisfaction. However, because most of the non-significant variables are very far from reaching statistical significance, this risk is limited.⁸ Only one of the non-significant variables is close to significance: complainants who got the opportunity to provide all relevant information in their case were more satisfied than those who did not. Four variables are significant: respondents whose complaint was upheld were more satisfied than the rest, as were respondents who had at least some understanding of the reasons for the final decision in their case; those who were satisfied with the case handling time were more satisfied with the overall case handling; finally, those who found that their case was taken seriously were more satisfied than the rest.

Table 5 gives a more detailed look at the differences between the extremes in each of these variables.

Table 5.

Complainants’ satisfaction with overall case handling depending on other variables.

	Answer	Percentage of respondents	Percent dissatisfied/very dissatisfied with overall case handling
Did the complainant think their complaint was upheld?	Yes	18	30
Did the complainant think their complaint was upheld?	No	82	84***
‘Did you understand why the decision in your case turned out the way it did?’	To a great extent	14	25
	Not at all	50	95***
Complainants’ satisfaction with the case handling time	Very satisfied	10	27
Complainants’ satisfaction with the case handling time	Very dissatisfied	60	95***
‘Do you agree that your complaint was taken seriously?’	Agree completely	21	37
‘Do you agree that your complaint was taken seriously?’	Disagree completely	29	98***
‘Is the IPCA independent – or is it part of the police, the Ministry of Justice, or some other Authority?’	Independent	58	71
	Not independent	28	73
Is the IPCA independent – or is it part of the police?	Independent	58	71
Is the IPCA independent – or is it part of the police?	Part of the police	17	83*

Note: Results from cross-tabulations rendered here in abbreviated form. Statistical significance (Chi-square) computed from the full tables: * indicates a statistical significance of p < .05, *** indicates a statistical significance of p < .001.

As seen in Table 5, 84 percent of respondents who did not think that their complaint was upheld were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the overall handling of their complaint. Half of the respondents did ‘not at all’ understand why their complaint was decided the way it was, and almost all of them were dissatisfied overall. Of complainants who were very dissatisfied with the time it took to reach a decision of their complaint (60 percent), 95 percent were dissatisfied with the process. Among the 29 percent who disagreed completely that their complaint was taken seriously, virtually all respondents expressed overall dissatisfaction. Finally, there is no difference in overall satisfaction between those who thought the IPCA was an independent Authority and those who did not. If the analysis is limited to comparing those respondents who believed the IPCA to be independent with those who thought it part of the police, the overall dissatisfaction was significantly larger in the latter group. Still, the difference amounts to only 12 percentage points.

The establishment of the IPCA did not result in major improvements in complainants’ view of the process. Three out of four complainants were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the overall complaint process, more than half of them were very dissatisfied with the time it took to reach a decision in their complaint, and almost half of the respondents (43 percent) felt that their complaint was not taken seriously. This begs the question of why the IPCA has not managed to improve complainants’ satisfaction.

Reasons for the lack of satisfaction

There are several possible explanations.

The low rate of successful complaints

The first concerns the percentage of complaints that were upheld: fewer than one in five complainants reported that their complaint was upheld in some way and, even though this ‘success rate’ far exceeds the actual percentage of complaints upheld, it was still the minority of complainants who were ‘vindicated’.

The long case processing time

The second explanation concerns the time it takes the IPCA to investigate and decide a case. Among those complainants whose case was decided within three months, the majority were satisfied with the handling time, but, among those whose case took longer to decide, the majority were dissatisfied – and well over half of the cases took at least four months to resolve.

The aim of the Authority

A third factor may be that it is difficult for the IPCA to deliver on its central promise to complainants: the ‘motto’ of the IPCA (as stated on the Authority’s website and in their printed material) is ‘In service of the truth’ – echoing independence as objectivity as defined by Savage (2012). However, many complaints are never resolved; often, the available evidence is limited to testimony from complainants and police officers, since they were the only persons present at the incident. In such cases, the complaint usually cannot be upheld owing to ‘conflicting statements’ – the IPCA is not able to determine what actually happened. Some informants interpreted such a decision as a dismissal of their version of the incident. An interviewee who claimed she was wrongfully arrested and detained by four officers acting in an extremely intimidating manner against her⁹ and who received a very extensive decision (citing conflicting evidence and concluding that the IPCA found no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the police) explained her hopes for the outcome:

I did not hope for much, I mostly hoped to feel better about the incident. I wanted the officers to understand how uncomfortable it was for me. Yes, I wanted to confront them with my experience of their actions and realize that they should act differently next time.

Interviewer: ‘So, do you think you have accomplished that?’

Hmm, I doubt that it has made quite the impact that I was hoping for. They probably do things like this every day, and they will not even remember me – so no!

Interviewer: ‘And you – did you end up feeling better about the whole thing?’

Hmm… [long pause]

Interviewer: ‘Or maybe you are even feeling worse after having…’

[Interrupts]: Yes, I think so, actually! You see, I think I read it [the decision from the IPCA] in a different way than others might read it. When I read it, it seems to suggest that I lied. Ten whole pages, and it has not helped me feel better about the incident at all, it really has not. Nevertheless, I had hoped that it would!

Decisions made by the IPCA in behavioural complaints may in fact contribute to complainants’ feelings of violation: not only did they feel wronged by the police, they were also told that their story was not to be trusted.

Individual vs. organizational accountability

The fourth possible reason is that the primary objective of the IPCA is to establish individual accountability (Jones, 2008). If individual wrongdoing cannot be proven, the complaint will not be upheld (except in IR cases and a few cases in which the IPCA has expressed a more general regret without placing responsibility on individuals). Thus, the ultimate aim of the Authority is to punish/discipline officers’ wrongdoing.

In contrast, most complainants stated that their main objective was to hold the police organization accountable, albeit in a limited sense: they wanted to help the police change their behaviour in the future. Results from the extended interviews, in combination with the survey results detailed above, suggest that the complainants wanted something else too: they wanted the IPCA and the police (both the organization and the officers involved in the incident) to recognize their experience and to acknowledge that what happened was wrong. This kind of recognition may be narrower than the definition offered by Loader and Walker (2007), but the crux is much the same: complainants wanted the police to acknowledge their experience.

The IPCA, however, is ill equipped for this task. An Authority focusing on what can be proved beyond reasonable doubt will disappoint the many complainants who can present no other evidence than their own experience. Many cases must end with dismissal or a decision that the IPCA is unable to establish what actually happened between the police and the citizen – it is unable to provide the complainants with the recognition they desire.

Seen in another light, complainants may experience a kind of ‘double denial’ of procedural justice (Tyler, 2003): they complain about the police not acting in an appropriate manner (showing respect, fairness or neutrality), and they end up feeling that the IPCA too is unable to provide a procedurally just outcome.

Can the complaint process be improved?

Based on the analysis above, there seem to be two possible ways of improving complainants’ satisfaction with the IPCA. One way would be to try to improve the system within the existing paradigm of truth-seeking; another would be to change the aim and focus of the IPCA.

Changes within the existing paradigm

Above, we identified two technical explanations for the widespread dissatisfaction with the IPCA: one was the long case processing time; the other was the low rate of successful complaints. It would probably be possible to reduce processing time, for instance by increasing the manpower of the IPCA. This might improve satisfaction somewhat, but the low number of upheld complaints and the many cases without any real decision would not change. A more radical solution would be to give the Authority access to more and better evidence, for example by equipping the police with body-worn cameras (BWCs). If police–citizen encounters were routinely recorded and recordings made available to the IPCA, it is probable that fewer cases would end in a stalemate. Research on BWCs reports mixed results: Jennings et al. (2017) find that cameras reduce resistance against police, whereas Ariel et al. (2016) find that police use of force actually increases with BWCs in cases where the officers can exercise discretion about when to activate the cameras. This points to a potential problem: in the event that no footage exists, despite officers being equipped with cameras, there is yet another reason for complainants to be dissatisfied with the complaint procedure.

There is conflicting evidence regarding whether cameras affect police complaints. A recent study based on seven randomized experiments reports a 93 percent decrease in complaints about the police (Ariel et al., 2017), whereas a systematic review reports mixed results (Ariel et al., 2015). A recent narrative review (Maskaly et al., 2017) suggests that the use of BWCs reduces police misconduct and also limits the number of complaints about police conduct. The review also finds that there is a lack of clear guidelines about when to turn the cameras on and off.

Whether a Danish adaptation of BWCs would result in an increase in complainants’ satisfaction with the IPCA also depends, of course, on whether the number of upheld complaints increased substantially. Complainants whose complaints were not upheld in spite of the additional evidence would probably not feel more satisfied just because the decision in their case rested on better evidence. Overall, the possibility of improving complainants’ satisfaction substantially within the existing system seems to be limited.

Mediation – an alternative way of handling police complaints?

A different approach to improving satisfaction would be to address the needs of complainants in a more fundamental way. An initial screening of the wishes of the complainant and a thorough discussion of the complaint process has shown some promise in municipal complaint processing in Denmark (Styrket borgerkontakt, 2012); about 15 percent of the complainants are satisfied with this first conversation and decide not to take their complaint further. Such an approach could be integrated in the informal resolution process already used in some of the less serious police complaint cases.

A more radical approach would be to use some kind of informal conflict resolution such as mediation in (some of) these cases. At present, the Danish IR process does not include any direct contact between complainant and officer – instead, the complainant talks to a superior officer. In the US, however, direct mediation has been tried with some success. In New York, Bartels and Silverman (2005) found that officers and complainants were more satisfied after mediation than after participating in the usual complaint process, and that mediation increased complainants’ understanding of how the police viewed the incident. The survey, however, suffered from a very low response rate (18 percent). In Denver, Schaible et al. (2012) found complainants’ and officers’ satisfaction to be increased when they participated in mediation. Here, the response rate was high among those in mediation, but very low among those who were part of a traditional process. Still, results are interesting: 11 percent of those in the usual complaint system were satisfied with the process, compared with 79 percent of those in mediation; 7 percent of the complainants handled traditionally were satisfied with the outcome, compared with 63 percent of those offered mediation. De Angelis (2009) similarly found that complainants participating in mediation were more satisfied.

In the UK, Hill et al. (2003) found that half of citizens complaining about the police expressed interest in an informal solution, but some of them were dissatisfied with the mediation process. A subsequent study found that those participating in mediation were more satisfied with the process, the case processing time and the outcome than those in a control group who had their complaint treated as usual (Young et al., 2005). Differences between the two groups were not, however, as large as those found in the US studies (possibly owing to the differences in the relationship between police and citizens in the two countries).

A review of different informal complaint processing systems found major differences in the level of process satisfaction – both among complainants and among officers. A general observation was that police officers tend to have a positive attitude towards mediation (Prenzler et al., 2013).

A Danish trial?

In general, the existing evidence on mediation of police complaints is limited and of limited scientific rigour: low response rates and low numbers of participants characterize the studies. Still, given the low satisfaction of the existing system and the several attempts to devise a new police complaint systems in Denmark, it would seem worthwhile to try a completely different model. It could be argued that such a model would not only provide complainants with an increased sense of recognition, but it might also enable them to grasp some of the reasons (Loader and Walker, 2007) behind police practice. Loader and Walker argue that a process focused solely on recognition may render all claims equally reasonable and they argue that the idea of public reason can bring ‘sustained public contestation to the practice of security’ (2007: 227). In the context of police complaints, the public reason is a more limited one, but a mediation process might be able to provide the complainant with some recognition while at the same time offering them a different perspective on the incident.

In fact, the committee that devised the IPCA did suggest experimenting with mediation (Justitsministeriet, 2009) and the IPCA has attempted to initiate a trial. Two legal obstacles stand in the way. First, with the present legislation concerning complaints, a citizen participating in mediation retains the right to file a traditional complaint if they are not satisfied with the outcome of the mediation. Second, the National Danish Police reserves its right to take disciplinary action against officers based on what is said during mediation, exposing participating officers to penal/disciplinary action through self-incrimination. Curiously, these problems were not foreseen by the committee (and thus not dealt with in the legal framework of the IPCA), so the possibilities of conducting a trial of mediation in Denmark are severely limited.

Should oversight of organizational and individual accountability be amalgamated?

As has been described above, many systems of police accountability distinguish sharply between organizational and individual accountability (Jones, 2008) and maintain different systems to monitor the two. Indeed, in the Danish case, as in the other Nordic countries, individual accountability is given the most attention. This division is not without problems. The considerable attention given to individual wrongdoing may obscure the fact that problematic actions by individual officers may be caused by organizational problems or police policy. For instance, a police organization focused on reducing response time may demand of its officers that they deal with calls as quickly as possible in order to free themselves up for new assignments,¹⁰ resulting in officers being stressed and/or citizens complaining about their needs not being met. Thus, individual officers may end up being blamed for organizational problems.

Another problem is that, given the retributive focus of the IPCA, officers (and the police organization) may experience all decisions that do not end with criticism or penal action as a ‘win’, and thus as proof that the complaint was unfounded. Similarly, a decision of ‘conflicting evidence’ may be seen as an acquittal¹¹ and proof that the officer did the right thing.

However, even though a specific incident is not illegal or worthy of criticism, it may not represent the best police work possible. The complaint system does little to prompt either individual or organizational reflection on police work. Such reflection might be promoted by a system designed to oversee both individual and organizational accountability at the same time.

A final point here concerns what is meant by ‘civilian’ oversight. In Denmark, the District Boards are populated with mayors and the Local Boards with municipal agents. They are all part of a professional network that will most often be working towards common goals. The majority of the Police Complaints Board members at the IPCA are professionally involved with the practice of law and appointed by the Ministry of Justice. If civilian is taken to mean only ‘non-police’, the Danish systems for oversight are civilian. However, they hardly represent forums for recognition in the broader sense discussed by Loader and Walker: processes that ‘enable all the recipients of state action and inaction … to see their claims and concerns reflected in the means by which decisions [concerning security] are arrived at’ (2007: 220–1).

Conclusion: In the service of mutual understanding?

The present article has presented the results of an evaluation of the Danish Independent Police Complaint Authority. The establishment of a new complaint system has had very limited impact on complainants’ views of the complaint process – if anything, complainants are more dissatisfied than before. Three out of four complainants are dissatisfied with the processing of their complaint, very few complaints are upheld, and over half of complainants think that the decisions made by the Authority favour the police (even though the majority recognize the formal independence of the IPCA). Independence as distance (Savage, 2012) is no guarantee that complainants perceive the process as either impartial or objective.

Furthermore, the evaluation showed that the punishment of officers is not the primary goal of most complainants; they want to alert the police (management) to their grievances, and they want their version of incidents recognized. They want to hold the police organization (rather than individual officers) accountable. It is highly unlikely that the IPCA will be able to deliver such results as long as it maintains its focus on individual accountability. It would seem to be high time to change the more fundamental goals of the system towards a more reconciliatory approach and/or expand the system to deal with organizational accountability as well. Mediation between officers and citizens may not be the panacea for all complaints, but it would seem that mediation holds more promise than the present system. Many complainants belong to disenfranchised parts of society that rarely have a voice in debates about policing and public security. A complaint system focused on reconciliation might provide them with the possibility of engaging in a conversation, if not with society in general, then at least with the police.

Likewise, a system focusing on both organizational and individual accountability – including ordinary citizens in the process – might put complaints to better use, and it might promote an understanding that unwanted behaviour or wrongdoing by individual officers may be rooted in organizational problems or dysfunction. Many complainants already seem to assume this to be the case, but the present system does little to support that notion.

Whether working ‘in the service of mutual understanding’ will create a greater sense of satisfaction among complainants and officers remains to be seen, but it might be a way to provide the police with true civilian oversight and direct feedback on their actions.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Ali Malik, the editors of the Special Issue and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on previous drafts of the article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/ or publication of this article: The research described in this article was supported by a grant of DKR 750,000 from the Independent Police Complaints Authority and the Danish Ministry of Justice.

Notes

ORCID iD

Lars Holmberg

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