Civilian oversight of law enforcement is dying.
Not in statute, not in mission — but in impact, in execution, in public faith.
What began as a bold democratic intervention into the secretive world of policing has become, in too many jurisdictions, a hollow performance.
Oversight bodies meet, they vote, they issue recommendations. They no longer wield power. They no longer compel compliance. They are tolerated, not respected. Just ghosts at the table.
Civilian oversight refers to independent, civilian-led bodies that review, investigate, audit, monitor — or use a combination of these tools — to assess law enforcement practices, with the goal of increasing transparency, accountability and public trust. But across the country, that promise is eroding.
Oversight today occupies a space of liminality — the threshold between legitimacy and irrelevance, between promise and abandonment. In sociology and the social sciences, liminality describes the in‑between state when old structures are unraveling but new ones have not yet taken hold. Civilian oversight is caught in that in‑between: no longer entirely trusted, not yet entirely dismantled and increasingly susceptible to manipulation or inertia.
But there is something more insidious at play here: legal violence – that is, the normalized but cumulatively harmful effects of laws and their implementation that undermine well-being.
This is not just the violence of batons or bullets, but the quieter devastation inflicted by law through denial, deferral or bureaucratic neglect.
When city attorneys block oversight boards from accessing police records, that is legal violence. When boards are legally created but not resourced or staffed, that is legal violence. When state legislatures restrict oversight out of political expediency, that is legal violence. And when oversight reforms are celebrated in public but undermined behind closed doors, oversight doesn’t just weaken. It withers.
Infrastructure unravels
This year marked five years since George Floyd’s murder — a moment that sparked global calls for racial justice and ignited a wave of oversight reform across the U.S. Civilian oversight was one of the most tangible structural commitments made in the wake of that tragedy. But today, the infrastructure built in that moment is being unraveled.
At the federal level, the U.S. Department of Justice recently announced it will terminate consent decrees with Minneapolis and Louisville — two cities at the epicenter of post-George Floyd reform. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon called the agreements “overreaching,” and dismissed them as tools of an “anti-police agenda.” The Justice Department also confirmed it would halt pattern-or-practice investigations into systemic misconduct in Phoenix, Memphis and Oklahoma City.
At the state level, the message is even clearer.
In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis signed HB 601 into law, banning civilian review boards from conducting independent investigations and stripping them of the authority to discipline or subpoena officers. The law prohibits oversight boards from taking any action that could affect internal disciplinary processes, effectively neutralizing their power.
In Tennessee, state lawmakers dismantled existing oversight boards and replaced them with advisory bodies that are expressly prohibited from conducting investigations.
At the local level, the failures of oversight become even more stark — playing out in city after city, where legal authority often exists in name but is hollowed out by neglect, obstruction or political retaliation.
In Rochester, New York, the Police Accountability Board was denied access to internal police records following legal guidance from the Monroe County District Attorney.
In Oakland, California, the executive director of the Community Police Review Agency, Mac Muir, resigned in February amid severe budget cuts that reduced the agency’s operating budget by nearly 40%.
In Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser and members of Congress pushed back against oversight reforms passed by the City Council. Congressional Republicans sought to override measures that expanded the Office of Police Complaints’ access to records.
In San Francisco, the California Department of Justice ended oversight of the SFPD in 2024 after declaring “substantial compliance,” despite watchdog concerns that racial disparities persisted.
In Syracuse, New York, an audit revealed that nearly 70% of complaints reviewed by the Citizen Review Board had not been resolved, and the board suffered from chronic under-resourcing and unclear authority.
In Charlottesville, Virginia, the Police Civilian Oversight Board went eight months without receiving records from the police department, despite a city ordinance authorizing such access.
In San Jose, the City Council recently rejected a proposal by its Independent Police Auditor to gain greater access to use-of-force and police shooting records. Despite appeals from the auditor and community advocates, the Council unanimously voted to deny these expanded powers, weakening the city’s capacity for robust civilian oversight of critical incidents. This decision reflects a broader reluctance to empower oversight even in the face of rising public demand for transparency and accountability.
Choked by procedural decay, political hostility and legal violence, we’re seeing the promise of police oversight disappear in real time.
Needs teeth
Reforms are being reversed not because data disproves the need, but because the politics now allow retreat. Transparency is met with resistance. Demands for justice are delayed into irrelevance. And communities that once called for civilian oversight are being told that the promise was always conditional.
Yet research continues to affirm what oversight can accomplish — when it has teeth. Public policy studies from the University of Maryland show that agencies with investigative authority and resources are associated with reduced racial disparities in arrest rates, fewer civilian killings by police and even declines in violent crime. When supported, oversight works; when undermined, it collapses.
What’s at stake extends beyond bureaucratic dysfunction to measurable harm.
A 2018 study published in The Lancet found that police killings of unarmed Black Americans were associated with adverse mental health outcomes among Black adults in the general population.
These effects were not short-lived, reverberating across communities and contributing to a “spillover” trauma even for those not directly involved. Likewise, as articulated by the American Public Health Association in a 2018 policy brief and a 2025 longitudinal study, research shows that excessive investment in policing — at the expense of social services — is correlated with higher suicide mortality and diminished community well-being. These studies highlight the human cost of failed accountability: oversight gaps don’t just erode trust but also compound racialized harm and worsen health disparities.
Still, there are reasons to be hopeful.
In Richmond, the community has proven that resilience and local leadership still matter. Last month, the Community Police Review Commission successfully advocated for a sweeping set of oversight reforms. And the Richmond City Council unanimously agreed
to move the commission’s recommendations forward into negotiations with police labor representatives. The commission’s proposals were rooted in best practices across California and the nation.
Richmond reminds us that, even amid national retreat, meaningful change might still emerge when residents organize, officials listen and structures are preserved.
Oversight was never meant to be convenient. It was meant to challenge power — to ensure justice where it is most elusive. If oversight is not respected by those it monitors, it is not working.
The question is: will we let it die or will we fight to revive it?
Hansel Alejandro Aguilar is director of Berkeley’s Police Accountability Board as well as a sociologist and former police officer. He wrote this in his personal capacity.
